OPINION

Published Monday, January 31, 2005
Op-Ed: Put the Provocative Presidency to Productive Use
By Becky Branting

In a formal statement to the Harvard community, University President Larry Summers wrote, “I do not believe that girls are intellectually less able than boys, or that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of science.” 

Frankly, I was starting to wonder; a week had gone by since he allegedly stated that more research should be conducted before biology can be ruled out as a cause for women’s under representation in math and science.  Is more biological research on ethnic minorities needed to explain their under representation as well?  While Summers’ comments have put my work researching gender and race equity in math, science, technology and engineering in the spotlight, Summers’ attempt to be “provocative” showed just how uninformed he is on the subjects of race and gender.

Research has been conducted, by biologists, sociologists and educators.   In the 1980s, both the British Royal Society and the United States’ National Research Council dismissed the possibility that a sex linked “math gene” was to blame for women’s under representation in math and science.   Educational data shows that since the 1970s, girls’ performance in math and science has dramatically improved—at a rate far too rapid to be attributed to evolution and coincidentally occurring during the modern age of feminism. 

If Summers truly wanted to be provocative and debate equity in math and science, he would have asked whether our educational system favors boys over girls in these subjects.  He would have asked if inequalities in educational funding mean fewer advanced math courses are available to inner-city students than their suburban peers.  He would have questioned an inflexible tenure system based on traditional sex roles that discriminates against women.

President Summers’ comments and lack of insight come as no surprise to this Ed School graduate.  I selected Harvard for its Gender Studies program, to which I applied in 2003.  After arriving in the fall to find the program dismantled, I joined three other students in an effort to bring greater awareness of sex and gender issues to Harvard.  We struggled to create a spring-semester gender module and make filling the vacant Graham chair, formerly occupied by Carol Gilligan, a priority.

While Summers says he has “learned a great deal from all that I have heard in the last few days,” I wonder if he’s really listened.  Under Summers’ leadership, there has been an exodus of women and minority professors from Harvard to other universities.  As a result, minority and female students like me have decided to pursue their doctoral degrees and subsequent teaching positions at far more progressive institutions.

Becky Branting, a research associate with Campbell-Kibler Associates, received her Ed.M. in 2004 .