Harvard University is spending some $50 million to recruit women and minorities for the faculty of one of the United States' most prestigious schools.
Harvard President Lawrence Summers, who has been under fire since comments in January regarding why there few women in science, said Monday he accepted the recommendations of two committees regarding the hiring and retention of women and minorities for Harvard's faculty.
Summers told a news conference the $50 million, to be spent over a 10-year period, would be used to establish a senior position to deal with diversity issues, improvement recruitment and salaries and mentoring younger members of the faculty.
"In spite of more than three decades of concern, Harvard has made only limited progress in its efforts to create a genuinely diverse faculty," the committees' report read.
"Women and minorities remain significantly underrepresented in relation not just to their proportions in the broader population but in comparison to their presence in the student body of Harvard's 10 schools."
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