Kelly in Kansas

And I think some of it is the reduction of important issues to sound bites. I don't know anyone (and I teach on a particularly liberal campus) who supports Churchill's comments -- only people who think he has the right to say them. Most of my colleagues think he's a less-than-well-qualified ass -- but one who has tenure and did not make the comments in the context of his own classroom.

Summers, on the other hand, didn't just say men and women might be different. Most of us accept that, too. But the context in which he said it made it pretty clear that there is a problem with how he deals with gender difference at Harvard. What he said indicated that he understood some of the problems inherent in academia, and that he was not about to do anything at Harvard to change things. That's a damned shame, because if Harvard were to lead a campaign to allow the lives of all Science faculty more opportunities for balance, other institutions might follow. No one, male or female, should have to choose between a successful career and a life.