Cambridge Common

Different president, same shit

To go off Deb's point, why should the average Harvard college student care about Summers' resignation? While I think that Summers has been a bad president (weakening the Af-Am department, comments on women, etc.), I don't think that it matters that he has resigned because whoever replaces him will most likely follow the same policies. Who cares who the actual person in charge is, if Harvard remains the same. Is the same argument I have with folks who think that the problem with the American government is Bush. No, the problem with the American government is the American government, i.e. it's the system, not the person. If Bush died tomorrow, he would be replaced by Cheney and things would remain the same or get worse. Same principle applies to Larry Summers. A progressive President of Harvard University could accomplish a lot. Harvard is a leader (if not the leader) of American higher education. Harvard has played a leading role in monumental changes in the American college system, such as the SAT, but is any future president of Harvard really going to rock the boat like that? No. Therefore, why care? The personalities will be different, the policies are the same i.e. Allston campus still gets built and the residents screwed over, still no campus center, still an undemocratic governance structure, etc. Hopefully, whoever they find to permanently replace Larry will be better at PR. As long as the next president doesn't stick his (or her, but doubt the corporation would do that) foot in his mouth and continue doing what Larry was doing then he will be successful. That was Larry's only real mistake, saying stupid things and attracting too much media attention.

posted by Francisco Perez @ 10:42 PM