University’s ‘Women in Math’ event slammed for featuring all-male panel

AT FIRST glance, this university poster is innocent enough. But look closer and you’ll see why it has gone viral for a cringeworthy reason.

THIS poster for a university event has got thousands of people talking.

The flyer, which advertises a “Women In Math” talk held at Brigham Young University, a Mormon university in the US state of Utah, features pictures of professors who were invited to speak on the day.

The problem?

The panel features an all-male line-up — despite being an event purely about women in the discipline.

The talk was organised for “all women who love math” to “come learn about research done in data science, topology, number theory, and dynamical systems from four BYU math professors”.

But the poster went viral after student Stephanie Driggs posted a picture of it on Twitter with the caption: “ ... is this satire?”

Her post has received more than 17,000 retweets, 55,000 likes and 1000 comments, with most people pointing out the “hypocrisy” of the event.

...is this satire? pic.twitter.com/xtYTB3rE2F

— rat girl (@stephdriggs) February 21, 2018

The flyer was created by a student-run maths club, but it is believed the speakers on the panel were all professors at the university.

The university’s maths faculty does have female professors, but it is not clear why they were not invited to participate.

The scandal escalated so quickly the university’s maths department posted a statement on Facebook earlier this week, describing the poster as “poor judgment”.

“The poster featured the pictures of four of our department faculty,” the statement read.

“It was done with good intentions but with poor judgment and was not meant to be satire, though we did all get a good laugh here at the department.

“The posters have been replaced with a more appropriate message. We very much value the Women in Math organisation.”

But despite the statement addressing the debacle, Twitter users were not so forgiving.

Mitchell Harris posted: “I’m in a class taught by one of those professors, and even he thinks it’s weird!” While Suzanne Rent tweeted: “For all the women who love math yet they couldn’t find a SINGLE ONE to be on the panel.”

Renee Kirk wrote: “I know for a fact that BYU has female faculty in the Math department. This is a gross oversight.”

Christopher Allen connected the all-male panel to the university’s troubling record on reporting campus sexual assault: “When you’re at a school where women get reprimanded for reporting rapes, any terrible thing is possible!”

Ms Driggs attended the event and reported back to Twitter in a series of tweets.

She said she had a “good time” and urged people to “stop being angry” because “mistakes happen”.

mistakes happen! and that’s okay! Nobody’s perfect. what’s important now is that we move on from this and use what we learned to better ourselves and others.

— rat girl (@stephdriggs) February 22, 2018

[e-mail]

Originally published as University’s ‘Women in Math’ event slammed for featuring all-male panel