Found on Powerline 3-15-05

Athens on the Charles

The Harvard faculty has narrowly voted (218-185) to express "no confidence" in the leadership of Harvard President Lawrence Summers. Socrates was convicted of impiety by a roughly comparable vote of 280-220. Click here for the Harvard Crimson report, and here for the AP report.

The vote essentially represents the conviction of President Summers for not believing in the gods of the city. The resolution was the handiwork of Harvard Professor of Anthropology and of African and African-American Studies J. Lorand Matory. Speaking like a true Athenian, Matory commented following the vote, "There is no noble alternative for him but resignation."

Let us now recall the words of the great Willliam F. Buckley Jr.: "I would rather be governed by the first 200 names in the Boston phone book, than by the Harvard faculty." The wisdom of Buckley's statement is proving timeless.

Buckley had it right about being governed by the Harvard Faculty.