West has been an enormous embarrassment to Harvard. His status as a university professor, no less, is amazing if you consider others who have or have had that honor. Harvard president Summers is a very ambitious man. He lives in the shadow of two winners of the Nobel prize in his family. I am sure that he, and many other members of the Harvard community are deeply upset with West. He is making Harvard look second-rate, which they can't stand. The New Republic, owned by Marty Peretz, an important figure around Harvard, ran a piece by Leon Wieseltier a few years ago in which Wieseltier described West's books as "worthless." So discontent with West is nothing new.
To understand this, it is necessary to realize that Harvard never did tolerate its black studies department to be the joke that such departments are at many schools. Further, Harvard is able to have its pick of top students who are black, few though they be. Harvard gives only a 50 point SAT concession to blacks, as compared with 340 at Berkeley. So when they say they have never practiced affirmative action, it is not too far from the truth. West was a mistake, which has become apparent to the public as a result of West's high profile.
Your last two posts suggest you think that progress has been made or is being made and this latest episode is evidence of it. Is that correct? I think (pessimistically) that Summers touched the third rail and whatever words he uses while backing off are rather meaningless. The establishment, and to my mind this is the establishment, artfully posing as anti-establishement (a familiar pose which they liked to assume even when they controlled the White House the past 8 years!) has re-asserted itself and Summers, Harvard and all the rest of us are back to square one. The annointed, untouchable elite remains untouchable as always.