Summers releases debated transcript
Facing mounting pressure from critics on campus, Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers gave in yesterday to professors who demanded that he release the transcript of controversial remarks he made on women in science at an economics conference last month.
In a letter to the faculty explaining why he released the transcript after refusing to do so for more than a month, Summers implied he does not plan to concede to his fiercest critics, who want him to resign. He also received crucial support from Harvard's governing corporation yesterday.
Still, Summers acknowledged that the transcript, in which he talked about the ''intrinsic aptitude" of men and women, may prove damaging to him.
''The issue of gender difference is far more complex than comes through in my comments, and my remarks about variability [in the ability of men and women] went beyond what the research has established," he wrote in his most detailed admission yet of errors he made in a Jan. 14 presentation to a National Bureau of Economic Research meeting.
He also agreed with professors who have said the public debate about what he said has sparked a backlash against his critics, who say that they have been portrayed as blinded by political correctness.
''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," he wrote. ''I especially regret the backlash directed against individuals who have taken issue with aspects of what I said."
Summers's remarks led to an outpouring of deeper faculty grievances over his leadership style and a confrontational meeting Tuesday at which several professors openly questioned how he could continue as president.
Many of them demanded the transcript, including the two professors chairing the task forces on women that Summers established after his remarks caused controversy.
Since then, talk among professors about scheduling a vote of no confidence has increased. But yesterday, the Harvard Corporation, which would have the power to fire Summers, broke a long silence and released a letter supporting him.
''We know him as someone very much determined to learn from experience, to encourage discussion and debate, and to help Harvard pursue academic excellence in all of its many forms," wrote James R. Houghton, the senior member of the corporation, who also said ''we take seriously the views expressed at Tuesday's meeting and recognize their intensity."
The transcript of almost 6,900 words largely confirms what was already known about Summers's remarks. Though the words ''innate ability," recalled by several participants, never appear, the same idea comes across.
The transcript makes clear that he said he was trying to be provocative and offering hypotheses, not proven facts.
He used the word provoke or provocation four times, and the word guess eight times.
But at the same time, he also used expressions such as ''my own view" that left the impression he believed his guesses had validity.
Summers offered three hypotheses, in descending order of importance, for the underrepresentation of women in science and engineering at top universities and research institution.
Summing them up, he said, ''My best guess, to provoke you . . . is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity.
''In the special case of science and engineering," he continued, ''there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination."
He also made it clear he knew he was bucking conventional wisdom, saying he wanted to offer hypotheses ''without seeing this through the kind of judgmental tendency that inevitably is connected with all our common goals of equality."
People on all sides of the debate applauded Summers's decision to finally make the transcript available.
''I am really happy he responded right away to our request and really happy to see in his letter to faculty that he regrets the backlash," said Barbara J. Grosz, the chairwoman of the task force on women in science and engineering who had called for the transcript to be released. She had not yet had a chance to read it.
Beyond that, some Summers critics found the transcript more upsetting than they had expected, and some defenders found it more impressive.
''It really did seem to be more his point of view and less him raising questions than I had expected," said physics professor Lisa Randall. ''It could be that is his argumentation style, to put something out there and wait for people to contradict him. But those are damaging beliefs."
Randall called the transcript disappointing, but said she was somewhat heartened by Summers's letter to the faculty, in which he said his remarks ''substantially understated the impact of socialization and discrimination, including implicit attitudes."
''One thing that's worrisome is that people from the outside think that those things are the reality, but that he had to change his mind only" to appease faculty, she said.
Steven Pinker, a Harvard psychology professor, said of Summers's address, ''It was very nondogmatic. I thought it was masterly." Summers drew on Pinker's work in his talk, though Pinker was never mentioned by name. ''All his claims were well supported in the scientific literature," Pinker said.
Others said that seeing the transcript clarified for them how wrong Summers was.
''I disagree point for point," said developmental psychology professor Elizabeth Spelke. ''There is not a shred of evidence for the biological factor, based both on my own research and my reading of other people's research."
In his comments on the differences between the abilities of men and women, Summers offered a calculation based on research presented at the conference, arguing that if half as many women as men score in the top 5 percent of 12th-grade math and science tests, then far fewer women will rise to the highest level of math and science.
''If my reading of the data is right -- it's something people can argue about . . . then whatever the set of attributes are that are precisely defined to correlate with being an aeronautical engineer at MIT or being a chemist at Berkeley," there will be more men than women with those attributes.
David Mumford, a mathematician at Brown University, said Summers's mathematical analysis was simply wrong, ''like thinking the earth is flat and measuring geography with straight lines."
''These are early 20th century models, and people know they are just not adequate to explore the complexities of things like intelligence," said Mumford, former president of the International Mathematical Union.
Many professors were still digesting the document yesterday and it was unclear how it would affect the larger debate over Summers's leadership. But Summers, who faces an emergency faculty meeting Tuesday, indicated in yesterday's letter that he intends to keep his job.
''Difficult as our most recent meeting was, I appreciate the honesty and recognize the intensity of the concerns expressed," he wrote. ''This university faces a crucial set of opportunities and challenges, and I am committed to working together with this faculty [of arts and sciences] and the other faculties to set and achieve common goals."
Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com. 