To the Editor:
I am writing to correct a number of inaccuracies in an article published on May 16 about my talk sponsored by the Center for Women and Gender ("Paur questions stigmas, discusses Summers flap," May 16). The greatest idea that I hoped listeners would take away was the importance and usefulness of objectivity and careful evaluation of evidence, and thus I find these inaccuracies particularly disappointing.
Contrary to the article's reporting, my claim is that Summers's speculation about intrinsic aptitude differences between the sexes has little basis in scientific evidence -- not that his assertions are contradicted by test score data. I would also like to clarify that: 1) I presented published data of other researchers, but did not, as suggested by the article, conduct my own studies of international test scores. 2) Harvard is not (as suggested) the only Ivy League school with no tenured women in its math department. Yale, for example, also fits this description, according to its math department web page. 3) I discussed the drop in the percent of tenure offers made to women by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences under Larry Summers -- not, as reported, the "steady decrease in the number of female faculty in the math department at Harvard." The number of female senior faculty in the Harvard math department has remained a constant zero. 4) I commented that the Harvard math department is generally unfriendly and that this may be an obstacle in hiring women, not that the department is unfriendly to women in particular, as was reported.
