A GROWING rebellion by Harvard dons yesterday toppled Lawrence Summers as the president of America’s oldest and most prestigious university.

Facing a no-confidence vote by the faculty next week, the former Treasury secretary to Bill Clinton announced that he would step down at the end of the academic year after five turbulent years at Harvard’s helm.

The revolt was triggered by his suggestion at an economics seminar that women’s “intrinsic aptitude” might explain why so few women became professors of mathematics and science. He later apologised for the remarks.

Mr Summers’ resignation ends the briefest tenure of any Harvard president since 1862, when Cornelius Felton died after two years in office.

“Believing deeply that complacency is among the greatest risks facing Harvard, I have sought for the last five years to prod and challenge the university to reach for the most ambitious goals in creative ways,” Mr Summers said. “As I leave the presidency, my greatest hope is that the university will build on the important elements of renewal that we have begun over the last several years.”

Known for his brusque manner, Mr Summers had become a controversial figure on campus — although he enjoyed wide support among undergraduates.

Facing a staff revolt, the Harvard Corporation, the university’s governing board, had begun canvassing key professors in recent days about Mr Summers’ possible departure in an effort to avoid the damaging no-confidence vote scheduled for next Tuesday.

“While this past year has been a difficult and sometimes wrenching one in the life of the University, we look back on the past five years with appreciation for all that has been accomplished and for the charting of an ambitious forward course,” the Corporation said.

Mr Summers survived an earlier staff insurrection last year despite a 218-185 no-confidence vote by professors of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in March. This time the dissent was fuelled by a widespread unhappiness among the staff at Mr Summers’ centralising management style.

Faculty members complained that he was blunt to the point of rudeness, recalling his high-profile clash with Cornell West, the African-American studies professor who defected to Princeton after Mr Summers criticised him for taking time out from his academic duties to record a rap CD.

Mr Summers tried to reach out to his critics by appointing task forces on women and academia and committing $50 million to women’s advancement at Harvard. The dons’ dissatisfaction flared up again last month when he was suspected of forcing out the popular dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the China specialist William Kirby.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which makes up almost half of the university’s professors, scheduled a new no-confidence vote that, though merely symbolic, was expected to pass by an even larger margin than last year and to provoke a chorus of complaints about the Harvard chief.

Members of the Harvard Corporation stepped in to try to avert all-out conflict that could render the university ungovernable. The traditionally secretive Corporation, which has sole power to fire Mr Summers, is made up of six members plus Mr Summers.

The Harvard president had been strongly backed by Robert Rubin, his predecessor and former boss at the US Treasury, and one of the Corporation’s members. Other members of the board distanced themselves from him, however, despite earlier statements of support. Students continued to support Mr Summers, who endeared himself to them by signing dollar bills on which his signature was printed as Treasury Secretary.

A Harvard Crimson poll found that 57 per cent of undergraduates thought he should stay, against 19 per cent who wanted him to go.

His supporters say he deserves credit for setting up the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, working with Google to digitise the library and establishing a scholarship programme.

Derek Bok, Mr Summer’s predecessor, will serve as interim president from July 1. After a year-long sabbatical Mr Summers plans to return to the faculty to pursue an academic career in economics, public policy and international affairs.

The Corporation intends to appoint him as one of Harvard’s select group of University Professors.

Patti B. Saris, president of the Board of Overseers, said: “Harvard has benefited from his energy and out-of-the-box thinking, and will no doubt continue to do so when President Summers again becomes Professor Summers.”

THE LIFE AND CONTROVERSIAL TIMES

November 30, 1954 Born in Connecticut, spends most of childhood in Pennsylvania

1975 Receives bachelor of science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology

1982 Receives PhD from Harvard, having written dissertation entitled An Asset-Price Approach to Capital Income Taxation

1983 Returned to Harvard as Professor of Economics, one of the youngest to be tenured

1991 Chief economist of the World Bank. While there, he signed a controversial memo suggesting waste be exported to Third World countries

1999 Secretary of the Treasury. Principal economic adviser to the President and US Chief Financial Officer

2001 27th president of Harvard University

2002 Criticised the Afro-American studies teacher Cornel West for grade inflation. West left Harvard for Princeton soon after

2004 Apologised to Koreans after claiming Seoul had nearly a million child prostitutes in 1970

2005 Conrad K. Harper, a member of the Harvard Corporation, resigned after Summers awarded himself a pay rise, saying: “I could not and cannot support a raise in your salary, . . . I believe that Harvard’s best interests require your resignation”

Times Recommends

• Tehran cannot live up to its rhetoric
• The new unicycle that will ‘change the world’
• We cannot wish away Iran’s bomb