Free Republic

Professor Ruth R Wisse: Anti-Semitism was ‘one of the factors at play’ in president’s ouster..... Was the ouster of Harvard’s first Jewish president anti-Semitic in its effect if not its intent? On a campus with a painful history of anti-Semitism, most professors—including some of Lawrence H. Summers’ most vocal supporters­—vigorously reject the charge that Summers’ faith had any connection to his downfall. Yet the suspicion landed in Monday’s Boston Globe, where columnist Alex Beam quoted professor Ruth R. Wisse as asking, “Was anti-Semitism the driving engine of this coup?” Summers’ Judaism entered the spotlight a year into his tenure, when...

Frustrated by these and other attacks in the national media that are painting them as reactionary, lazy, radical, and worse, professors are pondering whether to launch a counter-offensive........ The episodes that drove the Faculty to oust its president mainly took place behind closed doors. But professors are facing a backlash in the court of public opinion­, as the response to the resignation drains ink barrels across the country. A piece in The Washington Times called Lawrence H. Summers’ opponents “the Lilliputians guarding their miserable little nests of selfish indifference.” The editor in chief of The New Republic, Martin Peretz, wrote...

The president of Harvard University, Lawrence Summers, announced this week that he will resign from his position at the end of this academic year. This became almost inevitable after he made a speech last winter claiming "innate differences" between the sexes may well explain why more men succeed in math and sciences than do women. Not the most radical statement in history, perhaps, but bold enough to make him a hated figure on campuses and a punching bag for radical feminists. I don't really know if there is a different aptitude for science between men and women and don't particularly...

February 22nd, 2006 The American left, long in decline, has shored up its base, definitively seizing the high ground of American academia. The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard University, the nation’s oldest, and the world’s richest and most prestigious university, marks a significant coup d’etat for the left. A faction, only a plurality within one segment of the university, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has proven its ability to drive from office a brilliant and energetic leader who had been committed to pushing Harvard a little bit back toward the political center. The breaking point began...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard turns the spotlight on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), which has consecrated more time and energy to his ouster than to any other project of the past five years. Until now, all blame has been leveled at the president: "Fear and manipulation have been used to govern maliciously," charged one professor, who has since been awarded with a deanship. But now that these cowering professors have successfully unseated their president, scrutiny will quite rightly be leveled at them. What do they gain from their victory, and what does...

Clinton man forced from Harvard helm February 23, 2006 NEW YORK: A growing rebellion by Harvard dons has toppled Lawrence Summers as president of the oldest and most prestigious university in the US. Facing a no-confidence vote by the faculty next week, the former Treasury secretary to Bill Clinton announced on Tuesday he would step down at the end of the academic year after five turbulent years at the helm. The revolt was triggered by his suggestion at an economics seminar that women's "intrinsic aptitude" might explain why so few women became professors of mathematics and science. He later apologised...

DRENCHED IN controversy over his disputes with some members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard University president Lawrence H. Summers resigned yesterday. He will step down at the end of the academic year, closing the book on a contentious phase of Harvard's history.

The American left, long in decline, has shored up its base, definitively seizing the high ground of American academia. The resignation of Lawrence Summers as president of Harvard University, the nation’s oldest, and the world’s richest and most prestigious university, marks a significant coup d’etat for the left. A faction, only a plurality within one segment of the university, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, has proven its ability to drive from office a brilliant and energetic leader who had been committed to pushing Harvard a little bit back toward the political center. The breaking point came when Summers dared...

A PLURALITY of one faculty has brought about an academic coup d'etat against not only Harvard University president Lawrence Summers but also against the majority of students, faculty, and alumni. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which forced Summers's resignation by voting a lack of confidence in him last March and threatening to do so again on Feb. 28, is only one component of Harvard University and is hardly representative of widespread attitudes on the campus toward Summers. The graduate faculties, the students, and the alumni generally supported Summers for his many accomplishments. The Faculty of Arts and Sciences includes,...

