The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

JIM LEHRER: Good evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. On the NewsHour tonight: The news of this day; then, a look at the man who's on his way to be the new prime minister of Iraq; a Jan Crawford Greenburg rundown on today's Supreme Court argument on land taking; and a discussion of the Harvard- ignited dispute over women in science.

NEWS SUMMARY

JIM LEHRER: Iraq moved closer to having a new prime minister today. The main Shiite political group in Iraq named its candidate. He is the interim Vice President Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Leaders of 38 Shiite parties chose him after rival candidate Ahmed Chalabi withdrew under pressure. The Shiite alliance won a narrow majority in the new parliament last month. But al-Jaafari still needs approval by Kurds and others in a coalition government. We'll have more on this story right after the News Summary. The U.S. Military announced today another U.S. Marine was killed in western Iraq on Monday. U.S. and Iraqi forces have been conducting raids on insurgents in several cities there. And in Baghdad today, a car bomb killed two Iraqi soldiers. President Bush won a pledge from NATO today to help train Iraqi security forces. The allies agreed to add about 60 more instructors in Baghdad. But France and Germany limited their assistance to training programs outside Iraq. Mr. Bush met with alliance leaders in Brussels, Belgium, on his European tour. He said he welcomed any offer.

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Every contribution matters. Twenty-six nations sitting around that table said it's important for NATO to be involved in Iraq. That's a strong statement. And NATO is involved in Iraq and NATO is doing a vital mission, which is to help an officer corps emerge. The truth is, in order for Iraq to be a secure country there has to be a chain of command that is effective and works.

JIM LEHRER: Also today, the president said the U.S. still opposes European plans to lift an arms embargo on China. He said that could tip the military balance in Asia. And he again brushed aside talk of using force to stop Iran's nuclear program. He said: "This notion that the United States is getting ready to attack Iran is simply ridiculous. Having said that, all options are on the table."

JIM LEHRER: A Virginia man was charged today with plotting to kill President Bush. Ahmed Omar Abu Ali allegedly discussed shooting the president or using a car bomb, in 2002 and 2003. Prosecutors said he joined an al-Qaida cell in 2001, while studying in Saudi Arabia. He's been in Saudi custody for nearly two years. Today, his lawyer claimed he'd been tortured there. A powerful earthquake in Iran today killed more than 400 people and injured at least 900. It was centered in a mountainous region, 600 miles southeast of Tehran. It had a magnitude of 6.4. We have a report narrated by Jonathan Miller of Independent Television News.

JONATHAN MILLER: It struck at 5:30 this morning before first light, after the first call to prayer, a cluster of 40 mountain villages around the epicenter devastated. In the worst-hit, entire adobe mud-brick neighborhoods shaken and crumbled to dust. Local commentary over Iranian TV pictures sparing us the sound of those grieving loved ones buried alive as they slept or as they prayed. Survivors huddled outside in the cold mountain rain, fearing aftershocks, and with good reason; there were more than 20. In the Farsi language, as in English, earthquakes are deemed acts of God. But for these deeply religious Shia Muslims, even the belief that god willed their catastrophe is cold comfort when homes and lives now lie shattered. "I've lost all my other family members," says Zahra, the injured child's mother. "My mother, my father, my brother. I don't know where the others are." Regional hospitals were overwhelmed, but local Red Crescent officials have turned down offers of help from abroad. Some emergency supplies were flown in this afternoon, but there will be no big international rescue mission. "It's under control," one official was quoted as saying. "This earthquake is manageable." In comparison with the big quake in the city of Bam just over a year ago, that's true. The remoteness of the region affected kept the numbers killed low.

JIM LEHRER: That quake in bam, in December 2003, killed 26,000 people. And it leveled parts of the city that had stood for 2,000 years. Back in this country today, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear a federal challenge to Oregon's assisted suicide law. It lets doctors prescribe fatal drugs for the terminally ill. The court refused to review its 1973 decision legalizing abortion. The appeal came from Norma McCorvey, the "Jane Doe" in Roe V. Wade. She now opposes abortion. And the Justices heard arguments over eminent domain. Residents in New London, Connecticut, claimed the city unfairly condemned their homes for commercial projects. We'll have more on the court later in the program. Skies cleared in parts of California today, but a powerful storm system left behind widespread damage and destruction. Jeffrey Kaye of KCET-Los Angeles has our report.

JEFFREY KAYE: California residents worked to clear wreckage today, after five days of severe storms. Violent weather caused mudslides, flooded roads, and at least six deaths, mostly in southern California. The dead include a 16-year-old girl who was killed yesterday when a boulder smashed into her bedroom, and a city engineer who fell into a giant sinkhole north of Los Angeles. Emergency workers managed to save three women trapped by mud in their home in Hacienda Heights to the southeast of Los Angeles. One was stuck waist-deep.

