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Aftermath of Gender Gap Remarks by Harvard President
Summers
On Friday, January 14, 2005, Harvard President Dr. Lawrence Summers
suggested that innate differences between men and women might be one reason
fewer women succeed in science and math careers. In addition, Summers
questioned how much of a role discrimination plays in the scarcity of
female professors in science and engineering at elite universities. His comments were made at an event
co-sponsored by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and The National Bureau of
Economic Research entitled “ Diversifying The Science & Engineering
Workforce: Women, Underrepresented Minorities, And Their S&E Careers In
Massachusetts”. His comments
have been refuted by many researchers and Dr. Summers has issued three
increasingly groveling apologies.
Here are his actual remarks and some
links to articles that appeared in response to his remarks.
This is a link to the actual text of Lawrence Summers’ remarks.
You can find a chronicle of the controversy after President Summers’ remarks on the web site of The Anita Borg Institute. There are also links to the apologies made by Dr. Summers. This is the most comprehensive listing of consequences of Dr. Summers’ remarks. I highly recommend it.
http://www.anitaborg.org/pressroom/pressreleases_05/responsesall.htm
The
Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Standing Committee on Women sent the
following letter to Summers on January 19, 2005.
http://www.boston.com/news/education/higher/articles/2005/01/19/harvard_womens_group_rips_summers
The
response of the Anita Borg Institute and over 100 senior scientists can be
found at
http://www.anitaborg.org/pressroom/pressreleases_05/responsesummers.htm
The
American Association of University Women has a press release at their
website,
www.aauw.org link to that story is at:
This site has references to AAUW research about gender discrimination in tenure, and to other research. The AAUW also has links to articles related to gender equity and women in science.
The
American Mathematical Society has issued a statement on the remarks and
speculations made by Mr. Lawrence Summers, President of
Harvard. The
statement can be found at:
http://www.ams.org/dynamic_archive/home-news.html
- summers-response
The
Committee on the Status of Women in Statistics wrote a letter to the NY
Times
about President Summersą remark.
A
copy of their letter is available on the CSWP web site
at
The
response of the Association for Women in Mathematics can be found
at
This
letter was sent to the NY times on January 28, 2005.
The
response of the Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute at
the University
of Wisconsin-Madison can be found on their web site
at
Unpublished Op Ed NY
Times
submission by Marybeth Shinn, Professor of Psychology at New York
University
ShinnResponse.pdf
Unpublished Op Ed submission to the Boston
Globe
by Marybeth Ruskai, Emeritus
Professor of Mathematics, University of Massachusetts-Lowell,
and Research Professor, Department of Mathematics, Tufts
University
NOW Calls for Resignation of Harvard University's
President
http://www.now.org/press/01-05/01-20-Harvard.html
Harvard
president criticized over comments
CNN,
Tuesday, January 18, 2005 Posted: 9:34 AM EST (1434 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/17/harvard.president.ap/
Derrick Z. Jackson had an insightful analysis in the Boston Globe on January 19, 2005. He mentions that Summers appears to have fixated on concepts in the book "The Bell Curve."
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/19/summerss_tortured_logic/
Posted
1/19/2005 8:56 PM Updated 1/20/2005 12:22
AM
Gender
disparity on display
By
Elizabeth Weise, USA TODAY
http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2005-01-19-summers_x.htm?csp=36
Brian
McGroy's column in the 1/21/2005 Boston Globe Friday (Brian is Mary
McGroy's
nephew)
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/01/21/chill_sets_in_at_harvard/
Summers Storm
By
Ruth Marcus,
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27819-2005Jan21.html
Op
Ed piece in 1/23/2005 Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/01/23/summers_is_right/
Letter to the Harvard Faculty from Lawrence Summers dated Feb. 17, 2005.
http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/facletter.html Furor Lingers as Harvard Chief Gives Details of Talk on Women
By PATRICK D. HEALY and SARA RIMER,
NY Times February 18, 2005
“ Are There Innate Cognitive Gender Differences ” by MaryBeth Ruskai
appeared in the American Journal of Physics, Vol 59, No. 1, January 1991.
A scanned copy of the her Guest Commentary can by found on the Studies
and Reports page of the Committee on the Status of Women in Physics.
http://www.aps.org/educ/cswp/women-links.cfm
A meta-analysis by J.S. Hyde, E. Fennema, and S. J. Lamon based on more
than 100 studies showed that gender differences are inconsistent and
small, with effect sizes
around d = 0.15. The reference is “ Gender differences in mathematics
performance: A meta-analysis, ” Psychological Bulletin, (1990)
107, 139 - 155. It can be downloaded at the URL below. http://www.plantpath.wisc.edu/CZA%20WS%20530/Hyde_et_al.'90.pdf Another meta-analysis of mental test scores from six studies that used national probability
samples was published by L.N. Hedges and A.
Nowell in 1995. They found that although average sex differences in science
achievement and vocational aptitude have been generally small and stable over time,
the test scores of males consistently have larger variance.
The differences appeared in 4 out of 6 studies and were quite small.
In tests of reading comprehension,
perceptual speed, and associative memory, females exhibited a slight
tendency to perform better. All of the effect sizes were relatively
small except for vocational aptitude (e.g. auto and shop
information).
All studies involved look only at late high school U.S. populations.
The reference is “ Sex differences in mental test
scores, variability, and numbers of high-scoring individuals, ”
Science (1995) 269, 41- 45.