Crimson-Faced

I'm operating under the assumption that one still needs to be smart to be the president of Harvard University. That's why I was really surprised to see the dust-up over President Summers' recent remarks concerning gender differences representation in academic positions in science and mathematics.

It's not that I have any basis for commenting on Summers including an "innate abilities" hypothesis in his list of possible causes for the representation differences. I don't.

What I'm amazed by is his refusal to provide a transcript of his remarks (apparently, the official position is that he was speaking from notes and therefore an official trascript does not exist), or a video/audio tape of the speech (does one of these not exist, either?)

I always fear arrogance when I hear a person in a position of power to make a statement like this? Why arrogance? Because Summers doesn't provide the kind of transparency to what he actually said that would allow others to make up their own minds concerning whether or not it is reasonable to conclude that his remarks have been "misconstrued."

Come on. Let fair-minded people see what you said and make up their own minds. Don't just tell us that you've been unfairly defamed.

TrueTalk is easy to recognize if you just give us a chance to do so for ourselves.

Comments

[Yvonne DiVita]

Unfairly defamed? Maybe. You make a good point about letting the public SEE his remarks in context. However, as a woman who is not a numbers person, but is a science person, in addition to being a writer, I must shrug off his silliness, as I often shrug off similar assumptions about my gender. Even though I don't get along with numbers...and I like science but struggle with it...I have produced 2 daughters who would easily outshine Summers. One is studying to be a CPA, and one is working on her PhD in Epidemiology. So there.

[Tom Guarriello]

Good to hear from you, Yvonne.

I've got a couple of pretty smart daughters as well, both of whom can find their way around a spreadsheet or an equation.

Again, though, I'm agnostic on his theoretical premise, which is the stuff of science. But he's gotta loosen up and give folks the opportunity to read (or better yet, see or hear) what he had to say and how he said it.