ED OSORIO, LA Fire Department: We had to get to her first, and had to use simple tools like buckets of mud to remove the mud around her to get her out. The situation was difficult because the mud kept on pouring down. It was very, very wet mud.

JEFFREY KAYE: Dozens of homes in the foothills around Los Angeles were evacuated because of mudslides, and residents in some areas covered saturated earth with plastic tarps, trying to prevent further damage. To the north, tornadoes touched down in the Sacramento area yesterday. The twisters uprooted trees and tore rooftops off houses.

GIRL: It was pretty scary. It was powerful, it was pretty powerful, and being in California we don't experience that, so I didn't know what to do.

JEFFREY KAYE: It's the second wave of severe weather to hit the state this year. Last month, mudslides in southern California killed ten people.

JIM LEHRER: The price of crude oil hit its highest level in more than three months today. It closed at more than $51 a barrel in New York trading. That was a gain of nearly three dollars, about 6 percent. Traders cited concerns about cold weather, the dollar, and OPEC's plans. Oil is 50 percent more expensive than a year ago. The surge in oil prices and weakness in the dollar hit Wall Street hard today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 174 points to close at 10,611. The NASDAQ fell 28 points to close at 2,030. That's it for the News Summary tonight. Now it's on to: A new leader for Iraq; eminent domain; and the women-in-science controversy.

FOCUS - LIKELY LEADER

JIM LEHRER: The man who will probably be the prime minister of Iraq. Kwame Holman begins with some background.

KWAME HOLMAN: A former family doctor, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, likely will be Iraq's first prime minister. Al-Jaafari was nominated by the coalition that won the most seats in the Jan. 30 election, the United Iraqi Alliance. His main competitor, Ahmed Chalabi, dropped his bid for the post earlier today.

AHMED CHALABI: The United Iraqi Alliance unanimously chose Dr. Ibrahim al-Jaafari to be the prime minister of Iraq. We decided that unity is more important than winning, and we proceeded in this direction, and I think it is a great result for Iraq and for the alliance.

KWAME HOLMAN: Today al-Jaafari took a hard line against insurgents.

IBRAHIM AL-JAAFARI (Translated): When affairs require us to use force for the interest of the country, we will use that, and if we see affairs going smoothly, we will not use force. And if those criminals insist on committing crimes, we will use force to deter them. There is no heavenly doctrine allowing such crimes to be committed. We should have deterrent force to stop such bloodshed.

KWAME HOLMAN: Ibrahim al-Jaafari is a Shiite and a member of the Dawa Party, one of Iraq's oldest Islamic Shiite movements. Saddam Hussein's regime crushed the party in a bloody campaign in the late 1970s. Al-Jaafari went into exile, first to Iran and then to Britain. After Hussein was ousted from power, al-Jaafari returned to Iraq, then to Britain. He became a member of the original governing council and served as its interim vice president.

JIM LEHRER: More on Iraq's new leader now, from Juan Cole, professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan; and Laith Kubba, senior program officer for the Middle East at the National Endowment for Democracy. Born in Iraq, he's now an American citizen.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Kubba, what do you believe is the most important thing we should know about Mr. Al-Jaafari?

LAITH KUBBA: He's a man of principles. He really has integrity; his past is clean. The most important thing, he managed to navigate his leadership in the Dawa Party through very difficult times in Iran throughout the 80s, and throughout the 90s. I think his leadership skills have been tested and his ability to deal with the Iranians in the 80s, and of course now to deal with the American influence in Iraq. Throughout all these difficult times, I think he showed integrity and kept one very much being anchored in his own beliefs, but at the same time showed pragmatism and being able to adjust to conditions.

JIM LEHRER: Professor Cole, do you agree, here's a man who's pragmatic but also a man of integrity?

JUAN COLE: He's a man of principle; he's been devoted to the Dawa Party, and its own commitments to an Islamic state in Iraq since his youth. He has been willing to show pragmatism, he has cooperated with the United States; the London branch of the Dawa that he led was involved in the invasion plans in 2003. And he served on the interim governing council under the Americans. So he is someone who is able to navigate between his commitments and the realities of the world, which is how he got where he is.

JIM LEHRER: How would you describe his personal politics?

