Cut and Run, or Stay and Fight?
David J. Armor, George Mason University

Reflecting on the controversy over Harvard President Larry Summers's comments about women in the sciences, it's hard to decide which is the larger issue: Summers's explanations of underrepresentation or the behavior of biologist Nancy Hopkins, whose statements that she "couldn't breathe" and had to leave the room set off a media frenzy.

Whatever the merits of Summers's arguments, the behavior of Hopkins is hard to defend. As a scientist who disagreed with a speaker, she should have stood her ground and argued her case. Her behavior belies her motives and suggests she did not have the courage of her convictions. Did she feel physically ill because of what Summers said, or because she realized that she did not have the facts or the gumption to go toe to toe with Summers? Losing an argument with Summers could be especially embarrassing for someone at the center of a dubious discrimination complaint at MIT several years ago.

Having heard her comments about Summers on the Today Show, I think the latter is more likely. Her "analysis" was that women are underrepresented in certain professions because of attitudes and "bias" like that shown by President Summers. Clearly, this type of shallow analysis would not have a chance in that room full of academics. But it makes good copy for the media, who relish wallowing in emotional, ad hoc arguments devoid of substance.

If she had done her homework, like a good scientist, there would be any number of arguments she could have made to challenge Summers on factual grounds. [Note] She might have explained that while women are still underrepresented in many of the sciences, in the past 35 years there have been huge gains in Doctoral degrees awarded to women in all sciences: from .3 to 16 percent in Engineering, from 6 to 21 percent in Math and Computing, from 4 to 25 percent in Physical Sciences, and from 12 to 43 percent in Biology and Agriculture. Moreover, women now earn more than half of all Bachelor degrees in science and engineering.

She might have noted, further, that data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) show that while there is still a gender gap in science scores of high school seniors, women have closed the gap from 17 points in 1973 to just 8 points in 2000. Finally, she could have pointed out that while men do outnumber women at the higher reaches of the NAEP math scores for seniors (3 percent advanced for men to 1 percent advanced for women) there are substantial numbers of women with sufficient mathematical ability to pursue careers in the sciences (as the degree data demonstrate).

Although these facts do not refute the theory of innate differences, which was the most controversial comment Summers made, they go a long way toward diminishing its weight. In the aftermath, he has said that this remark was misunderstood; he was only offering a hypothesis advanced by others and not his own belief. Had Hopkins stayed and presented some of these facts, rather than cut and run, perhaps Summers, being respectful of research, would have found some common ground with her.

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