Lurita Doan was the head of Bush’s General Services Administration for slightly over 2 years – 2006-2008, when she was asked to resign. An African-American, she is now a conservative radio commentator who, in a Sunday op-ed in the LA Times, aligned herself with conservatives against Professor Henry Gates.
In her piece she asserts, in a contorted manner, that the Harvard of 1941, where her father played lacrosse as a young black man, is no different than the Harvard of 2009.
She observes that her father was not supported by the university administration in 1941 when the Naval Academy refused to play Harvard if her father was on the field at Annapolis. Instead, she notes that Harvard disgraced itself by sending the young man back to Cambridge rather than risk igniting a racial incident in the then-segregated Naval Academy. Timidity, she says. She’s right.
Where she’s wrong, though, is her current claim that Harvard is just as insipid on such matters today, as it was then, only in the opposite direction. She accuses Harvard of knee-jerk support of Gates, the putative black victim, apparently using the left knee in 2009, when it was the right knee in 1941. She thinks it should not have supported Gates, (even though Harvard's institutional level of support is entirely unclear). I infer she thinks Harvard should have reacted in a race-neutral manner – and supported the officer.
Now I make no brief for Professor Gates’s initial reaction to Sgt Crowley’s appearance at the door or Crowley's demeanor when he arrived to investigate the break-in call. Gates may well have said something inappropriate to the officer, who, initially, at least, was simply trying to do his job. Nevertheless, when Crowley had determined that Gates belonged in the house, he couldn’t tolerate Gates’s continued harping and decided to arrest him for disorderly conduct, even though nothing had occurred which fit Massachusetts’s disorderly conduct rules (a discussion for another post).
Doan does her own knee-jerk in accusing Harvard of misconduct. And this comes from a conservative ex-Bushie, who attracted the attention of GSA’s Inspector General for a myriad of ethical violations. She was the director who tried to politicize the agency in violation of the Hatch Act. She was the one who attempted to steer federal contracts to a friend using a no-bid procedure which the IG insisted she not use. And, she was the one who made false accusations against the IG to throw him off her trail. Finally, she was the one who the Special Counsel of the MSPB recommended be disciplined for misconduct in office.
So – is Doan a credible source when it comes to making accusations against Harvard for reverse racism? I think not. And the LA Times should be castigated for printing her inane and mean-spirited opinion piece. She doesn’t know right from wrong and she cites nothing that Harvard University did in support of her accusation.