JPS does indeed give valuable insight into the sheltered jungle of academia, and I think the full truth is an amalgam of the points raised here. Summers did try to instigate change, BUT was incompetent to the point of a)really annoying the people he was trying to change and b)saying things anybody who has been in an academic environment for more than five minutes would know were completely toxic — and thus prevented any good points he might have raised from being heard. A little content-free verbiage, good coffee and non-stale cookies at the faculty seminars, and individual visits to assure Professor Whassname that he *really* valued Whassname’s input and only consulted the others to prevent hurt feelings … he would have had them eating out of his hands in three months, tops.

I must say the phrase, “wrap…our bias in the snowy robes of our better angels” makes me smile, somewhat ruefully: Yes, sigh.

Summers started out to make a CHANGE. Seldom are change agents accepted without an uproar, sometimes great uproar.

It appears that he started a civil war that he lost. Now it will be left for someone else, perhaps a better manager, more diplomatic, which ALWAYS have their own effect. Usually less uproar but almost always much longer to achieve the same results. In my opinion, his failing was to learn the lesson of little steps.

I apologize for the duplicate comment. When I better learn to link, I’ll be a more complete (not necessarily better) Blogger.

Take this with a grain of salt, but I’ve heard about Summers from a Harvard prof who more or less shares his politics (semi-conservative Democrat, which of course makes you a right-winger in academia). His take was that Summers had alienated too many people by acting as an autocratic president; by stating what he planned to do, and then ignoring objections. Not now and then, but systematically.

This has its merits, of course (I for one admire a leader willing to stick to an unpopular course of action when appropriate), but it does have a way of making enemies. Especially among professors, who generally have enormous yet very fragile egos, and tend toward the attitude described by Thomas Carlyle: “Give me my own way exactly in everything, and a sunnier, more pleasant creature is not to be found.”

Anyway, while I believe the faculty leading the charge against him were indeed politically motivated, I’d venture that many who went along were just sick of the guy, and willing to go along for whatever reason.