And friends say Summers is not one to accept the dictates of political correctness without question.

“He begins by asking questions. If something is in place merely because it is politically correct, [Summers] will get to the bottom of it,” a friend says.

This was what conservative Boston Globe columnist Jeff Jacoby says he was hoping for in Summers’ term as President.

“What had impressed me was a more generalized sense that here was a guy who wasn’t inhaling the vapors of political correctness that waft all over Harvard,” Jacoby writes in an e-mail.

Sperling cautions that policies favorable to either side of the political spectrum will be subject to scrutiny.

“I think that people on all sides are going to have to realize that he’s not going to be one to accept a case on face value,” Sperling says.

—Crimson staff writer David H. Gellis can be reached at gellis@fas.harvard.edu.