JUAN COLE: Jaafari has a rhetoric of inclusion. He wants to reach out, he says, to the Sunni Arabs who have been excluded by this recent election, to Moqtada Sadr and his more hard line theocratic group. He is willing to work with the Americans. So he has a kind of moderation and a kind of inclusiveness in his rhetoric. In principle, that's there, but in practice we have yet to see exactly how he will move forward, whether he will mend fences with the Baath Party, which after all was the party of most of the Sunni Arabs and which visited great destruction on the Dawa Party members, including putting many of them in mass graves.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Kubba, how would you judge him as a politician? What do you think we can expect based on his, the way he's handled his politics up till now?

LAITH KUBBA: I think he keeps his options open, and his cards very much close to his chest. But ultimately he does put the interest of the nation above even the interest of the party. As I said, he is a man of core beliefs, and he --.

JIM LEHRER: What are his core beliefs?

LAITH KUBBA: He genuinely believes in the core values of Islam, and that is ultimately the people of Iraq are Muslims, that you cannot impose religion on any people or nation, although he advocates Islam, and he's a firm believer in an Islamic world outlook, but he knows well and his upbringing and that of the Dawa Party is that you cannot impose that on people, you have to convince them. So while he's going to be persistent as being himself a practicing Muslim and somebody who believes in Islamic values, I think he can demonstrate that he can be inclusive and be an Iraqi nationalist so, to speak.

JIM LEHRER: Some Americans shy away when they hear the possibility of there being an Islamic state in Iraq now. How would al-Jaafari translate those two words, Islamic state, do you believe?

LAITH KUBBA: I really believe it's media hype, and of course a lot people jump when they hear Islamic state, they have maybe Taliban in mind in Afghanistan or the regime in Iran. But knowing Iraq and the diversity within Iraq, Jaafari knows well that he cannot impose his own version, let alone a Shia version amongst the Shias that a lone version on the whole of Iraqis. So the prospect of having a ready made shariah law to be imposed on Iraq is just an imaginary one.

JIM LEHRER: Do you agree with that, Professor Cole?

JUAN COLE: Well, I think there's a difference between what Jaafari wants and what he can achieve. What he wants is Islamic law, as much of Islamic law as he can get implemented in Iraq. He was already part of an attempt on the interim governing council last year to impose Islamic law in personal status matters and in marriage, divorce, inheritance, alimony. And some of those laws would be setbacks for middle class Iraqi women, for educated women, and they were the ones who fought back this attempt. So I expect him to continue to press for Islamic law, and maybe even to extend it to things like commercial law and so forth. It may be that he is unable to pursue that course because it's opposed by the Kurds, with whom he will have to form a governing coalition. But that is his goal.

JIM LEHRER: Now, Professor Cole, it is correct to say that he's very close, is it's not, to the leading Shia cleric, Ayatollah al-Sistani, right, Professor Cole?

JUAN COLE: Oh, yes, he is -- Jaafari is extremely close to Sistani and has had extensive consultations with him. And indeed when Jaafari served on the interim governing council, some of the policies that he adopted clearly were those of Sistani. So we can expect him to, as prime minister, to continue to go to Najaf to consult with Sistani on policy, and Sistani of course will be important in keeping party discipline, because the United Iraqi Alliance that Jaafari now will lead is a disparate group and it is Sistani's moral authority so far that is holding it together.

JIM LEHRER: Mr. Kubba, do you believe we should see al-Jaafari as a Sistani man or as Sistani's man?

LAITH KUBBA: I think he'll ultimately --.

JIM LEHRER: To use American political --

LAITH KUBBA: I don't think he is anybody's man. As I said, I think he's educated, he is well read; he studied religion himself in a seminary in the same way as the clergy do. So in a way he does see himself as a learned person. And as a learned person, he knows ultimately if Sistani says no on something, he'll abide by it. But he also knows that that position is not a religious one, it's a political position; it's a position that people elected him to do a job. And I am sure if he sees a contradiction between his beliefs and doing that job, he'll resign rather than abuse the position.

JIM LEHRER: What about his attitude toward the United States? What can you help us on that to understand?

LAITH KUBBA: Well, on the U.S. -- coming from a solid Islamic religious background, one would not expect him to see eye to eye with the U.S. on regional issues or foreign policy issues. But there is a lot, I think he does see eye to eye at least on Iraq, when it comes to security of bringing democracy to Iraq, helping the country rebuild itself. He's a pragmatist and he will see that Iraq's interests are served, through working with the U.S. on these issues. And I don't think he is dogmatically driven to be anti-U.S., but at the same time, I don't think one would expect him simply to be like other politicians, lining up just to appease or please the U.S..

JIM LEHRER: Professor Cole, what about the presence of the U.S. Military and the coalition in Iraq? What is his attitude likely to be about that? Are we going to hear calls for the occupation to end or what?

