Document 47

December 31, 1998

Jeremy R. Knowles
Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences
University Hall 5
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

Dear Dean Knowles:

I address this message through you not only to the Docket Committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, but also to the broader community of Harvard - faculty, staff students, alumni, families and friends.

I believe that an injustice has occurred in the case of Peter Berkowitz. It cries out for review.

I feel I speak for Harvard, not exclusively, but surely as much as any other Harvard man or woman. I am a graduate of Harvard, Class of 1960, of Harvard Law School, Class of 1963, a member of the Faculty of Harvard Law School since 1966, the Weld Professor of Law, and the Director of the Berkman Center for lnternet & Society. In my years here I have witnessed the Harvard tenure review system work unfairly against too many people. It becomes more distressing each time it happens. There comes a point when, even at the risk of being ridiculed within the Harvard community, I feel impelled to stand up and speak out. I am a person who believes in law, in openness, in due process, and in my obligation to support people who arc being dealt with unfairly.

Our current process of tenure review is closed, autocratic, unaccountable, inaccessible to the Harvard community at large, built on principles of tyranny, with all power at the top. Worst among its many faults, worse even than the arbitrariness and insensitivity with which it deals with aspiring junior faculty, is its vulnerability to impeachment. It permits, even encourages, plausible stories of unfairness about what transpires beneath its blanket of secrecy. It offers no counter, nor even sensitivity to the appearance of bias in the process, even when the appearance of bias is extreme. The appearance of bias in the process not only embitters those who are unfairly judged, but also tarnishes the good name of Harvard and the reputations of those who administer the process in Harvard s name.

The case of Peter Berkowitz is rife with the appearance of bias.

Dennis Thompson, who led the opposition to Peter's candidacy, is not only a professor in the Government Department, he is also Director of the President s Program in Ethics and the Professions, and Associate Provost of the University. Is Dennis Thompson of the Faculty or of the Administration?

Additionally, Neil Rudenstine and Dennis Thompson have been close friends and mutual supporters since their graduate school days, working together up through the faculties and administrations of Princeton and Harvard. When Dennis Thompson leads the opposition to a young candidate for tenure, and the Faculty of the Government Department has the temerity to outvote him, does the staff of the Office of the Dean with responsibility for constituting an ad hoc committee to advise the President know without needing to he told how to jimmy the system?

Is a tenure review process defective which allows the President of Harvard to be exposed to a situation in which he in his sole and unreviewable discretion, denies tenure to a candidate in a manner that serves the desire, reputation, and ambition of an exceedingly close friend.

As you read Peter's careful statement of grievance, consider whether the process of review was one of which Harvard can be proud.

Sincerely yours,

Charles Nesson