Appiah also said that while he did visit Princeton recently, he was not accompanied by West, and that the visit was not for the purpose of discussing a possible move.

“I had dinner with the provost of Princeton [Amy Gutmann] who is a good friend of mine,” Appiah said.

In the national media, the professors’ dispute has played out in distinctly racial terms, with the Boston Globe and the New York Times both reporting that professors in the department were offended by Summers’ failure to adequately support affirmative action.

But according to some members of the department, this part of the conflict was blown out of proportion.

One official in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences said some colleagues in University Hall blame West for making a private dispute into a media scandal.

Gates—who said he has received no offer from Princeton—said yesterday he was “confident that [Summers] believes in diversity and excellence.” And Appiah said he hadn’t questioned Summers’ commitment to affirmative action.

In a Wednesday statement, Summers

cited the University’s “long-standing

commitment to diversity,” and vowed to “maintain that commitment.”

Climenko Professor of Law Charles J. Ogletree Jr., who is acting as West’s spokesperson in the conflict, expressed his approval of Summers’ statement in an interview Wednesday with The Crimson.

“It meets the objectives that many people had set forth—it’s strong, it’s clear, it’s unequivocal,” Ogletree said. “We have made incredible progress with President Summers, and I am very happy with the way things have developed,” he said.

Summers said yesterday that he does not have a meeting scheduled with Jackson or Sharpton, nor does he have any plans at the present for such a conference.

—Juliet J. Chung, Lauren R. Dorgan, David H. Gellis and Daniel K. Rosenheck contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Kate L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.