How Elena Kagan Played Harvard Politics

The New York Times has gotten a lot of background information on Elena Kagan's time as a member of the Harvard faculty:

One Saturday afternoon in March 2003, Lawrence H. Summers invited Elena Kagan for a private chat in the library of Elmwood, the stately clapboard mansion he occupied as the president of Harvard. The two had been close colleagues, if not close friends, as top aides working for President Bill Clinton. But this was no social call.

Mr. Summers, a brilliant but impatient economist with a bull-in-the-china-shop management style, was looking for a new law school dean. Ms. Kagan, a newly tenured professor, was thin on management experience, and her academic writings were relatively scant.

But she was a faculty favorite — her colleagues viewed her as a leader and consensus builder who held sway with the strong-willed university president. Mr. Summers, aware that she had her sights set even higher, accompanied his job offer with a hint of a warning.

“I would say Elena’s colleagues chose her as much as I did,” he said in a recent interview, adding, “I said to her: ‘Elena, if you accept this job and then you are offered a position like Supreme Court justice or attorney general, I will congratulate you with all my heart and wish you well. But we need you to make a commitment to the law school for a few years before taking any other position.’ ”

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