Posner this week discusses the Summers controversy as it relates to the larger issue of university governance. The opposition to Summers has come from professors in many departments. Posner rejects their case, saying:

Universities are increasingly complex enterprises. Harvard has a multibillion-dollar annual budget. It is ludicrous for English professors to think they have a useful contribution to make to decisions involving budgetary allocations, building programs, government relations, patent policy, investment decisions, and other key dimensions of modern university governance. They are in no position to balance Summers's strengths in these areas with what they consider his weaknesses in relations with faculties, or his ideological views that they find offensive.

Though I largely agree with his reasoning, he goes on to state that he "would like to see faculty think of themselves as employees and leave governance to the university's president." I take exception to the first half of this comment.

It seems that it should be possible for separate spheres to exist—one of teaching and scholarship and one of management. The division of these spheres should be respected on both sides—but it hasn't been.

As "ludicrous" as it is for humanities professors to analyze patent policy or investment decisions, it is just as "ludicrous" for a university President and economist to criticize the work of an Afro-American studies professor.

An article from The Economist three years ago describes the row between Summers and Cornel West:

Mr West's alleged sins included recording a rap CD, leading a political committee for Al Sharpton's possible presidential campaign, writing books more likely to be reviewed in The New York Times than in academic journals and allowing grade inflation.

(Posner refers to Summers as having "the temerity to challenge the absenteeism of a prominent faculty member, Cornel West, who as a result resigned in a huff." I haven't studied the situation in enough depth to know whether it was absenteeism or rapping that was at issue, but for the sake of the argument that follows, let's assume the latter.)

Being a university professor means contributing to the field—on the terms of that field. Some of my undergraduate theater professors wrote deeply researched and scholarly books. Others did not, they only directed plays—would Summers rebuke them? If West's work was worthy of rebuke it should come from others in his field. Rapping is a feature of African-American culture, thus releasing a rap CD is arguably a legitimate endeavor for an Afro-American studies professor.

Professors should, on matters of scholarship, be held accountable to those best able to hold them accountable, i.e. others in the field—this idea is the basis for peer-reviewed journals. Let psychologists judge psychologists, let artists judge artists and let Larry Summers judge the state of Harvard's finances. What I am proposing is that the differing duties of faculty and administrators be respected by both and that each group place some faith in the other and allow a measure of independence.

So why should professors not think of themselves as "employees" of universities? Because the term carries with it connotations of hierarchy and duty that do not and should not exist between administrators and faculty. "Employees" take orders from their "Bosses." (Did any of you at the symposium banquet detect a tinge of irony when Dean Kagan referred to Summers as her "boss"? Certainly he has more power than she, but their relationship is surely more complex than an employee faithfully taking orders from her boss.) For the reasons I discussed above, professors should not be in the position to be dominated by university administrators. As the latest issue of The Economist relates in an article on the business of education,

A non-profit university exists, ultimately, so that its members can teach, think and learn. Making them into "staff"—mere shopfloor workers on an academic production line—risks losing the ethos which has given universities their character and value.

Furthermore, the business mode of higher education, if it turns professors into employees, turns students into customers. Though we pay for our education, the relationship between the student and the university should not be allowed to devolve into one of buyer and seller. Universities are not department stores of information but centers of learning, culture and growth.

So while I agree with Posner that faculty should stay out of university governance, I further believe that administrators should not micro-manage faculty.

This post, on Left2Right, comparing the academic profession to the self-organization of slime molds and ant colonies, lends support to the point I was trying to make about university governance last week.

From The New York Times:

At an intense and sober meeting, Dr. Summers's supporters accused his opponents of political correctness while his critics emphasized that their concerns had nothing to do with political correctness but were about Dr. Summers's leadership, as well as his remarks concerning a lack of women in science.[Emphasis Added]

The hypocrisy of the academic left continues to astound me.