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The Hubris Hall Of Fame: Class of 2007
Illustration by Cathleen Toelke
To the Greeks, there was no crime quite as bad as overweening pride—everything else an ancient Athenian or Corinthian could do wrong followed inevitably from having a fat head. And, at least on stage, pride always went before destruction. Harvard graduates have a reputation for flying particularly high, but the alumni bulletin rarely provides a good story about getting burned. To fill the void, we’ve assembled the most egregious cases of Harvard Hubris in recent memory, and their attendant comeuppance.
Kaavya Viswanathan
Degree College 2008
High Point Brilliant, precocious Harvard sophomore novelist, Cambridge, Mass.
Now Sullied, beleaguered Harvard junior plagiarist, Cambridge, Mass.
The Charges In the coinage of Random House, “literary identity theft.”
The Story At 19, became the enfant terrible of chick lit when her first (and probably last) novel earned her a reported half-million-dollar deal. Things turned sour when entire sentences from the book turned up in several novels that happened to have been published years earlier.
The Hubris When still a prodigy, Viswanathan told a reporter that she’d had no literary influences—not even the standard Catcher in the Rye! After the Crimson broke the allegations, she retreated to her skill for fiction, claiming that she had a photographic memory and had “internalized” passages from other works.
The Penance All copies of her novel were recalled, her movie deal was canceled, and future professors will now likely triple-check all her sources.
Broken Dreams Last summer, 02138 uncovered Viswanathan’s fallow blog, including her freshman-year aspiration to become “CEO of randomhouse/bertelsman” [sic].
Illustration by Greg ClarkeDegree A.B. 1994
High Point CEO, govWorks.com
Now President and COO of JumpTV
The Charges Dot-com bubble-blowing
The Story Tuzman saw friends getting rich with suspicious Internet enterprises and said, “Me, too!” But, unlike the others, Tuzman had a documentary filmmaker roommate (Jehane Noujaim) who could memorialize his climb to fortune. Startup.com planned to capture a business on the rise, but ended up catching the entire industry in sudden decline, and the frenetic, unctuous Tuzman front-and-center.
The Hubris Inviting a camera crew to witness your ascent is immodest enough, but Tuzman tripped the light fantastic. One example: While he and his partner blithely muse about what their putative, already-funded website might actually do, Tuzman suggests a “virtual cemetery.”
The Penance Becoming the metonymy for all that was wrong with the Internet age, after burning through $60 million in venture capital.
Where Are They Now After scattered ventures, Tuzman is heading JumpTV, an Internet business carrying content from a more traditional medium: television. govworks.com now hosts ads for “Fast Cash” and “Traffic Tickets.”
Bernard Francis Law
Degree A.B. 1953
High Point Cardinal Archbishop, Boston, Mass.
Illustration by Barry BlittThe Charges Shielding child-molesting clergy
The Story When a Boston-area priest was accused of victimizing children in 1998, Cardinal Law brushed it off as an isolated incident. When other victims started surfacing, Law claimed ignorance and promised investigations. When the Boston Globe revealed patterns of a systematic see-no-evil attitude at the top of the Boston prelature, Law finally faced Judgment Day.
The Hubris Imagining the pomp and majesty of the Church would protect him. Ten years earlier, in his first scandal, Law even told his flock to “call down God’s power on the media, particularly the Globe,” and he maintained an astoundingly aloof disposition toward the press.
The Penance Probably a few Hail Marys. Also, a handful of lawsuits, the shame of a reassignment when the Pope airlifted him to a sinecure in Rome, and a central role in immeasurably weakening the church.
Justice is (Very) Lame Breaking his promise to retreat to monastic life, Law still wields immense power in the Vatican as the head of several congregations, and reportedly received a vote for the papacy in 2005. Rome taketh away, but mainly giveth.
Illustration by Steve BrodnerDegree MBA 1966
High Point Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq
Now Consultant/Beltway Bandit, Washington, D.C.
The Charges Corruption, mild tyranny, bungling the peace in Iraq
The Story Bremer’s June, 2004 withdrawal from Baghdad, where he had overseen the Coalition Authority and the burgeoning of the post-Saddam insurgency, was a major turning point in Iraq’s descent into quagmire.
The Hubris Acting on his own imperial fiat, cleansed the government of Ba’athists and disbanded the Iraqi army, rendering thousands of young men (many of them with guns) unemployed and ill-disposed toward America. Out-Saddamed Saddam by shutting down the antagonistic al-Hawza newspaper. Then blamed the mess on the Iraqis, who—he recounted in his recent memoir—“couldn’t organize a parade, let alone run a country.”