JUAN COLE: No, Jaafari has come out and said that it would be a mistake to establish a strict timetable for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq or for the U.S. to withdraw in a precipitated fashion. He's a pragmatist on this issue; on the other hand, there are clouds on the horizon with regard to his relationship with the United States. He opposed the campaign in Fallujah; he wasn't happy about the campaigns in Najaf. He's not a person who is in favor of solving these problems militarily. He has got warm relations with Tehran, I do not believe he would approve of any U.S. aggressive action towards Iran, and he is likely to have good relations with the Shiites of southern Lebanon, including both the Amal and Hezbollah Parties, so all of those issues he may well come into conflict with U.S. policy.

JIM LEHRER: So it would be a mistake, Professor Cole, for the United States to assume they've got somebody there who is in our camp, or in their camp? It's going to be an issue by issue situation?

JUAN COLE: It's an issue by issue situation, but it should be remembered that Jaafari has been elected. His party has 51 percent of the seats in parliament, was put there by an open election, and he has all of the legitimacy and authority that drives for that. He can claim to speak for a majority of the Iraqi people, so that, the United States just as it cannot expect the prime minister of a European country or the president of a European country that's an ally of the United States necessarily to agree witness on all issue; likewise, it can expect Jaafari to have an independent policy as well.

JIM LEHRER: So new world, Mr. Kubba, for the United States and Iraq is about to happen?

LAITH KUBBA: I think indeed it is a new world for Iraq; in the first place this is the first time Iraqis really are really deciding their destiny. And I think we mustn't forget it's only ten months term for this government, not much can happen, but certainly a foundation for the future.

JIM LEHRER: Because there are new elections coming in ten months, this is an interim government.

LAITH KUBBA: Interim, but it's going to set the foundation.

JIM LEHRER: All right, gentlemen, thank you both very much.

FOCUS - LAND GRAB

JIM LEHRER: Still to come on the NewsHour tonight: A land case before the Supreme Court; and women in science.

Ray Suarez has our court story.

RAY SUAREZ: The case before the Supreme Court today involved the town of New London, Connecticut, which, under the law of eminent domain, has been seizing homes in an economically depressed riverfront area for hotel and office development. But a small group of homeowners have refused to move, Susette Kelo among them.

SUSETTE KELO: It's on the water, and I'm just a nurse; I really can't afford to buy another house on the water.

RAY SUAREZ: The remaining residents argue there should be a limit to a town's right to seize property, even with just compensation. Michael Cristofaro's parents have lived in their home for 35 years.

MICHAEL CRISTOFARO: I don't think any municipality should have a wildcard to say, "We're going to use eminent domain; if you don't want to sell, that's okay, we're going to take it anyway."

RAY SUAREZ: But outside the U.S. Supreme Court today, Edward O'Connell, representing the New London Development Corporation, argued many cities would die without the law of eminent domain.

EDWARD O'CONNELL: Our cities have become starved for tax revenues. Instead of knocking down another forest or tearing down an open space, we feel it's important to get economic development back in the cities where it belongs.

RAY SUAREZ: Last year, the Connecticut state Supreme Court upheld the city's right to seize the New London homes. Today the U.S. Supreme Court heard the residents' appeal.

RAY SUAREZ: And we're joined now by NewsHour regular Jan Crawford Greenburg of the Chicago Tribune.

And Jan, how did this case make it from a waterfront development in New London to the high court?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, as you said, it came about in 1998 when New London approved this redevelopment plan for 90 acres of land next to this $300 million new research facility. It saw it as a chance to create a new development and revitalize a struggling town. It wanted to build an office building, and a hotel and new housing. So it created a development corporation to negotiate with the landowners to buy the parcels, and it gave this corporation the right to condemn the land of those who did not want to sell. But several homeowners who we just saw fought back and challenged the development corporation's right to condemn their property. They took that all the way up to the Connecticut Supreme Court, where they lost. They went to the Supreme Court of the United States, which heard arguments in their case today over whether or not the city of New London, like cities across the country, have the right to condemn people's property for these kind of private redevelopment projects, in order to expand the city's tax base or create new jobs. That's the issue.

RAY SUAREZ: And what were the main points in the homeowners' argument?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: A lawyer for the homeowners, a senior attorney at the public interest group Institute for Justice, which has really led the fight against these eminent domain cases, he argued that the government had gone too far here, just as governments have across the country, and that you could not condemn property of these homeowners solely for this kind of private economic redevelopment. We need more of a public use. The Constitution, he said, requires more of a public use. For example, the government could condemn property for roads or hospitals or fire stations, railroad right of ways. Those are the kind of public uses that the Constitution and the Constitution's Fifth Amendment talks about when it gave governments the authority to take property with compensation. That's the public use the Constitution is talking about. This, he argued, is not public use, and so New London should not be able to go in and get these homeowners to give up their land. He said any time you have a home or a corner office, a Costco or shopping mall is always going to produce more tax revenue. So if the city wins in this case, the government will be able to do anything.

