Document 36

October 16, 1998

Professor Roderick MacFarquhar
Chair
Department of Government
Littauer Center
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

Dear Rod,

Thank you for the time you made for us on Wednesday afternoon. We fully understand that you do not have authority to redress wrongs committed at higher levels of the hierarchy within which you sit as Department Chair.

Do you have authority, power, and will to redress wrongs in the tenure review process of Peter Berkowitz, one of which we see as having been at least an insult to your office as chairman and to your department, and the other committed at the department level over which you preside?

First, the Government Department's recommendations for ad hoc committee were ignored by the office of the Dean of your Faculty. Four of the five members on the Berkowitz ad hoc committee were not drawn from the list the Government Department was asked to submit to the Dean of the Faculty. All four of the members of the ad hoc committee not drawn from the Department's list voted against tenure for Professor Berkowitz. And all four show evidence of bias or lack of relevant expertise (<cyber.harvard.edu/berkowitz>).

The disregard by the Dean's Office of the Government Department's recommendations for scholars to be appointed to the ad hoc committee is a direct affront to the principle, announced in Harvard's own tenure review guidelines, that individuals should be promoted at the University strictly on the basis of their "merits as scientists, scholars and teachers." The administration has no business loading an ad hoc committee against a candidate, to which it is no defense that they sometimes load in favor. The Dean's Office did not "supplement" or "balance" the Department's list. It all but ignored the Department's list. And the Dean's Office passed over and failed to even consult with, or invite to sit on the ad hoc committee, many acknowledged experts in Professor Berkowitz's field. In constructing the ad hoc committee, the Dean's Office produced a committee that was heavily weighted against Professor Berkowitz's political and theoretical view points. By doing so, the Dean's Office substituted its judgment about who was fit to advise the President. This was an insult to your department, as well as a wrong against Peter.

Second, Associate Provost and Professor Dennis F. Thompson (<http://www.gov.harvard.edu/>), who opposed Professor Berkowitz's tenure at all stages of the review, tainted your departmental process in three ways:

(a) By playing his "usual role" in the Government Department's tenure review process, Professor Thompson introduced the influence of a high university administration official, the power and prestige of both the Provost's Office (<http://www.provost.harvard.edu/ca_reports/ca_plan/castmembers.html>) and the President's Office (http://vpf-web.harvard.edu/factbook/95-96/page2.htm>), and an extraordinary personal relationship with the President, into departmental deliberations. You should not allow a Provost to masquerade as a mere Professor in the Government Department, and certainly should not allow it when he is the one to lead the charge against. Nor should you be oblivious to the fact that his wife plays a major role in the review process above you (<http://www.fas.harvard.edu/administration/faculty-wide.html>).

(b) Professor Dennis Thompson's participation at the departmental level and then in the ad hoc process by means of his "customary letter to the Dean," written ostensibly as a mere professor in your department, introduced into President Rudenstine's deliberations the troublesome problem of having to pass judgment on a candidate who had severely criticized and was adamantly opposed by his best, oldest friend, personal and professional, and longtime mutual supporter. These actions by Professor Thompson, a member of your department, introduced in formal process a bias to the president's judgment that appears to have affected his judgment in reviewing your department's recommendation in the Case of Peter Berkowitz, and also may have affected his judgment in reviewing your department's recommendation in the Case of Bonnie Honig.

(c) Professor Thompson brought inappropriate influence to bear inside your department owing to his position as Director of the Program in Ethics and the Professions, a program headquartered in the Provost's Office and one of President Rudenstine's five "Interfaculty Initiatives" (<http://www.ethics.harvard.edu/>). Because of the funds he controls as Director of the Program in Ethics and the Professions and because of the influence with the President that he exercises as Associate Provost, Professor Thompson's opinions in the Department unavoidably and inherently carry special weight: voting with him brings with it the plausible promise of rewards from the President's Office and the Program in Ethics and the Professions, which the President's Office supports; opposing him can arouse plausible fear of penalties and disadvantages by faculty members who seek Provost and Presidential level assistance for their own graduate students, projects, and programs. This was ethically wrong.

We believe that you have authority to deal with these wrongs by both formal and informal process. We reiterate the position we hope we made clear in our conversation with you in your office. We do not wish to take anyone down, though we will continue to press what we see as Veritas until we have received fair process. We ask for your support of our proposal that the collective group of Harvard's University Professors be asked to advise the University after considering both the overall process in the Berkowitz tenure review and the merits of Peter Berkowitz's case for tenure. We believe that the advice of this group would be respected by all of Harvard, and surely by us.

Sincerely,

	Charles Nesson	Peter Berkowitz
	Weld Professor of Law	Associate Professor of Government