Universities Weblog

Harvard President Larry Summers dominated the news recently, after he made several ignorant, sexist remarks regarding the role of women in higher education. He then went on to make several more blunders. (Our wonderful writer Mark produced several excellent pieces on Summers in this blog.)

Summers has since resigned, but he can't erase the ugliness he left behind. Which apparently, was quite a bit. Just read this scathing article from The Crimson coup.

Probably the first sign that Larry Summers was in more than his usual trouble was the standing ovation the faculty gave to Bill Kirby, the dean the Harvard president had just forced out.

During the meeting's traditional question-and-answer period, 15 professors rose one by one to question Summers's leadership…

The full story is more complicated. Larry Summers was determined to disenfranchise the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and amass power in his office-in himself. But his often heavy-handed attempts to do so fueled a broad-based protest against his leadership.

What do you think? Is Summers getting what he deserves, or have people been too hard on him?

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