<p>Nice correction. I think you were closer to the mark when you said they stood on “principal” !</p>
<p>According to today’s Yale Daily News, they were simply acting like small-scale competitors trying to take advantage of the situation for their own advantage:</p>
<p>"The (Summers) controversy provides Harvard’s peer institutions with a chance to showcase their own efforts to increase female representation in the faculty, said Jeff Siegel, a New York public relations consultant. But he said that Yale and other universities could gain unsavory reputations if they are perceived as taking advantage of Harvard’s problems.</p>
<p>Yale President Richard Levin has declined to speak specifically on Summers’ comments, but has said the University remains committed to expanding the role of women in the sciences.</p>
<p>Siegel said Levin’s strategy is a good public relations move for the University.</p>
<p>“I think Levin is being prudent, although I’m sure you could find people with different opinions,” Siegel said. “Overreaching is probably arguably the only thing that could really get someone into very hot water.”</p>
<p>By remaining silent, Yale can take advantage of the media’s focus on Harvard, said Dawn Iacobucci, a marketing professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Comparing Harvard and Yale to McDonald’s and Burger King, Iacobucci said the industry leaders should remain silent when the other endures negative press coverage, although smaller competitors such as Taco Bell and Wendy’s might feel freer to speak out.</p>
<p>“I think that Yale could come out smelling like roses by being courteous and professional and silent,” Iacobucci said. “I think that they know it could have been them as targets just as easily.”</p>
<p>While Levin has stayed mum about Harvard, despite student protest, the presidents of Princeton, Stanford and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology criticized Summers’ remarks in a joint letter earlier this month."</p>