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Harvard president defends remarks on genocide
Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Harvard University President Lawrence H. Summers, who has been formally rebuked for remarks about women in the scientific field, is defending a controversial speech in which he called the deaths of millions of Native Americans a "coincidence" and "Nobody’s plan."

Summers delivered a speech at a conference on Native American studies in September 2004. In it, he said the "vast majority" of deaths following the arrival of Europeans were the result of disease -- not "a plan or an attack" against Native people.

"It was in many ways a coincidence...Nobody’s plan," he said, according to a transcript that was released to The Harvard Crimson.

Some attendees of the conference said they were offended by the speech. They said Summers downplayed the suffering of Native people.

Summers was former Treasury secretary during the last two years of the Clinton administration. He was a named defendant in the Cobell trust fund lawsuit.

Get the Story:
Sept. Remarks Resurface (The Harvard Crimson 4/20)

Relevant Links:
Harvard Native American Program - http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/hunap

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