Cool hand Larry

Larry Summers has undertaken good faith efforts to show that he’s got his mind right after his recent discussion of the possible sex-based differences between men and women. It turns out that what we had here was failure to communicate:

Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers has announced the establishment of two University-wide task forces to develop concrete proposals to reduce barriers to the advancement of women faculty at Harvard and in academic careers more broadly. The effort will be led by Summers, Drew Gilpin Faust, Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Lincoln Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, and Provost Steven E. Hyman. The Task Force on Women Faculty will be chaired by Evelynn Hammonds, Professor of the History of Science and of African and African-American Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, while the Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering will be chaired by Barbara J. Grosz, Higgins Professor of Natural Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences and Dean of Science at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Don’t miss the Harvard University Gazette announcement with the photo display of the wardens: “Harvard University announces Task Forces on Women Faculty and Women in Science and Engineering.” I can hear the Captain now: “You going to get used to wearing them chains after a while, Larry. Don’t you never stop listening to them clinking.” (Thanks to reader Niel Morgan, who writes that the block quote from the Harvard Monthly electronic newsletter “was received by Harvard grads this a.m.”)