5 Years Later, NYT Still Piling on Lawrence Summers for Remarks About Women in Science

The politically correct New York Times just can't forgive former Harvard President Lawrence Summers for raising a controversial academic theory in an academic environment. Saturday's story by Tamar Lewin was basically a snapshot of how wonderfully feminist Harvard has become since Summers left the school under fire after suggesting [1] at a January 2005 National Board of Economic Research conference on diversity that "intrinsic aptitude" mighty partially explain why there were fewer women in science and math professions.

The Times obsessed over Summers remarks in 2005, far more disturbed over Summers' comments [2] than they were about college professor Ward Churchill referring to the victims of 9-11 as "little Eichmanns."

Thankfully, "Harvard...is a different place" now, according to Lewin's story, "Women Making Gains On Faculty at Harvard [3]." (As it the Ivy League campus was overrun by sexist conservative troglodytes before Summers' departure.)

Five years after Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard University, suggested that innate differences might explain why women are less successful in science and math careers than men, Harvard is, in some ways, a different place.

Professors can get up to $20,000 to help pay for child care, there are new programs to encourage young women to pursue science and research careers, and seven of the 16 members of Harvard's Council of Deans are now women.

"This is not your father's Harvard," said Martha Minow, dean of the law school.

In the furor over his remarks, Dr. Summers - now the senior economic adviser to President Obama - resigned and was replaced by Drew Gilpin Faust, the first woman to lead the university.

....

In his now-infamous remarks, at a conference in January 2005, Dr. Summers said "there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude," which he said are reinforced by "lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination."