Letter to Harvard rips Summers

A group of Harvard professors has raised new concerns about the leadership of president Lawrence H. Summers after the school newspaper reported that he had planned to fire an important dean.

Seventeen department chairs and seven former department chairs signed a statement saying, ''We remain deeply concerned that the work of our departments and university cannot be sustained under such conditions."

The statement was sent yesterday to the university's governing Corporation.

Last week, the Crimson quoted two unnamed sources as saying that Summers had planned last year to fire William C. Kirby, the Faculty of Arts and Sciences dean, until Summers's authority was weakened by the controversy over his comments in January that women may not share men's ''intrinsic aptitude" for science.

If the newspaper report was true, the professors said yesterday in the letter, it is ''highly improper" for Summers to have shared such information with members of the faculty.

''This kind of backbiting is more than unprofessional," they wrote. ''It undercuts the work and the morale of colleagues . . . and damages the institution as a whole. We reject such tactics and the deplorable example they set for our students."

Summers sent a quick response to the professors, according to spokesman John Longbrake.

''He expressed his confidence and support for Dean Kirby, and said he looked forward to continuing to work together," said Longbrake, who declined to release the text of Summers's letter.

A spokesman for Kirby declined to comment.

Professors said Summers is a member of the governing corporation. They expected the letter to be discussed at an upcoming faculty meeting. News of the letter was first reported in the Crimson.

Mary C. Waters, who until this academic year chaired the sociology department, said the uncertainty about Kirby's future was destructive to the campus atmosphere and to important business underway, such as a review of Harvard's curriculum.

''You're in the middle of a curriculum review, you hear these rumors," she said. ''You don't know what's going to happen next, and it grinds things to a halt."

Marcella Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.