The day after President’s Day, the Harvard University Gazette announced the resignation of Harvard University President Larry Summers. He will return to the professorial ranks on 1 July, 2007. Perhaps it was something he said…
I’ve been locked in a windowless room full of physicists all day, and yet we still heard the news. None of us were surprised, and I think we all secretly wondered how he managed to stay in his position for a full year after the infamous speech. A confidence vote on Mr. Summers was to be held by the Harvard faculty later this week. Of course, a no confidence vote did not deter him in the past, but perhaps he decided not to face a secound round. In my mind, this is a clear-cut example of the importance of keeping a significant issue alive in the news. It also signals that people take the issue of representation of women in the sciences, and heck, the fact that women can do science, as being important.
February 21st, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Oops. My first response apparently had too many links in it. Anyways, the short answer is that it really didn’t have much to do with what he said about women in science. It was much more that he didn’t treat other people very well and alienated a significant fraction of the faculty so as to make his job unmanageable.
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:17 am
Aaron: Yea, right…it is true that he was not a popular fellow all around, but we all know the official reasons for such departures are not the real causes. Summers was too much of a media liability due to this issue.
February 22nd, 2006 at 12:28 am
It also signals that certain topics are strictly verboten among polite company in the US, even amongst people whose job it is to ask deep questions. Both sides can spin this all they want, but at the end of the day this whole thing boils down to a case of petty, inbred squabbling among academics and was far less lofty a debate than some would like it to have been. Shame on anyone who tries to cast it in any other light.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:02 am
Apparently aside from his foray into sexism, and his destruction of the Afro-American studies department, he also cuased serious embarrasment to the school of public health. It also seems that he does wondeful things like veto tenure despite unanimous approval from deparments that are hiring. I know that Harvard is nototious for denying junior faculty tenure, but apparenlty Summers is even more prolific when it comes to this sort of thing.
Check out this article from Boston Mag
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/index.cfm/fuseaction/article.view/articleID/3F6C2638-3611-4E7C-9BC3-E2FA4DB28E0B
It seems Summers is doing the boards bidding trying to kill some departments and redirect to another campus, in the process hes been too much of an asshole so everyone caught on to what was happening.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:05 am
I’d guess that the sexist comments did contrubute to his resignation becuase it cast him into the public eye where people could more easily see his many many other failings and conect the dots.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:15 am
Aaron: Yea, right…it is true that he was not a popular fellow all around, but we all know the official reasons for such departures are not the real causes. Summers was too much of a media liability due to this issue.
Everything I’ve heard indicates otherwise. If my other post every comes through, I linked to a number of articles on the subject. Here’s one from the Chronicle of Higher Ed. The WaPo articles and NYT articles also cover much of the same ground.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:16 am
Carpenter – yep, that’s the point.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 am
This is just another data point towards prooving my hypothesis that if you are a sexist it is very likeley that you suck all around.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:35 am
Actually, I heard that Summers made changing the way Harvard treats its junior faculty a priority-he has said publicly that he wanted to improve the rate at which junior faculty are tenured at Harvard. I think on this matter, he is in the right.
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:12 am
“I think early in his presidency, he was a downright bully”
– Arthur Kleinman/Harvard, chairman dept of Anthropology
CBS News article & video here
“Loose Lips [ comments Re: Women-in-Science, "pedal digits in oral cavity" ] Sinks Ships [ lose job ]”
“You scratch, the game’s over” (pool analogy)
“Better to have Brain-Drain ( oust L. Summers ), rather than Brain-in-the-Drain ( old-fashioned stereotypes )”
[ original CNN quote by India professor, describing India students migrating to USA universities ]
“Bigger Mouth than Brain”
[ L. Summers is obviously a sharp guy, see here, aka "Great Brain". It talks about his arrogance. "He's too cocky/smart/arrogant for his own good". In auto-racing, there are quotes like:
"Driver ran out of Talent" (the best drivers can pull boners)
"His head got too big for his helmet" (Ego can get in the way)
"Rubbin's Racin" (Dale Earnhardt/NASCAR aka "Intimidator", would always "mix it up"/bang-doors with opponents )
]
“Can opened [ inside look @Harvard ]..worms everywhere [ all sorts of bizarre stuff ]”
[ all universities have this to varying degrees. ]
February 22nd, 2006 at 10:03 am
One thing that people don’t seem to be mentioning as much is his defense of Shleifer, an economist who worked for the Russian government on privatization while simultaneously using his wife to set up a fund to invest in those self-same companies. It’s also interesting that Harvard’s endowment was heavily involved in Russia at the same time that Shleifer was there.
I think there were a lot of reasons why Summers was forced out. I’d like to think his neanderthal sexism was a main one, but I actually doubt it. It was just symptomatic of someone who thought he could push everyone else around at will.
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:20 am
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=511486
Alan M. Dershowitz, expressed outrage over Summers’ ouster.
