Lawrence Summer's NEBR Transcript

Well, read this. Seems of all the groups mentioned only the feminists flipped out.

I'm going to confine myself to addressing one portion of the problem, or of the challenge we're discussing, which is the issue of women's representation in tenured positions in science and engineering at top universities and research institutions, not because that's necessarily the most important problem or the most interesting problem, but because it's the only one of these problems that I've made an effort to think in a very serious way about. The other prefatory comment that I would make is that I am going to, until most of the way through, attempt to adopt an entirely positive, rather than normative approach, and just try to think about and offer some hypotheses as to why we observe what we observe without seeing this through the kind of judgmental tendency that inevitably is connected with all our common goals of equality. It is after all not the case that the role of women in science is the only example of a group that is significantly underrepresented in an important activity and whose underrepresentation contributes to a shortage of role models for others who are considering being in that group. To take a set of diverse examples, the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, which is an enormously high-paying profession in our society; that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association; and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture. These are all phenomena in which one observes underrepresentation, and I think it's important to try to think systematically and clinically about the reasons for underrepresentation. [Emphasis Mine]

Interesting isn't it? Catholics and Jews didn't roar about his statements. White men didn't say anything. (But who cares what they think those oppressor bastards.)

Note the emphasized section. He's speaking of looking at this from the results of observation not trying to make judgments related to it. From what I see he's talking about hypotheses, not personal beliefs.

Read it all yourself. Looks like someone should get some form of skin. Preferably thicker. And maybe some ears and a brain to go with it.