He referred briefly to Harvard’s ongoing curricular review—which Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 discussed in greater length in an earlier speech.
Summers said he was pleased that the Supreme Court’s recent decision permitting affirmative action would allow the College to ensure that future entering classes “are diverse and excellent and excellent because they’re diverse.”
Summers’ perceived ambivalence on affirmative action has been a concern of many in Harvard’s black community. Last year, however, the University sent a brief supporting the practice to the Supreme Court. And Summers co-authored an Op-ed in The New York Times defending the use of diversity in admissions decisions.
But echoing comments he made to a conference on “Color Lines” at the Law School in September, Summers warned Saturday that affirmative action must not be viewed as a panacea that will solve the achievement gap.
Summers said he thought that the performance of America’s public schools would be more important than affirmative action policies in determining “whether the problem of race is a problem in the 22nd century.”
He pledged that Harvard would increase efforts to locate and attract students from less privileged backgrounds and from high schools that have not typically been Harvard feeders.
Summers cited his visit last year to Hialeah High School in Florida, a public school where most students speak Spanish at home, which has sent several students to Harvard over the last two years.
“We were making a difference,” Summers said. “We can do much more of that to help all people of disadvantaged backgrounds in the years ahead.”
He added that it was important to subject educational policy to rigorous oversight, particularly because of the changing backgrounds of American school-children, a theme he echoed in a speech on Friday (Please see story, page A-10).
Harvard’s undergraduate curricular review, for example, should recognize that Western civilization is only one of many worthy of study, Summers said, drawing applause from the crowd.
Before Summers’ speech, Acting Chair of the African and African American Studies Department Lawrence D. Bobo described Harvard’s increased offerings on African civilization and other expansions, noting that the department now offers six African languages and will soon offer an Africa concentration track.
Bobo said outsiders’ lingering perceptions of a department plagued by damaging departures and public conflicts with Summers are “completely wrong.”
He noted that last year the department added three new faculty members, including noted scholars Evelynn M. Hammonds and Michael Dawson, and had held the “most ambitious” lecture series in its history.
—Staff writer Elisabeth S. Theodore can be reached at theodore@fas.harvard.edu.