The president of Harvard University has provoked a furore by arguing that men outperform women in maths and sciences because of biological difference, and discrimination is no longer a career barrier for female academics.
Lawrence Summers, a career economist who served as treasury secretary under President Clinton, has a reputation for outspokenness. His tenure at Harvard has been marked by clashes with African-American staff and leftwing intellectuals, and complaints about a fall in the hiring of women.
He made his remarks at a private conference on the position of women and minorities in science and engineering, hosted by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In a lengthy address delivered without notes, Dr Summers offered three explanations for the shortage of women in senior posts in science and engineering, starting with their reluctance to work long hours because of childcare responsibilities.
He went on to argue that boys outperform girls on high school science and maths scores because of genetic difference. "Research in behavioural genetics is showing that things people previously attributed to socialisation weren't due to socialisation after all," he told the Boston Globe yesterday.
As an example, Dr Summers told the conference about giving his daughter two trucks. She treated them like dolls, and named them mummy and daddy trucks, he said.
Oh, so THAT'S the scientific basis for this bullshit theory. Ok, just so my tiny female brain can understand the rigorously developed scientific basis for this crap.
Dr Summers also played down the impact of sex bias in appointments to academic institutions.
He said: "The real issue is the overall size of the pool, and it's less clear how much the size of the pool was held down by discrimination."
At least half of his audience comprised women, several said they found the remarks offensive and one walked out.
"It was really shocking to hear the president of Harvard make statements like that," said Denice Denton, who is about to become president of the University of California at Santa Cruz.
Others said Dr Summers's comments were depressingly familiar. "I have heard men make comments like this my entire life and quite honestly if I had listened to them I would never have done anything," said Donna Nelson, a chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma.
A Harvard spokeswoman declined to comment yesterday, or to release the transcript of Dr Summers's remarks. Richard Freeman, who invited the Harvard president to speak at the conference, said Dr Summers's comments were intended to provoke debate, and some women over-reacted.
"Some people took offence because they were very sensitive," said Dr Freeman, an economist at Harvard and the London School of Economics. "It does not seem to me insane to think that men and women have biological differences."
During Dr Summers's presidency, the number of tenured jobs offered to women has fallen from 36% to 13%. Last year, only four of 32 tenured job openings were offered to women.
I guess the "pool" of qualified women dropped by two-thirds in the three years this lizard brain has been at Harvard? Or is my tiny biologically-impaired brain not understanding this really hard math thing?
Prick.
I've dealt with pigs like this guy all my life & I'm sick to death of it. He's the Al Campanis of our decade. Remember poor old Al Campanis saying on national TV that blacks didn't "have the necessaries" to be major league baseball managers? He was out on his keaster the next day. Lawrence Summers should be removed from his job immediately. Does Harvard have any integrity? Probably not. All alumni should withhold all contributions until this asshole has a new job. I'm sure the Bush Administration could find a place for this neanderthal.
I'm with Nancy Hopkins on this one:
Harvard Chief Defends His Talk on Women
By SAM DILLON
Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who once led an investigation of sex discrimination there that led to changes in hiring and promotion, walked out midway through Dr. Summers's remarks.
"When he started talking about innate differences in aptitude between men and women, I just couldn't breathe because this kind of bias makes me physically ill," Dr. Hopkins said. "Let's not forget that people used to say that women couldn't drive an automobile."
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