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Monday, February 27, 2006
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THE LATEST FROM HARVARD  With words like “coup d’etat” and “putsch” now routinely being used among pro and anti Summers factions on the Harvard faculty, perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that at 8:15 this morning a communique was issued to the nation’s press by Professor Alan Dershowitz, who, along with a small band of students, faculty, and alumni, has fanned out to strategic locations on the Harvard campus and assumed control of some buildings. Yet even with the escalating rhetoric from both sides in the wake of the Summers resignation, many observers expressed shock that a Harvard professor would initiate what Dershowitz, in his communique, calls a “counter-putsch” against the Harvard Corporation “and others on this campus who surrendered to the die-hard left.” “What was he thinking?” asked Hanna Holborn Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, and until recently a member of the Harvard Corporation. “It’s distressing. The Boys of Summers [the name Dershowitz has given to his group] have taken a bad situation and made it much, much worse.” More alarming still is Dershowitz’s claim to have secured “a good chunk” of Harvard’s $26 billion endowment. “We’re going to need food, clothing, and electricity. We’re going to need more guns. We’re going to need new recruits. We’re in it for the long haul.” He would not disclose how he was able to gain access to the funds. Ex-President Summers has already issued a plea calling for the Boys to put down their weapons. “I can’t believe they’ve armed themselves,” Summers told a reporter. “It boggles the mind. This is arguably the darkest chapter in Harvard’s long history of commitment to the use of reason and the rule of law.” |