March 31, 2005

TIMES HUMOR: BOROWITZ REPORT

‘Landmark deal,’ says Summers

In what he called “a landmark deal” with female faculty members, Harvard University president Lawrence Summers agreed today to wear a dress through the end of the 2005-6 academic year.

The embattled Harvard president, who created a ruckus when he seemed to question women’s ability in the fields of math and science, said that he hoped wearing a dress would demonstrate that he was “trying to be more empathetic” to women’s concerns.

Dressed in a stylish Chloe dress and looking somewhat unsteady in his Manolo Blahnik slingbacks, Mr. Summers appeared at a press conference looking very much like a man eager to put the recent brouhaha behind him.

After a journalist at today’s press conference accused the Harvard president of caving in to pressure, Mr. Summers replied, “You wouldn’t accuse me of being weak if I were a man.”

But the so-called “Tootsie deal” is receiving mixed reviews from some at Harvard, such as classics professor Croughton Davies, who today said that forcing Mr. Summers to wear a dress for a year “blurs the line between disciplinary action and fraternity hazing.”

“I’m not sure if being president of Harvard is worth a tinker’s dam if it means vamping around Harvard Yard like some sort of Ivy League tranny,” Professor Davies said. “Larry Summers wasn’t a bad-looking man, but he is one absolutely hideous woman.”

Elsewhere, Vice President Dick Cheney said that he would not run for president in 2008, denying a report that appeared in the Book of Revelation.

Andy Borowitz is a nationally syndicated humorist. Visit www.Borowitzreport.com for more of his columns. Purchase THE BOROWITZ REPORT: THE BIG BOOK OF SHOCKERS, only $8.96 at Amazon.com.