Harvard president faces faculty revolt over sexism claims

[emad]

Times
From James Bone in New York



THE president of Harvard University is under attack from his academic colleagues that could force him from his job after he suggested that women may be not as good as men at mathematics and science.

Lawrence Summers, who was Treasury Secretary to President Clinton, was buffeted by complaints about his leadership at an angry faculty meeting on Tuesday and could face a confidence vote next week.

Many professors at the Ivy League school were outraged by Dr Summers’s suggestion, at an academic seminar last month, that “innate differences” may be the reason why fewer women than men teach mathematics and science there.

More than 250 professors crowded University Hall on Tuesday for what old hands described as the most heated staff meeting since the Vietnam War. It was closed to the press except for The Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper, and professors recounted their remarks to reporters outside.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,11069-1487532,00.html

[pmbryant]

1. He certainly deserves it

Good to hear that this isn't just going to blow over.

--Peter