President Lawrence H. Summers walks through Harvard Yard near Lamont Library yesterday afternoon with Professor Michael J. Sandel. Summers released a transcript of his controversial remarks yesterday.
In a bow to mounting faculty pressure, University President Lawrence H. Summers yesterday released a transcript of his controversial remarks on women in science last month.
The nearly 7,000-word transcript generally confirms previous accounts of the speech, in which Summers suggested “issues of intrinsic aptitude” might be responsible for the underrepresentation of female scientists. In his remarks, Summers said he was deeply skeptical of discrimination as a possible cause of the phenomenon.
The transcript’s release came exactly one month after Summers’ remarks were first publicized and set off a barrage of faculty criticism that threatened the viability of his administration.
In a letter to the Faculty yesterday, Summers once again apologized for the speech, which came at a Jan. 14 conference at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).
“Though my NBER remarks were explicitly speculative, and noted that ‘I may be all wrong,’ I should have left such speculation to those more expert in the relevant fields,” Summers wrote.
Addressing his critics, whose piercing attacks at Tuesday’s Faculty meeting went well beyond his remarks on women in science, Summers said he was open to dissent on all fronts.
“In this University, people who disagree with me—or with anyone else—should and must feel free to say so,” Summers wrote.
James R. Houghton ’58, senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body, released his own letter to the Harvard community yesterday afternoon expressing confidence in Summers.
“We take seriously the views expressed at Tuesday’s meeting and recognize their intensity,” Houghton wrote. “President Summers has made plain to us that he is listening carefully to the concerns that have been expressed. We are confident of his ability to work constructively with the faculty and others to advance the goal that all of us share—ensuring that Harvard’s academic programs are as good as they can be, and that our community of faculty, students, and staff is as strong as it can be, now and in the future.”
The letter marked the first official public statement by the Corporation since the uproar over Summers’ remarks began. Houghton did not return phone calls seeking further comment last night.
Summers had for weeks resisted calls to release a tape or transcript of his remarks, saying the conference had been off the record.
As recently as Tuesday, when several professors renewed their calls for a release of the transcript, Summers said, “I have believed to date that it is not best to try to parse in detail a statement that was a set of informal remarks that were not even written out before they were delivered and were not intended to be quoted.”
The transcript’s release came in advance of a rare follow-up meeting of the Faculty on Tuesday in which professors are expected to voice further discontent with Summers’ leadership of the University.
While several of the president’s critics said yesterday they were pleased to see the transcript released, they said their concerns extended far beyond Summers’ comments on women in science.
Three Hypotheses
