But, Freeman adds, “there is zero evidence of any of this being innate. I’m sure he wished that he said another word,” than “intrinsic aptitude.”

Many academics objected to Summers’ downplay of claims of discrimination which they say disregard decades of research.

In a March panel, several female professors sharply criticized Summers’ arguments, weighing the merit of claims of social prejudices and biases that may impede women from reaching many tenured positions in top universities over those of innate gender differences in the sciences.

Summers “ignores the impediments to women’s progress posed by long-standing patterns of prejudice, unwelcoming environments, and unequal resources: factors that have been documented by a wealth of research over many years,” Berkman Professor of Psychology Elizabeth S. Spelke ’71 wrote in an e-mail to The Crimson in February.

But others cautioned against dismissal of other evidence that may support Summers’ remarks.

“There’s not 100 percent certainty in any of the claims, but they are reasonable given what we know in the literature,” Johnstone Family Professor of Psychology Steven Pinker, whose book “The Blank Slate” provided some of the basis for Summers’ emphasis on “intrinsic aptitude” in his remarks, said in March.

THE TRANSCRIPT, THE APOLOGY

On Jan. 19, two days after his remarks hit the national newsstands, Summers issued an apology in an open letter to the Harvard community.

“I was wrong to have spoken in a way that has resulted in an unintended signal of discouragement to talented girls and women,” he wrote. “As a university president, I consider nothing more important than helping to create an environment, at Harvard and beyond, in which every one of us can pursue our intellectual passions and realize our aspirations to the fullest possible extent.”

During the next month, tension between the president and the Faculty grew, culminating in a confrontation at the Feb. 15 meeting of the full Faculty, where professors assailed Summers for, among other things, tarnishing Harvard’s public reputation with his controversial remarks.

“We do not fear open give-and-take about anything you might have said,” Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology Theda Skocpol told Summers at the Faculty meeting, accusing him of “wrapping [himself] in the mantle of academic freedom” in refusing to release the transcript immediately after his remarks sparked a media frenzy.

Two days after the Faculty meeting and over a month after the NBER speech, Summers bowed to faculty pressure and released the transcript of his remarks, along with a letter of apology to the Faculty. “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.

After issuing his apology, Summers also met with female professors and disavowed his earlier suggestion that “intrinsic aptitude” may account for the underrepresentation of women on elite science faculties. But the damage was done.

“Probably the big mistake that was made by the University was in not immediately releasing the transcript,” Freeman says. If Summers had released the transcript earlier, Freeman conjectures, “it would’ve ended all kinds of silly rumors. And the rumors reached all kinds of people.”

By the time the transcript was released, Freeman says, professors already “got into a position where if you didn’t like him and you were attacking him on this, then somehow you were looking for support for your dislike. That was the problem.”