Sad day for Summers

The resignation of Lawrence Summers is a sad day for academics across the world, but it is an especially sad day for Harvard, whose reputation for leadership is perhaps becoming obsolete.

First, his controversial comments on women in science were not only a summary of somebody else's study, but they were also blown hysterically out of proportion. Summers did not say that women were underrepresented in science because of inherent ability; he said merely that the possibility had not yet been disproven, a common sense statement to anybody with even a basic understanding of statistics. He went on to say that he hoped the hypothesis would soon be proven false.

This is academics: People propose and study hypotheses, and they either disprove them or they continue to study them. A blow against his honesty is a blow against serious academic pursuits of all kinds.

Second, if his interaction with Cornel West is "proof" of his inability to handle relationships, then it reflects poorly on Harvard as an institution, not on Summers. A private meeting in which Summers asked West to reduce grade inflation and devote less time to his so-called rap career and more (any!) time to scholarly pursuits was made public not by Summers but by a hysterically livid West.

Summers is a brilliant economist, having served in Clinton's Treasury Department and won recognition often considered to be equal in prestige to the Nobel prize. He is well-known-or, in Harvard's circles, perhaps "notorious" is the better word-for defending economic freedom in the third world, but his work covers many divergent fields.

As president of Harvard, his accomplishments include increasing the focus on undergraduate education and emphasizing the importance of the natural sciences in an increasingly science-based world.

If his forced resignation represents what we can expect from the reputed leaders of academia, perhaps it is time for a change in leadership. Harvard's prestige has just been devalued in the eyes of all who value serious intellectual honesty, freedom and excellence.

Mike Lee