“I think this is an academic coup d’etat engineered by the hard left and stimulated by Summers’ politically-incorrect statements, but then joined by an assortment of others—including some who had been dismissed and disempowered by Summers, some who didn’t like his style, and a few well-intentioned people who didn’t understand the damage they were doing to the University,” Dershowitz said yesterday.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2006/02/22/coup_against_summers_a_dubious_victory_for_the_politically_correct/
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I’m amazed at the accusations of “neanderthal sexism.” It shows that you’re completely divorced from the reality of the situation. Go examine the original speech, being sure to pay close attention to the specific wording of his comments and the context in which they were made, and then ask yourself if your accusation of neanderthal sexism stands up.
I repeat, anyone who thinks Summers was forced out as a result of “sexist” comments is guilty of willfully burying their heads in the sand. The comments may have served to embolden certain elements of the hard left on the Harvard faculty, but they most certainly were not the reason why the bandwagon kept rolling.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Didn’t we already do this?
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:53 pm
Matthew Yglesias has written a bit more on the subject.
February 22nd, 2006 at 3:58 pm
Hektor Bim,
I think that issue is a lot more serious, especially if it was shown that Mr Summers had an active role in getting Mr Shleifer out of trouble. From what I have read, Mr Shleifer appears to have committed criminal fraud and should be treated accordingly rather than rewarded with more endowed chairs.
February 22nd, 2006 at 4:17 pm
damtp_dweller,
I’m not really sure what you are talking about here. I do think there are only two explanations for Summers’ speech: blatant ignorance or sexism. Since he seems to have read some of the relevant literature, blatant ignorance goes out the window. That leaves sexism.
As I said quite clearly above, I don’t think the women in science thing is what did him in. What did him in was the prospect of another no-confidence vote along with votes to censure Harvard over the Shleifer affair, which was viewed by the Board as substantially more serious.
February 22nd, 2006 at 6:49 pm
Hektor,
The points that I am trying (and apparently failing) to make are (i) Summers’ resignation ultimately had little or nothing to do with his remarks during the NBER speech; and (ii) there is absolutely no evidence that Summers is a “neanderthal” with regards to gender equality. None. I can only assume that you’re basing this comment on Summers’ much-maligned speech. I quite honestly cannot see how anyone could believe him to be a “neanderthal sexist” based on the content of that speech. In fact, I absolutely refuse to believe that any literate, critical, unbiased mind could draw that conclusion.
The crucial point everyone should remember is that his resignation had nothing to do with these allegedly sexist comments. It arose as a result of some rather tender egos in the FAS, controversy over the plans for the move to Allston, and the possibility that Summers may have seriously overstepped the mark in his dealings with Andrei Shleifer. To claim that the resignation “…signals that people take the issue of representation of women in the sciences, and heck, the fact that women can do science, as being important” is deliberately and mischeviously deceptive.
February 22nd, 2006 at 7:02 pm
For what its worth Prof Dudley Sargent of Harvard pronounced that sports like basketball are harmful to women because of their “inability to bear a prolonged metal and physical strain” on 3/30/1906 ….
Perhaps he can be celebrated with Summers.
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:36 am
I hope that #15 Matthew Yglesias is correct, or else it means we have unwritten secular blasphemy laws.
February 23rd, 2006 at 7:41 pm
Why is it that in every Ivy league we always get the same polarization. Humanities vs the sciences. Despite the fact that the sciences are pretty leftist leaning to begin with, they more or less tend to be very critical of the extreme left wing bias inherent in the social sciences divisions and viceversa.
This was part of the science wars from the late 90s, and well it seems it keeps continuing.
This goes beyond Summers, the split has happened with grad school TA unionization and several other important issues (RoTc and things like that).
Its an unhealthy trend.
February 24th, 2006 at 2:55 am
Hector Bim – I’m not really sure what you are talking about here. I do think there are only two explanations for Summers’ speech: blatant ignorance or sexism.
There is actually another explanation: A respect for fact, logic, and the scientific method – not shared alas, by most of the Harvard faculty, or most commenters here.
Summers was ousted because he was a threat to a lot of academics involved in “studies” of little discernable content and no intellectual importance.
February 24th, 2006 at 10:24 am
CapitalistImperialistPig,
Let’s get one thing straight. Summers is an economist, not a scientist. As far as I can tell, he’s never done real scientific research in his life. Don’t give me this fact, logic, and the scientific method line, because economists don’t use the scientific method. Economies are in most cases too complicated and have too many unknown factors to produce reliable experiments. Economists are not scientists, and should not be treated as such.
The people doing research on these problems, in some cases, are scientists and are doing scientific research.
I highly doubt that you are at all familiar with the relevant research, and thus dismiss the research out of thinly disguised ideology. Until you demonstrate to me some knowledge of this research, you can’t claim any scientific basis to anything that you are saying.
February 24th, 2006 at 11:43 am
Come now, Hektor. What you’ve just said there is bordering on the surreal.
