A Plea For Complexity In A World That Demands It

To the editors:



Ever since Lawrence Summers expressed the view that women are underrepresented in the academic world because of innate inability rather than prejudice (“Faculty Uproar Led to Ouster,” news, Feb. 22), I’ve been asking my colleagues whether they agree. To my surprise, many agree that gender-based discrimination is largely past, even when learning of studies that unequivocally reveal its persistence. It seems that the tendency to believe in a fair world is a powerful one, with the ability to perceive discrimination coming only slowly after a person has experienced enough prejudice to cause harm or impede success. This may help explain why so many highly successful people, like Summers, are not sensitive to the tremendous obstacle that prejudice still poses for women.

So what lessons have we learned in the aftermath of Summers’ comments? First, speech that categorizes people based on race, religion, or gender as innately inferior—or possibly innately inferior—is deeply harmful, indecent, and always wrong. Each of us is gifted with a complexity of magnificent abilities and drives, all molded by our genes and our experiences. Scientists cannot begin to explain why some people are successful in a chosen career whereas others are not. Second, the battle for gender equity is far from over. University presidents, more than anyone, have a special responsibility to think deeply about how best to prepare their students to advance in a prejudiced world. I hope that an important criterion in selecting Harvard’s next president will be sensitivity to this issue.



BEN A. BARRES

Stanford, Calif.

March 1, 2006



The writer is professor of neurobiology at Stanford University School of Medicine.