Harvard Rules

by Richard Bradley

  Trivial though such incidents might sound to an outsider, Summers’ odd behavior mattered in Cambridge. Students and faculty puzzled over how a man could rise to such a powerful position without developing the social niceties that most people in high-profile jobs possess—gracious manners, a gift for small talk, a knack for putting people at ease. Harvard students and faculty are well aware how much their campus interests the outside world, and they consider their president their most visible ambassador. That was why Neil Rudenstine’s breakdown had been a source of such acute embarrassment. But no matter what other criticisms they had of Rudenstine, no one at Harvard would have said that he wasn’t polite, even charming when the situation called for it. Rudenstine certainly had no trouble making other people feel that they were more important than he was.

  Summers, by contrast, had just the opposite effect; he always reminded people that he seemed to think himself more important than they were. For one thing, he had a bizarre habit of falling asleep in public. Eyewitnesses reported Summers dozing at a temple service, a festival celebrating cultural diversity, a talk by Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, a lecture by United Nations head Kofi Annan, and again at a speech by Mikhail Gorbachev in Sanders Theatre, Harvard’s largest classroom. “He was sitting in the front row, and he just dozed off,” said one Kennedy School student who sat directly behind Summers at the Musharraf speech. Asked if it was possible that Summers was simply closing his eyes, the woman said strongly that she didn’t think so. Besides, she added, whether or not Summers was actually sleeping was a moot point. If she was sitting right behind Summers and she was convinced he had nodded off, how could Musharraf, about fifteen feet away, not think the same?

  On repeated occasions Summers showed a similar lack of tact when he interacted with questioners. At one fall 2001 meeting with the law school faculty, a female professor asked a question Summers didn’t think much of. “That’s a stupid question,” he responded. (“It was a stupid question,” another law school professor subsequently admitted. “But still…”) His aides explained that Summers’ style was typical of the intellectual free-for-all that characterized economics seminars, and people shouldn’t take it personally. That argument convinced few.

  Then there was the time Summers had to give an award to a student director who’d made a documentary, called Occupation, about the Mass Hall sit-in. In front of a large crowd under a tent outside the Science Center, Summers announced sarcastically, “I admire the cinematography [of Occupation] more than the content. I look forward to [the director’s] upcoming documentary on grade inflation, though I expect it’ll be some time in coming.” The audience did not seem to understand why the president of Harvard was insulting a student to whom he was handing an award. (The answer was because Occupation presented the sit-in in a positive light.)

  So great was the bewilderment over Summers’ lack of basic social skills that some in the Harvard community speculated that there might be a clinical reason for his deficiencies: a neurobiological disease called Asperger Syndrome. A form of autism, the disease was first described by a Viennese physician named Hans Asperger in 1944, but only really started being diagnosed in this country after it was officially recognized by the American Psychiatric Association in 1994. People with Asperger Syndrome, which affects mostly boys, don’t have any cognitive or physical disabilities; on the contrary, they sometimes show “an astonishing grasp of the most arcane subjects,” according to a report in Time. Little wonder that the illness is sometimes known as the “geek” or “little professor” syndrome. Some scientists believe that Asperger has a genetic basis, often present when a child is the product of two intellectually similar parents. As Time put it, the theory goes that in university towns and research-and-development corridors such as Silicon Alley, many highly intelligent but ill-socialized men are marrying women with similar characteristics, “leading to an overload of genes that predispose their children to autism, Asperger’s and related disorders.”

  People with Asperger’s may be unnervingly smart in specific modes of thinking but have trouble functioning in rudimentary social situations. They have difficulty handling change or transition. They don’t work well in teams. One on one, they won’t make eye contact, instead staring at a wall or into space. They may have repetitive physical mannerisms. While they may have an excellent vocabulary, they can also be linguistically tone-deaf and use words that convey a different meaning than they intend, which can result in their sounding brusque, dismissive, or simply as if they’re not really listening to an interlocutor. Similarly, they have trouble feeling empathy.

  “It’s important to remember that the person with AS perceives the world very differently,” wrote one Asperger’s specialist. “Therefore, many behaviors that seem odd or unusual are due to those neurological differences and not the result of intentional rudeness or bad behavior.”

  To some viewers, Larry Summers at one time or another manifested all of these characteristics. No one raised the issue publicly, but to a number of faculty observers—who did not appear to have spoken to one another—Asperger’s would explain virtually everything about Summers that seemed inexplicable. On the other hand, what were the implications of having a president whose ability to empathize may have been clinically limited? Whether at Treasury making decisions that affected millions of people, or at Harvard shaping the leaders of the world, shouldn’t someone with such power be able to connect with the emotion of human experience?

