by buellerbueller | 2025-10-29 13:12:44+00:00
And yet:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Summers]

In January 2005, at a Conference on Diversifying the Science & Engineering Workforce sponsored by the National Bureau of Economic Research, Larry Summers sparked controversy with his discussion of why women may have been underrepresented "in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions". The conference was designed to be off-the-record so that participants could speak candidly without fear of public misunderstanding or disclosure later.[42]

Summers had prefaced his talk, saying he was adopting an "entirely positive, rather than normative approach" and that his remarks were intended to be an "attempt at provocation".[43]

Summers then began by identifying three hypotheses for the higher proportion of men in high-end science and engineering positions:

The high-powered job hypothesis Different availability of aptitude at the high end Different socialization and patterns of discrimination in a search[43] The second hypothesis, the generally greater variability among men (compared to women) in tests of cognitive abilities,[44][45][46] leading to proportionally more males than females at both the lower and upper tails of the test score distributions, caused the most controversy. In his discussion of this hypothesis, Summers said that "even small differences in the standard deviation [between genders] will translate into very large differences in the available pool substantially out [from the mean]".[43] Summers referenced research that implied differences between the standard deviations of males and females in the top 5% of twelfth graders under various tests. He then went on to argue that, if this research were to be accepted, then "whatever the set of attributes ... that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley ... are probably different in their standard deviations as well".[43]

Summers then concluded his discussion of the three hypotheses by saying:

So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination. I would like nothing better than to be proved wrong, because I would like nothing better than for these problems to be addressable simply by everybody understanding what they are, and working very hard to address them.[43]

Summers then went on to discuss approaches to remedying the shortage of women in high-end science and engineering positions.

This lunch-time talk drew accusations of sexism and careless scholarship, and an intense negative response followed, both nationally and at Harvard.[47] Summers apologized repeatedly.[48] Nevertheless, the controversy is speculated to have contributed to his resigning his position as president of Harvard University the following year, as well as costing Summers the job of Treasury Secretary in Obama's administration.[49]

Summers's protégée Sheryl Sandberg has defended him, saying that "Larry has been a true advocate for women throughout his career" at the World Bank and Treasury. Referring to the lunch talk, Sandberg said, "What few seem to note is that it is remarkable that he was giving the speech in the first place – that he cared enough about women's careers and their trajectory in the fields of math and science to proactively analyze the issues and talk about what was going wrong".[50]

In 2016, remarking upon political correctness in institutions of higher education, Summers said:

There is a great deal of absurd political correctness. Now, I'm somebody who believes very strongly in diversity, who resists racism in all of its many incarnations, who thinks that there is a great deal that's unjust in American society that needs to be combated, but it seems to be that there is a kind of creeping totalitarianism in terms of what kind of ideas are acceptable and are debatable on college campuses.[51]

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> If you can't figure out how to call someone by their own name, go pack boxes in a warehouse for a living.

This disdain does more harm than good to your political goals, which makes me have to consider the proposition that you are more interested in appearing progressive than achieving progressive goals.