Part of the reason behind Gate's acting up like that

I keep coming back to the story of Henry Louis Gates Jr. (here and here) Could it be that his funding was being cut? From Nina Munk at Vanity Fair:

Rich Harvard, Poor Harvard
Only a year ago, Harvard had a $36.9 billion endowment, the largest in academia. Now that endowment has imploded, and the university faces the worst financial crisis in its 373-year history. Could the same lethal mix of uncurbed expansion, colossal debt, arrogance, and mismanagement that ravaged Wall Street bring down America�s most famous university? And how much of the turmoil is the fault of former Harvard president Larry Summers, now a top economic adviser to President Obama? As students demonstrate, administrators impose Draconian cuts, and construction is halted on an over-ambitious $1.2 billion science complex, the author follows the finger-pointing.

A bit more:

"There are going to be a hell of a lot of layoffs. Courses will be cut. Class sizes will get bigger,� conceded a Harvard insider, who, like every other administrator on campus, was not permitted to speak openly to me on the classified subject of alignments and resizements and belt-tightenings.

Radical change is coming to Harvard. Fewer professors, for one thing. Fewer teaching assistants, janitors, and support staff. Shuttered libraries. Less money for research and travel and books. Caf�s replaced by vending machines. Junior-varsity sports teams downgraded to clubs. No raises. No bonuses. No fresh coats of paint or new carpets. Overflowing trash cans.

The recession has been hard on most Americans. We know that. At Harvard, however, adjusting to the end of the gilded age, the champagne age, is proving especially wrenching: the university�s endowment has collapsed, donations are down, budgets are overstretched. With so many enormous fixed costs�and with much of its endowment restricted by the narrowly defined wishes of donors�there�s almost no room left to maneuver.

So I guess that Gates sees the writing on the wall and is setting about to increase his exposure in hopes of following his buddy Cornel West to some other cushy spot in academia. West was the guy who was ushered out of Harvard by President Larry Summers when Summers suggested that he cut back on his extra curricular activities and get back to teaching and writing. West's reaction was to say: Harvard Picked on 'Wrong Negro' and resign.