February 24th, 2006 at 1:34 pm
So damtp_dweller,
Do you think economists are scientists?
February 24th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Hektor, it’s a ridiculous question. What’s more, it’s completely beside the point of the discussion.
February 24th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
I think that Larry Summers’s provocative remarks about women in science last year got a bit twisted and misinterpreted. I’m not saying that I completely agree with him, either—I suspect that discrimination is indeed an issue as to who makes it to the next level in science fields. But I also wonder whether there really is a 50/50 gender split among those who are happiest doing math and science at the elite level. It might well skew towards males, whether it’s due to aptitude (due to the long tails in the Gaussian distribution) or single-minded focus or a combination of the two.
I’m saying this as a woman who did earn a Ph.D. in physics from a first-tier university department but who decided to get out when I realized that I had risen to my level of incompetence and that 80 hours a week as a postdoc was probably not going to make up for a spectacularly mediocre graduate career (I made mistakes, had my own issues, but I think my advisor made some mistakes, too). I know a number of guys who left for similar reasons. In physics, there are simply more scientists than there are openings, and you really have to be a star to make it to the next level.
And I have female friends who are currently working in engineering fields who like what they do just fine but would prefer to do it 3/4 time if they could—they hate the all-or-nothing hours in this career. They’re sticking with the program because they don’t have a choice—that’s the way that professional work is structured in our society right now. But I think Summers wasn’t necessarily wrong that some people are turned off by 80-hour work weeks in these technical fields. More of them might be women, whether they have supportive partners or demand more balance in their lives or just have other interests or whatever. I saw health problems and failed marriages among several people who worked on their science to the exclusion of other aspects of their lives. That helped to seal my decision to leave physics on top of my other reasons.
That said, Larry Summers was still tactless and impolitic, even if his intent was to reexamine orthodox notions. It sounds like his rough manner was spread around pretty universally and he didn’t have the political skills to juggle all the different constituencies at Harvard. But he was probably necessary to shake things up a little. I think the renewed debate about women and science is a good thing, because it forces us to examine the way that talented scientists are recognized and rewarded, as discussed in the Peter Lawrence essay in PLOS Biology. So we should at least be grateful to Summers for opening that can of worms, and we should also be glad that we won’t have to hear any more from him on the topic.
February 24th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Hector Bim – Don’t give me this fact, logic, and the scientific method line, because economists don’t use the scientific method. Economies are in most cases too complicated and have too many unknown factors to produce reliable experiments. Economists are not scientists, and should not be treated as such.
Your definition of science would seem to be narrow enough to exclude paleontology, geology, astronomy and cosmology, not to mention anthropology and many aspects of human biology – but whatever – all I meant by “scientific method” was a critical and open minded examination of the facts.
As to the science cited by Summers, experiments have shown that women and men differ somewhat in the way they process some kinds of information and that men are overrepresented in at the extremes of the mathematical talent curve. I have yet to see either of these refuted, and if unrefuted they can hardly be irrevelevant.
I thought that Kristin summed up the whole issue very well and would not dispute anything she said.
February 25th, 2006 at 10:00 am
CIP, I thought that time and again, citations have been provided on these pages that purport to show that the “math talent curve” as measured at the high school level has no predictive value in who gets math and science undergraduate degrees. If it is then relevant at the professorial level, one has to show how it operates after undergraduate education has thoroughly scrambled it.
Anyway, this is likely to descend to jalpa, so it is the time to bow out.
February 25th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Reading some of the replies here (as well as the original post, which claimed that Summers’ resignation was a direct result of comments he made at the NBER conference) leads me to think that another important point needs to be emphasised. The events which led up to the confrontation between Summers and the FAS were many and varied. However, the main reason he left was because he pursued a policy of appeasement with respect to his critics in Harvard. Instead of having the courage to stand by his policies and speeches, Summers invariably retreated in the face of controversy, a trait which only emboldened those hard-left elements in the FAS. Essentially, Summers engaged in appeasement and apology whenever he was faced with criticism. Therefore, perhaps his resignation won’t have such high consequences for Harvard’s development. It may even turn out to have been a positive event.
February 25th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
The main reason he left is because he alienated a fair chunk of the faculty by treating like crap.
People seem to want to use this one way or another as yet another battle in the culture wars. It just isn’t so.
February 26th, 2006 at 7:33 am
Wow, it seems that JoAnne openly celebrates the resignation – an example of a truly disgustging extremism. As Rush Limbaugh correctly says, we may want to think about helping the feminazis even more by renaming Harvard to Hervard.
February 26th, 2006 at 11:48 pm
Lubos, as usual, your views are truly amazing.
February 27th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
Becker and Posner give their usual calm and considered opinion on the Summers resignation this week.
February 27th, 2006 at 3:22 pm
There once was a president Summers
Who asserted that women were dumber
Almost everyone sighed
When the man stepped aside
Except Lubos who thought it a bummer