The Cambridge Question
No wonder Summers refused to rubber-stamp all the tenured positions recommended by faculty. He wanted to seek out younger professors who had the potential to transform their fields. As several journals put it, he was determined to bestow grants and professorships on those fields deemed worthy and would not be constrained by the taboos that protect professorial privilege and self-regard.
Summers's departure marks the loss of one of the few major voices in higher education willing to talk about the forces undermining our institutions of higher learning. He may have been blunt, but his words were directed at issues everyone at Harvard must weigh seriously.
Given that Harvard is the emblematic American university, will Summers's departure signify a shift of power from presidents to tenured faculty? How can Harvard expect to recruit a genuine reformer now that the Faculty of Arts and Sciences has tasted blood and the key leaders of the Harvard board have surrendered? Are modern universities ungovernable? Will Harvard's president now lose the role of public intellectual setting the agenda for higher education in America and become a mere fundraiser? Will universities become so dominated by political correctness that they are diminished as centers of intellectual freedom and free inquiry?
It is no answer to inadequate teaching to say that applications remain high. Harvard is the standard-bearer for the ideals of a university. It would be a shame if Summers's departure marked the diminution of the mission of a still-great university.
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