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MIT Names First Female President
wintermute1000 writes "According to CNN, MIT has just named its first female president. Along with other recent programs' efforts to get more women involved in the MIT community, is this a step in the right direction for the historically gender-biased institution?"
MIT isn't promoting the fact that she is the first woman, the press is.
n ou ncement.html
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/president-an
From the announcement article it sounds like she was selected because she was best for the job overall. Not surprised at how the press it promoting it though.
A list of her recent publications can be read here.
From the page:
The main focus of our work is to bring biochemical and molecular biological techniques to the classical anatomical analysis of mammalian CNS development.
CNS being Central Nervous System, IIRC.
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MIT isn't promoting the fact that she is the first woman, the press is.
Right - the article somehow makes it sound like this is a result of quota hiring, but there's nothing to suggest that.
Further note, grandparent post, that the "other recent programs' efforts" mentioned in the article involve getting girls in high school to participate in activities (and classes) related to computer science, electrical engineering, and math. This is far from some sort of quota program, and it seems to me to be a very sensible approach: if the problem is that too many girls are either shooed away from these fields or have never thought that they were an option, then give them a chance to see what it's all about, then decide for themselves.
The kind of policy you are describing was declared unconstitutional about 25 years ago. Companies are NOT supposed to use any kind of quota system. They also are not allowed to use a literal point system for race. The idea of affermitive action is that all other things being equal (ie if given qualifications, people skills, etc, you'd probibly have to resort to coin tossing), you give the job to the person who is in the minority group. The is to offset the fact that often the white male would be given the job in a "they're both equally qualified".