Several women who participated in the conference said yesterday that they had been surprised or outraged by Dr. Summers's comments, and Denice D. Denton, the chancellor designate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, questioned Dr. Summers sharply during the conference, saying she needed to "speak truth to power."
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."
Since Larry was my former principal pal at fair Ha-Ha-Ha, this seems personal. So here's my public challenge: let's pit our wits, mano a womano, at some science test. I'll bet you my assets vs. yours that I can kick your ass at, say, building a robot that can deposit ping pong balls in a box or deriving number theory proofs. And then we'll proceed to the kitchen where I will bake macaroons that your fumbling XY mitts could never with a million years of targeted evolution come close to crafting.
The New York Times > National > Harvard Chief Defends His Talk on Women
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