RAY SUAREZ: So how did the city of New London respond to that line of attack?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Well, the city of New London argues that the Connecticut Supreme Court was right. This is considered a public use, because it will produce a public benefit, it will expand the tax base, it will revitalize their community, it will create more jobs. So they argued that this is completely a public use, and it's well within the Constitution's Fifth Amendment. So they say that they have the authority to go in here and condemn this property, pay the fair price and put up their development. And the lawyer for the city of New London argued today that if the government loses in this case, it will make it so much harder for governments to have other kind of redevelopment projects in the future, because now homeowners are willing to sell voluntarily because they know there's a stick at the end of the line, they know that ultimately the government could go in and condemn their property. Without that, he said it would be very, very difficult for governments to mount these kind of redevelopment projects, whether they're for a new automobile manufacturing plant or a speedway or even a baseball stadium.

RAY SUAREZ: And what did the Justices find interesting, or what did they start to pick away at in their questions?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: This was a hard case to read. The Justices seemed very divided. I mean, after all, it's two very compelling interests: Pitting the rights against property owners against the efforts of these government officials to revitalize communities that may be depressed or struggling. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and David Souter really pressed a lawyer for the homeowners most aggressively, and suggested through their questions that they are very sympathetic with the city's efforts to redevelop this property. Justice Ginsburg made the point very forcefully that the city of New London is trying to revitalize its community, that that in fact could be seen as having a public use, a public purpose. Justice Souter also suggested that he agreed with those efforts by the city of New London, because how else do you do it, he said. And at the end of the day, there's a public benefit. On the flip side, on the other end of the scale was Justice Scalia who very forcefully pressed a lawyer for the city of New London and suggested quite clearly through his questions that he sides with the homeowners. He spoke in very vivid terms about how some of these homeowners have lived there for so many years, the one woman who was actually born in one of these houses in 1918, and that it's not about money. It's not about giving them money for their homes. They don't want to move from their homes. And it's about principle, and should they have to give up their home for a private redevelopment project, not a hospital or a school or anything like that? He suggested that he saw the answer was clearly no. In the middle we had Justice O'Connor and Justice Kennedy, as they often are, hard to read, questioning lawyers on both sides of this case, and very difficult to predict how they will come out. And as I said, this was a difficult argument to gauge because the chief justice was absent from the bench today, as was Justice John Paul Stevens.

RAY SUAREZ: And Chief Justice Rehnquist, long known as someone with a real interest in property rights law.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: That's exactly right. So we were without the benefit of the chief's views and Justice Stevens' views, who we think could be on the other side of this issue. As you know, the Chief Justice is suffering from thyroid cancer. He will not be on the bench the rest of this week or next week he has announced. He is working, he is coming into court, but because of his tracheotomy, he feels he can't be on the bench for the two hours of argument that the court sits in the morning. But he will participate by reading the transcripts or listening to the arguments. Justice Stevens, who splits his time between Washington and Florida when the court is not in session, actually missed his flight yesterday, Justice O'Connor announced from the bench this morning. But he also will read the transcripts and participate in the decision of this case. But it made the argument difficult to read, and it had a little different flow because the chief and Justice Stevens are often asking questions with different points of view, of course.

RAY SUAREZ: Property rights cases and so-called "takings law" has been something that's been boiling in the lower courts for a long time. Did you have a lot of friends of the court lining up on both sides of this question?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Absolutely. This issue has been percolating in the lower courts. The Institute for Justice, for example, has really spearheaded the fight here, and scholars have been writing about this for many, many years. And of course we had a huge lineup of briefs on both sides. As the lawyer for the homeowners today pointed out his briefs on his side argue that the NAACP, AARP and other groups argue that these cases are important because it's the poor, minorities, the elderly, who are often in these neighborhoods that are displaced by redevelopment. So they're all on board. On the other side, we have a large number of briefs from cities and states, state legislatures, arguing that these kind of projects are important for the residents of their city to get these kind of services, to provide these kind of tax revenues so that they can continue providing services to their residents. Very different issues and concerns, but very powerfully argued.

RAY SUAREZ: And quickly, Jan, the court announced today it's going hear a case involving the Oregon right to die law?