The National Organization for Women calls for the resignation of Harvard University President Lawrence Summers, who has failed to lead the prominent (and previously all-male) university toward true inclusion of women. His recent comments generated a firestorm of response from Harvard/Radcliffe women who were outraged that he would embarrass Harvard with such a public demonstration of sexism and ignorance. "Summers' suggestion that women are inferior to men in their ability to excel at math and science is more than an example of personal sexism, it is a clue to why women have not been more fully accepted and integrated into...

The 27th president of Harvard University is stepping down from his post amid growing controversy.

I write to let you know that, after considerable reflection, I have notified the Harvard Corporation that I will resign as President of the University as of June 30, 2006. I will always be grateful for the opportunity to have served Harvard in this role, and I will treasure the continuing friendship and support of so many exceptional colleagues and students at Harvard.

Embattled Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers announced today that he will step down at the end of this academic year, ending one of the shortest tenures in the university's history. In a posting on the university website, Summers, the former secretary of the Treasury, said he will resign as of June 30. "Working closely with all parts of the Harvard community, and especially with our remarkable students, has been one of the great joys of my professional life," he said in the open letter to the Harvard community. "However, I have reluctantly concluded that the rifts between me and segments...

Members of Harvard University's governing board are mulling whether President Lawrence Summers should step down before a scheduled Feb. 28 faculty vote on a motion of no-confidence in his leadership, say people familiar with the matter. These people say members of the board, known as the Harvard Corporation, have become increasingly concerned that continued faculty discontent with Mr. Summers, a former U.S. treasury secretary, is hurting the university. Mr. Summers, who took over as president in 2001, has alienated some faculty members with a brusque management style and sometimes-outspoken views. The corporation names the president and is the only authority...

The kerfuffle over Bill Bennett’s recent remarks on his radio show – like the earlier kerfuffle over Harvard President Larry Summer’s remarks at a seminar, and like a dozen other such kerfuffles I no longer can recall – all stem from the same root: Creative and intelligent people – artists, writers, scientists, sociologists, economists and other public intellectuals – play with ideas. This is how they organize their thoughts, fuse them into new forms and eventually create the “finished” products that reach the public in the form of paintings, novels, scientific papers that change our understanding of nature, or essays...

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (AP) - Harvard has chosen its first diversity adviser, a position created after the university's president angered many faculty members when he questioned women's aptitude for top-level math and science. Lisa Martin, a professor of international affairs in Harvard's government department, will advise the dean of faculty on matters relating to gender, racial and ethnic diversity in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Martin said her job is to a craft a "long-term strategic vision" to "make sure that minorities and women at Harvard are in the best position to do their work." The faculty took a vote...

Harvard President Lawrence Summers continues to beg forgiveness for having wondered aloud whether "intrinsic human nature" might be one of the factors that explain the high male-to-female ratio in science. Among other things, Harvard has just announced it will spend $50 million on efforts to diversify the school's faculty, though it will not go so far as to make Summers wear a dress. Yet. The uproar at Harvard has generated enough hot air to dry out Phil Spector's white-man afro. But it also has generated some thoughtful discussion, such as a recent debate between Harvard psych profs Steven Pinker and...

When Yale awarded President John F. Kennedy an honorary degree, he said he had the ideal combination — a Yale degree and a Harvard education. Today he might rethink that, given the Harvard faculty's tantrum that caused President Lawrence Summers's cringing crawl away from his suggestion of possible gender differences of cognition. At least the phrase "Yale education" does not yet seem, as "Harvard education" does, oxymoronic.

There are moments when women reach peaceful coexistence with male colleagues; times that bring welcome sexual harassment sans federal involvement. Then feisty feminists stir the pot and set us back 20 years. They are once again flying twice backwards around their cages, squawking like wenches at drunken sailors. Larry Summers, pirate of the Caribbean, offended the women at a Mary Kay engineering conference in Cambridge, MA several moons ago. The flummoxing theme of this female whine-fest was "Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce," i.e., why aren't more broads scientists? Gathering in Cambridge, MA, was their first scientific mistake. The great...