After five years, the committee released its ground-breaking report, finding discrimination in resources ranging from salary to office size.

But not everyone supported the report’s findings.  University of Alaska psychologist Judith S. Kleinfeld compiled her own study, in which she described the MIT report as a “political manifesto masquerading as science.” And The Wall Street Journal editorial page called it “junk science.”

MIT Professor Mary C. Potter, who served on the committee with Hopkins, says that Hopkins’ commitment to the issue of discrimination has allowed her to advocate on behalf of her female colleagues while furthering her scientific career.

“She can be laid back on particular occasions, but by and large she is really intensely involved in things,” Potter says. “She is really strongly committed, so when she speaks for herself, she speaks with enormous conviction.”

WELCOMING DEBATE

For Hopkins, what constitutes “science” in studies of gender differences is an open question—one that has been answered with both “discouraging” arguments and “meaningful” debate.

Hopkins says she saw Summers’ remarks at the conference as unconstructive in the context of psychological research.

“When he came into this conference, we thought he was coming to tell us what Harvard was doing about this issue. But he chose instead to give his personal views…and it’s not really his field,” she says. “He wasn’t presenting ideas that were up for discussion, and he didn’t attend the meeting where experts spoke.”

Summers says the views he presented were “a purely academic exploration of hypotheses.”

Hopkins says she believes that Summers’ remarks will negatively affect young women.

“If you tell people that their probability of reaching the sky is very low, then, as we know from research in this area, that probability will be lower,” she says.

Hopkins adds that some of the research Summers cited in his remarks—from Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker—does not represent the most current information in the field.

“Steven Pinker is a popularizer of this particular area I believe,” Hopkins says. “Some people do real research and some people popularize the discoveries of other people.”

She cites several female psychologists, including Cabot Professor of Social Ethics Mahzarin Banaji and Professor of Psychology Elizabeth Spelke, whose research has demonstrated that gender variations are too small to explain the differences in men’s and women’s success in the sciences.

“Currently, the best research that exists has ruled out gender differences as explaining the under-representation of women,” Hopkins says.

Her interest in the genetics of behavior has led Hopkins to think about doing research on gender differences.

“I’m actually thinking of changing fields to work on this myself,” she says.

“It’s something I’ve spent much of my life thinking about….Do I think this should be investigated?  Absolutely.”

—Staff writer Sara E. Polsky can be reached at polsky@fas.harvard.edu.