“I deserve much of the criticism that has come my way,” Summers said. “If I could turn back the clock, I would have said and done things very differently.”
Summers also reaffirmed his commitment to improving the status of women at Harvard, mentioning in particular the formation of two task forces focused on the hiring and integration of female professors into the Faculty.
A senior faculty member said after the meeting that much of the Faculty sees Summers’ apology as disingenuous.
“I think one of the things that resonated for a lot of people in the room was concern about a pattern in which the president says or does something reckless and then apologizes,” the professor said.
The first critics who spoke after Summers’ apology called for him to release a transcript of his January remarks to end uncertainty over what Summers said.
“We cannot have honest intellectual discussion of your points and the evidence you provided for them so long as neither is accurately known,” said Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences Barbara J. Grosz, chair of one of the new task forces.
In what would be his only rebuttal of the meeting, Summers said he would “consider very seriously” the request to release a transcript of his comments, but said that he currently does not intend to do so.
“We do not fear open give-and-take about anything you might have said,” Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol told Summers directly, accusing him of “wrapping [himself] in the mantle of academic freedom” in refusing to release the trancript.
Skocpol said the dispute over Summers’ remarks reflects a “crisis of governance and leadership” that is afflicting the University—an opinion expressed by the majority of the ten speakers at the meeting.
“He is doing this in effect, if not in intent,” Skocpol said, mockingly appropriating Summers’ now-famous rhetoric from a Sept. 2002 speech on anti-semitism.
While the Faculty room erupted in applause after speeches in opposition to Summers, not all faculty members criticized the president.
Peretz Professor of Yiddish Literature Ruth R. Wisse said her fellow female professors were doing themselves a disservice by allowing gender politics to silence the open debate Summers had intended to foster.
“Women’s groups are bringing shame to the profession in which we are engaged,” she said. “This is a show trial to beat all show trials.”
POWER PLAY
Criticism moved beyond the transcript of Summers’ remarks to larger concerns that he routinely stifles debate and intimidates professors into silence. Faculty members pointed to a series of mishandlings during Summers’ tenure, including the departure of former Fletcher University Professor Cornel R. West ’74 in 2002, the controversy surrounding the invitation of poet Tom Paulin in 2003, and the lack of communication regarding Allston plans.
