Larry Summers: Harvard's Fallen Star

June 25, 2006 — -- Embattled Harvard University president Larry Summers expressed regret over the controversial statements that led to his abrupt resignation from one of the country's most prestigious posts, telling ABC News' George Stephanopoulos in an exclusive TV interview, "The signal that got sent from those remarks that many people took from that was totally different from what I intended or believed.

"People took the impression away that somehow women couldn't be scientists," Summers told "This Week with George Stephanopoulos." "Nothing could be further from what I believe. So that signal shouldn't have been sent."

In a January 2005 address to a conference on diversifying the science and engineering workplace, Summers suggested that men outnumber women in scientific fields because of men's "intrinsic aptitude" for such jobs. The speech was made public, and by March the members of Harvard's faculty of Arts and Sciences narrowly passed a "lack of confidence" vote against Summers.

Summers came to Harvard first as a graduate student, after entering the elite Massachusetts Institute of Technology at only the age of 16. He quickly went on to be the youngest fully tenured professor in Harvard's history at age 28, leaving to become President Bill Clinton's second treasury secretary from 1999 to 2001.

Returning as the distinguished university's president, the years Summers has held the post have been the most tumultuous of his highly successful career.

In his first television interview on the subject, Summers told Stephanopoulos he's not the victim of political correctness.

"I think that's too simple a characterization," Summers said. "There are a lot of things that went on here. I do believe that it's enormously important that universities like this one be open-minded to every perspective, be prepared to take on every subject, be engaged with the challenges that our country faces, including the security challenges that our country faces."

Stephanopoulos pressed, asking, "Is what you said wrong? Or was it just that a university president can't say it?"

Summers expressed remorse over the comments but explained, "What's really important is to try and turn that kind of heat into light by focusing on very constructive things that we can do and that institutions across this country can do, finding ways to assure people that people can pursue a career that gets them to the top, while at the same time meeting their responsibilities to their families."

Despite majority support from both students and the Harvard board, and just as it appeared Summers had weathered the storm, he resigned effective before the start of the next term.

"At the moment, it's the most difficult professional decision I've ever made and hope I'll ever have to make," Summers told ABC News. "I felt the controversy around me personally, whether it was right or whether it was wrong, was at a point where the agenda, the things I cared about -- equal opportunity, pushing forward in science, becoming more supportive of public service, engaging internationally, really having a faculty and a university that worked for the students -- I thought those things would happen faster without the distractions of arguments around things I was doing or things I was saying.

"And so," Summers said, "I thought it was the right thing to step down."

In spite of the controversy, Summers leaves a legacy that includes enabling middle-class families with an annual income less than $60,000 to send a child to Harvard without any family contribution toward tuition. The former treasury secretary also pushed for substantial investments in biomedical sciences, particularly stem cell research.

Summers took issue with those who might critique today's college-aged generation.

"Our students are not lazy," Summers said. "Whether it's the kids who publish the school newspaper, who work 70 hours a week doing that, or the almost infinite number of hours that go into hundreds of student theatrical productions each year, or the level of commitment that it takes to play a varsity sport -- even in the Ivy League -- our students are focused."

In fact, Summers worries college kids may be moving forward too fast.

"My hope for them is that they step back a little bit from that and really think about what they want to do with their lives," he said. "And I wonder sometimes whether there isn't quite enough time for that."

In an ever expanding technological world, the professor who saw some of his greatest success and failure in the field of science said, "I'm struck by the number of students carrying Blackberries to juggle their many appointments. And I wonder if they didn't spend a little more time thinking about the meaning of life with their friends, they might not ultimately be in a better position to meet their responsibilities in our society."

Summers' advice for his successor?

"Be willing to change; be willing to move forward," he said. "It can and it does make a big difference in the world, whether it's in hopes for poor and middle-class families across this country, whether it's in finding cures for diseases that affect millions of people, whether it's in creating a path towards drawing our most talented young people into serving society, whether it's in promoting international understanding.

"Whether it's just in assuring that the people who are going to be -- many of the people in leadership positions in our country are as broadly educated as they can be -- ask what the university can do."