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: Yes, that's right. The court announced that it will take up this very controversial issue involving an Oregon law that gives people the right to die. When they're terminally ill, they can request a lethal dose of medication. The Justice Department stepped in, challenging doctors' rights to give these kind of lethal doses saying that violated federal drug laws. The Ninth Circuit Appeals Court ruled against the administration. The court has agreed to decide that issue whether the federal government can step in and prohibit these doctors in Oregon for assisting the terminally ill and taking their life. This case will be argued next term, starting in October.

RAY SUAREZ: Jan Crawford Greenburg, thanks for being with us.

JAN CRAWFORD GREENBURG: You're welcome.

FOCUS - WOMEN IN SCIENCE

JIM LEHRER: Finally tonight, questions about women and success in the sciences, triggered by comments from the president of Harvard University a few weeks ago. We begin with a science unit report by Betty Ann Bowser.

SPOKESPERSON: It's just astonishing to me.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: The buzz in the halls at this year's annual convention of the American Association for the Advancement of Science was about those remarks made last month by Harvard's Larry Summers. While addressing an economic conference in Cambridge on diversity in science careers, according to transcript released by Harvard, Summers said: "In the special case of science and engineering there are issues of intrinsic aptitude." And he went on to say that aptitude or ability might be a greater factor than: "socialization and continuing discrimination." Summers used that phrasing to offer a partial explanation of why fewer women become scientists, mathematicians, and engineers. His remarks touched off a storm of controversy with critics labeling the comments sexist and scientifically ignorant. But some female scientists at the meeting in Washington over the weekend were glad the subject is now on the table.

SPOKESPERSON: Thank you, Larry Summers. (Applause) Our issues had disappeared. Our problems were still there, but in terms of open discussion of the issues, that was not happening. (Applause)

BETTY ANN BOWSER: University of Oklahoma chemist Donna Nelson presented a new study she's done which found women widely underrepresented in 14 academic disciplines at the 50 top universities in the country.

SPOKESPERSON: The women are here too. The women appear after the decimal point. And so...

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Nelson said in chemistry alone, women account for nearly 50 percent of all graduates, but only 12 percent of professors. And she said it's the same in almost all fields she studied.

SPOKESPERSON: There's a disparity in most of the disciplines. It's just at an excruciatingly slow rate. We need to rapidly speed things up. Perhaps this recent Larry Summers incident will do some of that for us.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Another point summers made in his remarks was that women often find a hostility and "overt discrimination" in academic settings. That's something Princeton University sociologist Doug Massey says he's found in his research on diversity.

DOUG MASSEY: A lot of times what happens is the environment is so hostile and unfriendly that women bag it and move on to something else rather than stay in an environment they find to be unsatisfying professionally and personally.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Summers also said women get discouraged in science careers because many disciplines require an 80-hour work week and time away from children and family. That's what 69-year-old Betty Ivy found to be the case back in the 1950s when she was a student in the physics department at Harvard. Of the three women in her class, she was the only one who stuck it out.

BETTY IVY: I was told in graduate school, "I'm not going to spend any time helping you because you're married. You'll probably drop out to have children, and therefore you will not have a full career. Why should I spend time with you?"

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Does that still go on today?

BETTY IVY: Yes, it does. It still goes on today.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dr. Julie Gerberding, the federal government's top scientist and the first woman ever to serve as director of the CDC, had similar experiences.

DR. JULIE GERBERDING: There was a point in my professional development when I was at a university where I really did feel almost like giving up because I was told by someone in a position of authority that the field I was engaged in, epidemiology, was not really a science, and that as a woman if I wanted to be eligible for tenure, I would need to find a different discipline because I would have two strikes against me. I was very discouraged and very, very tearful, and then I got mad. And then I got energized, and I said, "no, that's not right; I'm a competent scientist; I'm going to be the best I can be."

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson is president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She believes the low numbers of women in science professions amounts to a waste of talent.

SHIRLEY ANN JACKSON: The demographics of this country are changing. Namely, if you count women and other underrepresented groups, you are talking about two-thirds of the population. So I ask you, how can we ignore 50 percent to two-thirds of the population and believe we are accessing the complete talent pool?

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Although President Summers eventually apologized for his remarks, controversy has continued. Today he met with faculty of the school of arts and sciences for the second time in recent weeks to discuss the issue.

JIM LEHRER: And to Gwen Ifill.

GWEN IFILL: So, how big is the Pandora's Box the Harvard debate opened? What do we know about women and scientific achievement, biology and learned behavior? For that, we turn to three women who have wrestled with those questions: Virginia Valian, psychology and linguistics professor at Hunter College, at the City University of New York Graduate Center; Sandra Witelson, neuroscience professor at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada; and Kimberlee Shauman, sociology professor at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of "Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes."

Professor Shauman, so what is true of what we have heard in this debate over the last several weeks?