The Penance After his retreat, became anathema to increasingly anti-war liberals, and a scapegoat for neocons, who exiled him to think-tankery. Newt Gingrich himself fumed to the AP on Bremer: “…He thought he was MacArthur in Japan…He just basically amputated the entire postwar plan.”
The Skilling Syndrome Bremer also oversaw extremely shoddy distribution of U.S. and U.N.-monitored reconstruction cash; $9 billion disappeared into the fog of corruption. After news broke of the missing funds, he told an audience at Clark University not to worry about the $9 billion, which was “Iraqi money”—as opposed to American.
Illustration by Edel RodriguezDegrees MPA 1973, M.A. 1976, Ph.D. 1978
High Point President of Mexico
Now Retired, Europe and Mexico
The Charges Corruption, mild tyranny, bungling a major developing economy
The Story In 1994, as his term was about to end, the Harvard-trained economist ordered a sybaritic spree of spending on popular projects to ingratiate the PRI with voters. It worked—his anointed heir, Ernesto Zedillo, was elected—but it also battered Mexico’s fragile economy.
The Hubris Salinas tried shrewdly to term the downturn el error de diciembre, the month Zedillo took power; the public, however, knew who was to blame. Salinas fled to Ireland and released a thousand-page screed blaming everyone but himself for the disaster. After one of the worst economic disasters in Latin American history, Salinas even had the audacity to continue a laughable campaign for head of the WTO.
The Penance Effective exile from, and colossal unpopularity in, his homeland.
Disfunción Brother and fellow-alum Raúl Salinas, who, according to legend, shot and killed the family’s maid when he was four, was only recently exonerated and released from prison on a decidedly non-legendary charge of a grisly political murder.
Illustration by Zohar LazarDegree A.B. 1982
High Point Esteemed Harvard economics professor and advisor to the Russian government, Cambridge, Mass., and Moscow
Now Chairless Harvard professor, Cambridge, Mass.
The Charges International insider trading
The Story When Harvard was given a government grant to help the nascent post-Soviet Russian economy, star economist Shleifer, his wife Nancy Zimmerman, and fellow Harvard staffer Jonathan Hay set up a scheme to invest heavily in companies and entities on which they were advising.
The Hubris Thinking you can take advantage of the people who beat the Nazis and produced Ivan Drago. Shleifer was one of the most cited economists in the world and an oft-mentioned candidate for the Nobel, but will forever be remembered for puerile miscalculation.
The Penance Harvard paid back $26.5 million; Shleifer and Hay repaid $2 million each. Both were also disbarred from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
By Any Other Name Shleifer is still on the payroll of the Economics Department, though he was demoted from “Whipple V.N. Jones Professor of Economics” to plain-old “Professor of Economics.”
Illustration by Hanoch PivenDegree MBA 1979
High Point CEO, Enron Corporation, Houston, Tex.
Now Federal Inmate, Waseca, Minn.
The Charges Securities fraud, insider trading, conspiracy, wire fraud
The Story Enron lit up the financial pages in the late ’90s, thanks to the deregulation for which Skilling pushed hard. When blackouts hit California in 2001, Enron filed for bankruptcy, and years of systematic accounting fraud came to light.
The Hubris Even as Skilling was earning $70 million in stock sales from cooked books, he was publicly claiming Enron would be “the world’s leading company” (avoiding the qualifier “energy”). After his indictment, he told Larry King the company had been in “great shape” when he left.
The Penance 24 years, four months in federal prison; a lifetime reckoning with angry shareholders.
The Mighty Fallen Skilling celebrated his fall so heartily he was arrested for public intoxication in 2006. The folks who really needed those drinks are the ones who lost their pensions.
Illustration by Michael WittePosthumous Induction
Whitney (1888–1974) was a scion of estimable lineage—Mayflower family, Groton, the Porcellian, the New York Yacht Club and a purchased seat on the New York Stock Exchange. Of course, every fairy tale comes to an end, and things got embarrassing once New Deal-era investigators started probing into the financier’s own finances. Whitney had pilfered money from the NYSE, the Yacht Club, and even his father-in-law’s estate. But we surmise that no Harvardian has ever matched Whitney’s chef d’oeuvre of conceit: parading into Sing Sing with his Porcellian watch swinging from his belt. The annals are silent as to whether he made many friends there.
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