51¹ú²úÊÓƵ

I don't demur at Alison Wolf's defence of free speech but I'd add two things (Opinion, April 15). The first is that in a country that decided that Negroes were biologically intended for slavery, and that the Irish, Jews and Eastern Europeans were congenitally dim-witted, I'd be twitchy about anyone suggesting that unequal success in any field was biologically determined. The second is that if I were as distinguished a molecular biologist as the president of Princeton 51¹ú²úÊÓƵ, I'd be irritated at an economist suggesting that women have the wrong kind of brain for serious intellectual inquiry.

Alan Ryan
New College, Oxford