And with the spat with West, several supporters said that the columnists in question jumped to conclusions. Summers maintained that the uproar was at its root a miscommunication. But, conservatives emphasized the dispute’s political nature—citing a supposed attack on affirmative action and challenge to an academically questionable department.

Where They’re Right

Summers says he does not see University policy-making in terms of politics.

“I don’t think its useful to see the University through a political prism,” Summers says.

Friends and colleagues says that he takes this same perspective to issues in general. They describe him as evidence driven—pragmatic, principled and probing.

And his critical questioning of ideas is not checked by political ideology.

“He doesn’t look into a playbook and say, ‘this is a conservative policy or this is a liberal one,’” a friend says.

Instead, he questions everything.

Sperling describes Summers’ style as aggressive, analytical and applied regardless of ideological bent.

“Larry comes at issues very hard,” Sperling said. “He’s very rigorous at getting at what is effective.”

Sometimes Summers’ rigor was misinterpreted as opposition.

“Some people would challenge the efficacy of anti-poverty programs because they didn’t think government should be active in that area,” Sperling said. “Larry would challenge the program because he wanted government to be as active and effective as possible.”

In one sense then, friends say, conservatives might have been right in looking to Summers as a challenger of Harvard’s liberal status quo.

Summers is someone who will question prevailing norms, friends say. And given that Harvard’s norms are on average more liberal than conservative, such questioning means Summers will at times play the role conservatives ask of him.

“He’s very much a person who would not have a knee-jerk reaction to ‘ROTC does this, so we should bar it,’” one friend says.