THE president of Harvard University sparked a bitter row yesterday by suggesting that fewer women succeed in the sciences and maths because of innate differences between the sexes.

Lawrence Summers also questioned the extent of discrimination in keeping women scientists and engineers from advancing at universities.

His comments, made at the National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Harvard, America’s most respected university, is based, prompted a woman delegate to walk out in protest. Several others complained.

Nancy Hopkins, a biologist at the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Harvard graduate, left when Mr Summers illustrated his theme by referring to one of his daughters, who as a child was given two lorries in an effort at gender-neutral upbringing. Yet, he said, she named them “daddy truck” and “baby truck”, as if they were dolls.

Ms Hopkins said: “It is so upsetting that all these brilliant young women (at Harvard) are being led by a man who views them this way.”

Five other participants in the conference also said that they had been offended by the president’s comments.

Mr Summers told the Boston Globe that he was discussing hypotheses based on the scholarly work assembled for the conference — not expressing his own views. He declined to provide a tape or transcript of his remarks and said that people “would prefer to believe” the differences in performance between the sexes were because of social factors, “but these are things that need to be studied”.

Mr Summers already faced criticism because the number of senior job offers to women at Harvard has dropped in his three years as president. He has promised to work on that problem.

Times Recommends

• Heed the great stabiliser’s words
• How a voice for everyone led to stalemate
• Bakara market becomes a slaughterhouse