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March 3, 2005

Whither Harvard???

Harvard is reputedly America’s most prestigious university. African Americans have had very limited involvement with Harvard either as faculty or administrators, or even as students. One would think, then, that African Americans would have little interest in the controversy at Harvard over Lawrence Summers’ remarks about women in science. However, since the president’s office at Harvard is such a bully pulpit to influence public policy, African Americans must certainly be concerned.

The W.E.B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research has been a jewel in Harvard’s academic crown. Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has assembled there the nation’s most distinguished group of scholars on African American studies. One of Summers’ first forays after he took office on July 1, 2001 was to go to war against the Institute.

His target was Cornel West, who was so well regarded by Summers’ predecessor, that he had been named one of only 14 university professors from among the 2,000-member faculty. While it is expected that college presidents are free to criticize the work of any professor, it is also expected that such contacts will be polite and collegial. Cornel West was so offended by his meetings with Summers that he accepted an offer to transfer to Princeton.

This incident could be dismissed as an unfortunate conflict between two scholars, but other professors at the Institute soon found themselves in Summers’ sights. William Julius Wilson, Anthony Appiah and Larry Bobo also found themselves embroiled with Summers. The latter two eventually left Harvard for more congenial climes.

There has been a reluctance to claim that Summers’ apparent hostility to the Institute was motivated by racial animus. However, it was well known that Summers had no special respect for Africans, and perhaps this attitude also applied to Americans of African descent. As the chief economist of the World Bank, Summers wrote a memorandum dated December 12, 1991 in which he advocated the strategy of establishing polluting industries in African countries and other less developed nations.

His argument, essentially, was that the value of black lives was less in monetary terms so the cost of damages from pollution would be less than in industrialized nations. Also, because Africans have a higher death rate, fewer people would survive long enough to suffer from ailments caused by pollution. He believes that low-income Africans would less likely be aesthetically offended by pollution’s environmental damage.

This callous analysis of the merits of dirty industry in Africa is markedly different from his sensitive opposition to the attempts of faculty and students to induce their universities to disinvest with those companies doing business in Israel. He called these efforts “anti-Semitic in their effect, if not their intent.” Summers demonstrated an appropriate empathy for Israelis that he could not muster for the people in Africa.

When faculty connected with the DuBois Institute were the object of Summers’ disdain, the rest of the Harvard faculty remained silent. But now that Summers is clearly willing to marginalize the role of women in academia there is a general outcry. Everyone must answer the question whether Harvard is best served by a president with Summers’ disposition.

Harvard University should have a president who is outspoken and can effectively use the bully pulpit to inspire the faculty and influence public policy. Martin Luther King Jr. described the situation best when he said, “When you are right you cannot be too radical; when you are wrong you cannot be too conservative.”

Harvard must not waste the power of the presidency on one who lacks the ability to be right most of the time.

 

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