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: What is true in Larry Summers' comments is that we do see gender disparity in the representation of young people among the highest performers on math achievement tests, standardized math achievement tests. So he was correct in reporting that research.

GWEN IFILL: Let me just insert -- and you were there at the time that the original comments were made so, you heard it firsthand?

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: Yes, I was.

GWEN IFILL: And were you shocked by what he said?

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: I was frustrated and disappointed that he seemed to be promoting an explanation that is the explanation of innate differences that has been very thoroughly researched, and largely unsupported by a large and diverse body of research. But more recently I think that he should be commended for acknowledging very openly the errors and the flawed assumptions in his original statements and for making steps, taking steps especially at Harvard, which, you know, is a leading and eminent university in this country, taking steps there to address gender inequities in hiring.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Witelson, what would you say -- your expertise is biology. What would you say there is that we know that is true about biological underpinnings for why women may not have achieved the same in science careers as men?

SANDRA WITELSON: Well, let me start with just some very simple statements. For every individual, we are our brains.Everything we think, everything we do, everything we feel is a product of the brain. That's a given and that's accepted. The brain is a sexually differentiated organ. In other words, by the time a child is born, the brain is already different in males and females. There are studies which show that these differences, some genetic, some hormonal, lead to some differences in behavior. This has been shown in a series of different kinds of studies. If you put that all together, I think the value of President Summers' remarks is to say that if we're going to try to understand the disparity between the number of women and men in different professions, and this would go for positions way beyond just academia, we have to put all the factors on the table, we have to throw everything into the pot. And I think not to consider biological differences which are not a product of environment but something that we are born with means that we're not putting everything into the pot, and in a way it is irresponsible not to consider the role that biology has.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Valian, what else has to be in that pot, assuming it's -- I don't know whether you agree with Professor Witelson, and you can say that first, but also is there anything else that needs to be in that pot of assessment trying to get to the bottom of the answer to this question other than simply biology?

VIRGINIA VALIAN: I certainly agree with Professor Witelson that we are all biological creatures, and that we always have to take biology into account. And indeed it would be irresponsible not to take it into account. But it would be equally irresponsible to overestimate the role that it plays. And that's what I think we would be doing if we didn't also take into account the many implicit negative judgments that we make about women compared to men, even when men and women have the same credentials. What's gone largely uncommented on in the discussion so far is what we do know about how males and females to the same degree tend to overrate men's achievements and under rate women's achievements. Not because --.

GWEN IFILL: For example?

VIRGINIA VALIAN: Okay, I'll give you a nice example because it's a characteristic that we would think of as objective: Namely how tall are people. In one experiment, investigators showed undergraduates photographs of other undergraduates that had been taken around campus, always next to a reference point of some sort like a doorway or a table, and the undergraduate's job was simply to say how tall is each of the persons whom they saw a picture of. Unbeknownst to the students who were doing the estimating, for every man a given height there was a woman of the same height. Yet the students both males and females slightly overestimated how tall the men were and slightly underestimated how tall the women were. And that's something that happens with something that we could actually decide with a ruler. But most things having to do with ability are things we can't decide with a ruler, and that's where our gender schemas as social cognition calls them, our implicit views about the differences between males and females come into play. They bias how we react.

GWEN IFILL: Let me ask Professor Shauman about that. If have you to find a way to weigh these different influences, how much would you say has to do with these implicit beliefs which, biases if you want to use that word, that people bring to the table when they try to assess whether they want to hire a woman scientist or a male scientist for same job, for instance?

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: Well, I think that they come into play quite regularly in the evaluation of applicants for jobs and in the evaluation of the work that employees in particular positions are doing -- that these implicit over evaluation of men's work and under evaluation of the work that women do comes into play quite a lot. But I'd also like to say that there are even though we do see some of these differences in measurements that we tend to put a lot of stock in, like standardized math achievement score, we find that high achievement on such things, and that is what Larry Summers' comments hinged upon, that high achievement there is not a good indicator of who is interested in going on to major in science and engineering in college, nor is it a good indicator of who actually goes onto attain a bachelors degree in science or engineering.

GWEN IFILL: Let me ask you to follow up on that a little bit, because we just heard Julie Gerberding in Betty Ann Bowser's piece talk about how she was discouraged from the epidemiology career that she sought but she decided to do it anyway. Is the question here that people are saying you can't achieve, or that people aren't achieving, or is someone blocking the entrance into the club?

