Harvard University president and former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers created a firestorm earlier this month for suggesting that women have less innate scientific ability than men.

Summers initially defended his comments, maintaining he was merely suggesting that the role of discrimination and innate abilities of women and men in the sciences need further research and apologized only for a "misunderstanding."

However, after a flood of commentary and condemnation in the media and the academic community, Summers reversed course last week in an open-letter saying "I did not say, and I do not believe, that girls are intellectually less able than boys, or that women lack the ability to succeed at the highest levels of science. As the careers of a great many distinguished women scientists make plain, the human potential to excel in science is not somehow the province of one gender or another."

Summers is also now developing a set of initiatives to bolster the status of women within Harvard where they continue to face a greater challenge getting tenured positions.

* Nancy Hopkins, Professor of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She walked out in protest of Larry Summers speech.
* David Targan, Dean of Science Programs at Brown University in Rhode Island.

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