Skip to main content
Article
Lawrence Summers at the NBER Conference: The Real Deal
Faculty Scholarship
  • Taunya Lovell Banks, University of Maryland School of Law
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2005
Keywords
  • gender bias,
  • racial privilege,
  • affirmative action
Abstract

This mini commentary is written in response to a public speech made by Lawrence Summers, then President of Harvard University in 2005 in which he asserted that the under-representation of women in science and engineering may be due in part to biological differences in abilities between women and men. This commentary argues that Summers' remarks constitute a brief against affirmative action for women stated so broadly that it easily encompasses objections to affirmative action for blacks and other non-white Americans. It concludes that our inability or unwillingness to make connections between gender bias and racial privilege helps to maintain a status quo dominated by affluent, white males, a situation that disadvantages us all.

Publication Citation
11 Cardozo Women's Law Journal 501 (2005).
Citation Information
Taunya Lovell Banks. "Lawrence Summers at the NBER Conference: The Real Deal" (2005)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/taunya_banks/28/