Story here; an excerpt:
University President Lawrence H. Summers will now face a battle to keep command of the Faculty—if not his presidency—after professors assailed him at yesterday’s Faculty meeting for intimidating colleagues, tarnishing the Harvard name, and abusing his power.
Over 250 faculty members crowded University Hall for the meeting, many of them forced to sit on the floor and stand under doorways as the debate quickly developed into a one-sided assault on Summers, who sat subdued throughout the ordeal.
Today’s 90-minute session concluded with a unanimous vote to hold an emergency meeting of the Faculty next Tuesday to further discuss what Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies Diana L. Eck called “the widenening crisis of confidence” in Summers’ fitness to lead the University.
Though the format of next Tuesday’s meeting is still unclear, many say it will include a vote measuring Faculty confidence in Summers—and they say such a vote would probably not go in Summers’ favor....
Faculty members spared no words in articulating their loss of faith in the president, who has never drawn such ire from professors during his three-and-a-half year tenure.
“[We must] show the public that we are not cowards, we are not spineless, and we are not with you,” said Arthur Kleinman, chair of the anthropology department, addressing Summers in the early minutes of the meeting....
While most professors said it is unlikely that Summers will resign as University president before Tuesday’s meeting, they did not rule out the possibility of a resignation in the near future.
“The president has been challenged to either fundamentally turn around his style of leadership or to leave the institution,” said one senior faculty member who attended the meeting....
Criticism moved beyond the transcript of Summers’ remarks [about the representation of women in the sciences] 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.
[Sociology Chair Mary] Waters said at the meeting that many professors are “held hostage to fear” and are afraid to voice their discontent for fear of retribution, citing professors who e-mail her expressing disapproval of University policy, but request that she destroy the e-mails after reading them.
“Fear and manipulation have been used to govern capriciously,” added [Government professor Theda] Skocpol, who said that professors see their speech chilled “in fear that they will be criticized publicly or lose their jobs.”
Professors say Summers will likely move to galvanize support and make amends before next Tuesday’s emergency meeting, where they say a vote of no confidence is likely.
Two senior professors said yesterday that the grievances aired were only the tip of the iceberg, because professors are only now realizing the scope of faculty discontent.
One of those senior faculty members said that in order to stay on as president, Summers must have the support of a critical mass of the most important faculty members.
The speeches and strong applause at the meeting, the professor said, indicate that Summers does not have the support of that critical mass.
But Allison Professor of Economics Lawrence F. Katz said that the yesterday’s meeting belies a greater support for Summers.
“I thought it was a little more inflammatory than necessary,” Katz said.
“The share of Faculty that comes to meetings is not a random sample,” he added, implying that many professors who will support Summers either did not speak or did not attend the meeting.
While no professors openly called for Summers to step down as University President, many openly questioned whether Summers’ leadership has been beneficial to the University.
The Faculty must “debate openly whether yours are the social and scholarly agenda that we want pushed from Mass. Hall,” Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies J. Lorand Matory said at the meeting.
But Summers can be formally removed only by the Corporation, the seven-member governing board of the University.
Professor of the History of Science Everett I. Mendelsohn, in an impassioned speech at yesterday’s meeting, criticized the Corporation for its lack of awareness of Faculty discontent.
“To the overseers, I would say, where are you when we need you?” Mendelsohn said rhetorically, singling out Corporation member Robert E. Rubin ’60. Rubin told the New York Times in January that Summers was an “oustanding president,” adding that he did not know of any faculty discontent with Summers’ management style.
Among the Faculty members who speculated on Summers’ future at Harvard, one professor said Summers has two options—to resign, or wait until he is pushed out after a vote of no confidence at next Tuesday’s emergency meeting....
Since one of Summers's more constructive changes has been to implement real tenure review at the Harvard Law School, his departure, if it happens, will no doubt be greeted with a sigh of relief over there, at least by the junior faculty.
(Thanks to Glenn Cohen for the pointer.)
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