  Half gossip, half scientific speculation, and fueled by an intense consternation over the president’s behavior, the Asperger’s theory bubbled beneath the surface of Harvard life. Meanwhile, Summers’ aides responded to the oft-stated complaint that their boss was a terrible listener by repeatedly insisting that he was willing to consider any argument from any source. The truth of that claim, however, was not always obvious. Timothy McCarthy, a lecturer in the Department of History and Literature, remembered a meeting with Summers in August 2001 during which the president showed a nasty temper. McCarthy had organized an e-mail petition supporting the living-wage movement, and the meeting agenda was to discuss worker salaries in the aftermath of the University Hall sit-in. Also present were other faculty members, some physical plant workers, and a couple of students. As usual, Summers was late, and he didn’t look happy to be there. When one student, a sophomore, questioned him about a university “policy” that was in fact just a proposal, Summers blew up. “Summers interrupted him and went for the jugular,” McCarthy said. “He kept battering the student with questions based on the slip-up. He was going after him, pointing his finger at the guy.” According to another person present at the meeting, “Summers just dismantled this kid. It was like he was taking apart the deputy finance minister of some Third-World country.” Finally, McCarthy intervened. “I said, ‘Larry, you know what he means.’” The president stopped abruptly and looked at McCarthy with a surprised expression, then changed the subject.

  Summers liked to say that because he asked tough questions, he was also happy to answer them. But people who took him up on the offer sometimes found that that wasn’t the case. While giving a guest lecture at the business school in early 2002, Summers criticized Malaysian prime minister Mahathir bin Mohamad, who in September 1998 had imposed capital controls to stop the flight of foreign investment from his country. Some economists thought that such measures helped prevent Malaysia from succumbing to the Asian economic flu, but the move ran contrary to the free-market policies advocated by Summers and the IMF. So, in his lecture, Summers accused Mahathir of practicing crony capitalism, promoting policies that enriched his political and personal friends.

  During the subsequent question-and-answer session, one contrarian student raised his hand and asked Summers if he didn’t have essentially the same relationship with Bob Rubin. Wasn’t Summers’ opposition to capital controls just a sop to Wall Street banks, which wanted to recoup their risky investments regardless of how doing so affected the country in which they had inve
sted? “Summers just lost it,” said one audience member, a business school student whose version of events was supported by others who were present. “He looked at the person and said, ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about and how dare you ask this question of the president of Harvard?’ The whole class was disturbed by what happened.”

  Perhaps Summers’ most widely talked about social gaffe was the one involving Bill Clinton and the football. On November 19, 2001, the former president came to Harvard to give a speech. Standing before six thousand listeners in the Albert H. Gordon Track and Tennis Center, Clinton joked, “I’ve got so many former staff members here [at Harvard], I can’t keep up with them all.” The ex-president then spoke about the world after September 11. There is “a war raging within Islam today,” Clinton said. “It is rooted in the frustrations so many Muslims have with the modern world, which they see as a threat to their values, destructive of their way of life…. We cannot engage in this debate without admitting that there are excesses in our contemporary culture, and that no people have ever been able to live forever only with their rational facilities, without any spiritual nourishment and non-logical belief systems.”

  It was a good speech, delivered with poise, humor, and confidence to a warm and welcoming audience. But if you asked students what they remembered most about the event, they’d tell you about the football. After Clinton had finished speaking, the captain of the Harvard football team, Ryan M. Fitzgerald, presented him with a football from Harvard’s victory against rival Yale three days before. Clinton tossed the ball to himself a couple of times, then casually lobbed it about five feet over the podium to Summers. The Harvard president looked stricken. He threw his hands up palm first, bobbled the football, bobbled it some more, and then dropped it. The audience groaned. “For a second you thought, oh my God, it’s that nerdy kid in middle school,” said one observer.

  It was, of course, a small incident, with no tangible impact. Trivial, really. But the dropped football resonated with students because it exposed something true about Summers—an inability to be spontaneous, to act with a natural grace, especially compared with Clinton, whose instinctive leadership gifts only highlighted the contrast between the two men. No one would say that Summers wasn’t working hard to master the issues and learn the requirements of his new job. But he made it look like work—and if you took him by surprise, all the practice fell away and the new president was revealed to be, as the students would put it, a geek. Uncool. Like the sarcastic term at Harvard that undergrads use to describe the inevitable sycophant who won’t shut up in class discussions—“that kid in section.”

  And that wasn’t entirely fair. For one thing, the students would never have gotten to see so much of Summers if he hadn’t been making a concerted and sustained effort to visit the houses, drop in on courses, and generally make himself a ubiquitous presence on campus. And when Summers was interested in what you were saying, a conversation with the president could be an intellectual delight. He questioned every assumption: In a conversation with Harvard graduate and famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma, he asked Ma if it was really necessary for Harvard libraries to spend tens of thousands of dollars buying original musical scores. Why wouldn’t photocopies serve? You couldn’t always tell if Summers really believed what he was saying or if he was just trying to play devil’s advocate, but he asked questions that made you rethink things you’d always taken for granted.

  He solicited opinions: At one dinner party at Martin Peretz’s home, he engaged the table in a discussion about the virtues and demerits of a Harvard-branded credit card. It could make money for the university—but would it ultimately cheapen the Harvard brand? Or, given the nature of American society, might a Harvard credit card actually extend the Harvard brand in a positive way?