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: Well, I think there's a lot of evidence that women are achieving. First of all, we see that women are taking, young women and young men are both taking the same number of advanced science and math courses during high school, so there's no differences in course taking patterns. The course grades that women are achieving are significantly higher, small differences but statistically higher than those attained by young boys. The differences in the achievement on standardized tests, there are no differences in the means of these two different distributions, but there are differences in the representation in the upper tail. But we also see that women are attaining bachelors degrees in science and engineering fields at very high rates compared to just ten years ago. Currently women earn over 50 percent of all degrees, bachelors degrees in science, and this is according to the National Science Foundation figures for 2001. They earn a majority of those degrees in the biological sciences, and up to 47 percent in other fields.

GWEN IFILL: But then something happens.

KIMBERLEE SHAUMAN: But then something happens, and our research shows that women are less likely to go on into higher education in science and engineering and they're also less likely to enter the science and engineering labor force. One factor that is highly correlated with the gender differences in those transition rates is parenthood; that women who have kids are less likely, significantly less likely to go on and pursue their career in science and engineering.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Witelson, do you think debates like this, do they serve at all to discourage young girls from pursuing a scientific career, especially if they're being discouraged anyway?

SANDRA WITELSON: No, I don't think this is a discouragement. I think, I think the question, I don't think the fruitful question is to ask what is the most important factor. President Summers, for example, you know, in not trying to give a thorough scientific scholarly talk, which was not the purpose of that conference, but he raised three main factors -- you know, one was something very practical, that has been mentioned by these other ladies that we're speaking to: That the, that it's very difficult to raise a family and it's the number of hours what he called, you know, the amount of commitment have you to give to a very high profile job. And of course this is true whether you're going to try to be a tenured professor with a full laboratory or group of people around you or whether you want to be a C EO of a profit making organization. It requires a lot of commitment, and this is clearly an issue that has a practical effect on men and women.

GWEN IFILL: May I just ask you, because I want to ask the other women too, which is: was that your experience?

SANDRA WITELSON: Well, I mean, here you have -- no. I have been a scientist from the time I graduated high school. But, you see, what I think what I would like to say is that things aren't cut and dried, and that it isn't an either or. One could have practical issues that are relevant, one could have subtle discrimination. That doesn't mean that there aren't other variables. In addition, the one factor that I think that has not been put on the table, although it's been hinted at but not directly isolated, is I would suggest that there was a fourth factor that is very important, and that is what gives self satisfaction and self-esteem to an individual when people do science or when people run for political office, or whatever one is doing -- one is doing this not just for the work and for the betterment of society and for the fun of it or for the salary, but it's also for self-esteem. And I would suggest that there may be differences in what women and men require for self-esteem. And that this could be one of -- yes.

GWEN IFILL: I'm sorry, I'm just trying to get back to Professor Valian before we are out of time.

SANDRA WITELSON: I was just going to say when one is doing studies, as you've heard, what happens is women are going into the studies, into university and into post doc degrees, but what happens is they fall out of the pipeline somewhere along the way. And the question really is what are some of the factors that are leading to the dropout, because it's not so much the input but it's the dropout rate.

GWEN IFILL: Professor Valian, I want to ask you about your experience, whether you felt at any point in your career that you might be pushed out of the pipeline, and also what you think the solution should be for this at this stage.

VIRGINIA VALIAN: Let me concentrate on the second part of that question, because I think it's more illuminating than talking about any single individual's experience. What I find very optimistic at the present time is that the National Science Foundation via its advanced institutional transformation awards to 19 schools around the country, of which Hunter College is one, is funding at a substantial rate initiatives that will help change things; initiatives that will allow women to flourish and thrive in academia. And as one of the scientists in the earlier segment noted, it's a tremendous waste for us to educate women and not make our institutions ones that they will want to be part of. I would also like to question the assumption, for which there is very little data, that 80-hour weeks are necessary for high achievement; I'd also like to question the assumption that anybody who puts in those 80 hour weeks regardless of what their sex, race, or ethnic category is, will be successful if they have a certain amount of ability. We have a lot of evidence that that's not the case.

GWEN IFILL: All right. Well, we certainly can't get to the bottom of all those questions, but we're just beginning the debate. Professors, thank you all.

RECAP

JIM LEHRER: Again, the major developments of this day. Iraq moved closer to having a new prime minister. The main Shiitealliance named Ibrahim al-Jaafari as its choice. President Bush won a pledge from NATO to help train Iraqi security forces. And a powerful earthquake in Iran killed more than 400 people.

JIM LEHRER: And once again to our honor roll of American service personnel killed in Iraq. We add them as their deaths are made official and photographs become available. Here, in silence, are 11 more.

JIM LEHRER: Tonight's edition of Frontline and a company of soldiers looks at what life is like for the average American soldier in Iraq. Please check your local listings for the time. We'll see you online and again here tomorrow evening. I'm Jim Lehrer. Thank you and good night.