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Dear Physics & Astronomy Community: This letter is in response to a uniformed talk given last week by Professor Alessadro Strumia at CERN. If you are not aware of the incident you can see a summary here [1, https://tinyurl.com/y7eyg82r].  The talk has received such coverage that the undersigned departmental leadership felt compelled to address the presentation directly. Professor Strumia suggested that men were over-represented in physics because of their inherent “interest and ability.”  He showed some statistics on published paper counts and citations, concluding that physics as a field suffers from no sexism against women because “smarter people are less affected…

By Sarah Brown July 26, 2018 Produced by Carmen Mendoza and Julia Schmalz Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Tuesday accused colleges of creating “a generation of sanctimonious, sensitive, supercilious snowflakes.” Sure, when it comes to handling free-speech scuffles, colleges have room to improve, said Howard A. Gillman, chancellor of the University of California at Irvine and a noted First Amendment scholar, in a Chronicle interview. But that’s not the best way to think about the issue, he said. Gillman discussed ways colleges can “improve the quality of the conversation” about free expression. He also highlighted the security costs associated with…

Originally posted on June 12, 2018. Earlier today the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, held an important public release of a report titled Sexual Harassment of Women: Climate, Culture, and Consequences in Academic Sciences, Engineering and Medicine. If you were unable to view the webcast, I am providing you with a link to view the webinar when it is released (please sign up for updates to receive the NAS notice at: http://sites.nationalacademies.org/SHStudy/index.htm) and to read the free PDF at: http://nap.edu/24994. Finally, I hope that you will plan to join us at our upcoming Institute for Equity, Diversity, and…