JUST LIKE OBAMA. WHAT IS IT WITH HARVARD PEOPLE AND E-MAIL SNOOPING? Harvard Dean Steps Down Following Secret Searches of E-Mail Accounts. “Ms. Hammonds, who has led Harvard College for five years, found herself at the center of a scandal-within-a-scandal after trying to plug a leak in a university inquiry into a cheating debacle that prompted dozens of undergraduates to withdraw from the college. Ms. Hammonds and Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, last fall authorized searches of the e-mail accounts of 16 resident deans without informing them first.” Also the obsession with leak-plugging. . . .

On the other hand, the punishment seems rather minor: “Ms. Hammonds, who is a professor of the history of science and of African-American studies, will return to her faculty post following a sabbatical, Harvard officials said on Tuesday in a news release, which enumerated Ms. Hammonds’s achievements as dean and made no mention of the e-mail scandal. When she returns, officials said, Ms. Hammonds will head a new program at Harvard to study the intersection of race, science, and medicine.”