The Cornel West Affair

By Crispin Sartwell

The world of university humanities is something like professional sports of the mind, only more people and less money are involved. Most professors are journeyman. But there are a few superstars in each discipline, and the major departments bid for their services. They can write their own tickets, commanding high salaries and perquisites such as beautiful offices, small teaching loads, and personal secretaries.

For those of you unacquainted with the academic star system, allow me explain the affair of Cornel West.

West is one of the most eminent African-American academics in the country, and he recently left Harvard's Afro-American Studies department, which he helped make the top such program in the country, for Princeton, after a semi-public spat with Harvard's president, Lawrence Summers.

Harvard managed to put together an astonishing group of African-American superstars, including the literature professor Henry Louis Gates, the philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah, and West, who has done work in history, philosophy, and religious studies.

West, an inspirational speaker, has become a full-fledged celebrity and civil rights leader, with best-selling books and even a rap album to his credit. After Summers suggested in a meeting that West might want to concentrate on serious scholarship for awhile, West entered into negotiations with Princeton, to which Appiah had already departed.

I have studied and written about the work of all three men. And let me say that Summers has a point; certainly West's scholarly work, though it has its moments, is not of the same quality or depth as that of Appiah or Gates. On the other hand, West is one of the best speakers I have ever seen, and I am certain that he was one of the best teachers at Harvard.

Since Harvard's mission is not only scholarship but - despite what they themselves might think - instruction, they had every reason to want to keep him. And I am certain that Harvard is unhappy to lose such a big chunk of its African-American department, though it is also possible that the department's extremely high visibility was the source of various campus tensions.

West has hinted that race was a factor in the way he was treated by Summers. What we can say safely about this is that the academy is hyper-conscious of race in all possible ways. For one thing, universities have probably the most aggressive affirmative action programs of any American institutions.

It is an open secret that a department can often dislodge large chunks of money from the administration to make minority appointments that could not possibly be obtained for any other purpose. The resources and emphasis that Harvard places on its African-American program is itself a kind of affirmative action.

On the other hand, academia remains largely white-dominated, with various bad effects on students of both races and on scholarship.

Cornel West's career academic career is entirely inseparable from his blackness: it's his area of study; it's part of his prestige; it's part of his style; it's part of his place in the university. What Cornel West, or indeed Harvard, would be without race is a useless question.

But neither Cornel West nor Harvard has acquitted itself impressively in this affair. There's no reason that professors shouldn't make rap albums - any more than theat they shouldn't appear on the News Hour - though perhaps you'll allow me to observe that Cornel is no Tupac. But West's status as a public figure is a good thing for black folks, white folks, and Harvard.

On the other hand, West's snit makes him seem a prima donna, and I don't think he has any reason to charge Harvard with racism. It's one of those things that should have caused momentary tension but became an unseemly battle of colossal egos.

When it's time for Kobe Bryant to renogotiate his contract with the Lakers or test the free agent market, you're not really going to care who's right or wrong; it will simply be a flight of egos. But when the dust clears, you're still going to want to see Kobe hit the jumper. Get me?

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Crispin Sartwell is the author of "Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity." Contact him at www.crispinsartwell.com