  He conducted informal research: As Summers thought about the nature of the possible Allston campus, he repeatedly asked audiences which campus buildings they liked and disliked, wryly noting that their favorites were generally the opposite of architectural critics’ favorites, and vice versa.

  He posed provocative questions: To try to determine the value of a Harvard degree, Summers asked hospital workers how they tested the value of their hospital. How did they measure whether their hospital saved more lives than other hospitals did? And was there something about their measurement techniques that could be applied to how Harvard compared the value of its education to that of other universities?

  He took material from one area and considered its application to others: After reading Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball, about how Oakland A’s general manager Billy Beane used statistics to choose overlooked baseball players and sign them for less money than big name stars, Summers weighed what Harvard could learn from Beane. “Being a good baseball scout is now about doing econometrics,” he told one academic audience. When they laughed politely, he insisted. “It’s true—the A’s win as many games [as other league champions] with one-third the payroll. That’s a two hundred percent productivity improvement, and it must have applications elsewhere.” It did. One reason Summers was interested in offering tenure to younger professors was because Harvard would have to pay them less than it would established scholars.

  Summers’ intelligence was sometimes mixed with a clinical candor. At a forum with graduate students, one aspiring scholar rose to tell Summers that his Harvard stipend had expired, and the teaching load he was offered in its stead didn’t pay him nearly the amount of the stipend. Why would Harvard actually reduce the amount of money it had once offered him as incentive to come to the university?

  For the same reason, Summers responded, that Polaroid sells it cameras cheaply, but not its film. Once a consumer bought the camera, he was locked into purchasing the film. Similarly, when Harvard was competing with other universities for the best graduate students, it had to offer them the most attractive financial aid package. But as soon as that student had committed to Harvard, the university was free to lowball its subsequent offers; at that point, the student wasn’t likely to transfer.

  The graduate student sat down, enlightened but not assuaged.

  When Summers delivered a lecture, he spoke confidently, without a hint of nervousness. Still, his body language sent an entirely different message. His head rotated deliberately back and forth, making contact with each section of the audience. The gesture looked stiff and unnatural, as though a public speaking coach had made him practice it. Often he gripped the podium with one hand, while his right leg meandered back and forth as if it had a life of its own. As he bit off his words in clumps of three, two, and even one before taking deliberate pauses, he sounded eerily like Al Gore—a little pinched, a little lockjawed. Sometimes, at the end of sentences, he’d slur a word, so that it sounded like an old cassette tape sticking in its player.

  But when Summers took questions, his demeanor changed entirely. His body relaxed, his expression grew animated. As he listened to a questioner, he’d wander so far away from the podium, one could be forgiven for thinking he was simply about to leave the room. He’d absorb the question, ponder it for a few seconds, wander back to the mike, and deliver an answer that sounded like a well-written newspaper editorial. He seemed to know something about everything. Ask Summers questions ranging from presidential politics to the economy of Bolivia, from the nuances of educational policy to the merits of the graduate student dental plan, and he always had an answer, often one that sounded steeped in an expertise most people would have developed only if they had specialized in the subject.

  Summers’ mind was like a computer, with the memory not only to store vast amounts of information but also to access that information whenever it was needed, lift it, turn it, examine it from myriad angles and manipulate it in unexpected ways. In April 2003, he gave three hour-long lectures on globalization at the Kennedy School over three consecutive nights. Not surprisingly, the pro-globalization arguments he advocated would have prompted disagreement in some quarters. Still, the sheer volume of information he wielded w
as staggering. Though he brought notes to each lecture, he placed them on the podium and subsequently ignored them. As he usually did, he began with a couple of jokes. “When I left Washington, I did not leave politics,” he said.

  Over the course of those three hours, Summers spoke concisely, provocatively, and logically, his arguments following crisply from one to another, without digression or hesitation. He did not appear to have memorized the lectures. Rather, it looked as if, while part of Summers’ brain was delivering his words, another part was forging ahead, like a scout, considering the path of his argument and making a decision in plenty of time to report back. In three hours of lectures without notes, Summers did not once utter an incomplete sentence.

  Being what Washingtonians might call “wonky” wasn’t inherently a bad thing at Harvard. Certainly the community could appreciate, even embrace, a geek—Harvard is, after all, an institution that respects intelligence, accomplishment, and power, three things that Summers had in abundance. But the community also hoped that he would have humility, a sense of humor, and some self-awareness about his own nerdiness.

  Not likely. Accurately or not, Larry Summers came across as arrogant, patronizing, disrespectful, and power-hungry. And nothing the Corporation or the university flacks had told the community about the new president before his arrival had prepared them for this unfortunate combination of personal qualities. Inevitably, its members wondered how the Corporation could have chosen a man of such a temperament. Did its members not know? Or not care? The former seemed impossible, but the latter was more alarming—because if the Corporation had known what Larry Summers was like and had still chosen him, what did that say about its opinion of the institution it governed?