the data will, I am confident, reveal that Catholics are substantially underrepresented in investment banking, that white men are very substantially underrepresented in the National Basketball Association, and that Jews are very substantially underrepresented in farming and in agriculture.
So all sorts of people are reading all sorts of meanings into the words rather than just taking them at face value. Rather than looking at perceived insinuations into biology, I suggest people consider what most historians, social scientists, and statisticians, realise, that taken at face value, he's right, and it's backed up for social reasons. Jews are underrepresented in farming because of long years of restrictive laws in mediaeval and modern Europe that allowed them in many areas to go into certain professions like business, medicine, or law--something of a concern to Zionists wanting to settle in Israel to such a degree that groups organised clubs to teach Jews farming techniques (and it had a lot to do with the development of kibbutzim, too). Although blacks were once very much in the minority in organised sports, this is no longer the case. Whether it is because more have proved themselves capable or whether society--both black and white--tends to believe that blacks have more rhythm and athletic ability overall is of course a matter for debate. There were very real prejudices against Catholics through the early part of last century, especially immigrant Irish, Italians, and Poles, who were seen as 'dirty', 'overpopulated', and a whole host of racist stereotypes. White Anglo-Saxon business types had long-established avenues of interaction (especially men's clubs) that tended to exclude Catholics from admission either overtly or covertly (if your father had to be a member, for example, it left you out of the loop as a newcomer).
I might add one other historical note on librarians...although predominantly female at this time, it was originally seen as a man's profession, a form of scholarship that was inherited from the monasteries and universities of old. That changed with Melvil Dewey, who saw that a lot of overeducated women (who had gone to college but were not expected to do much more than work a few years as stenographers or teachers before marrying) were a virtual goldmine of knowledgeable workers. Of course, it didn't hurt that they were also cheap labour (since all those outdated ideas of paying men who are the main breadwinners more were common). Women had traditionally expected to work in service jobs with low pay. One might argue that the library as public good rather than something to be hoarded evolved through women who otherwise would have been nurses, social workers, or teachers. Ironically, as technology has become more important, and wages have begun to go up, men are entering the field again in greater numbers. I'm not sure how much of that is causal or just correlative. But as my library teacher made us aware, the profession--and just about any profession--evolves over time in sometimes unexpected ways, meeting various challenges as a result of the larger society and historical trends.
I'd liken this whole thing to the case a few years of the word 'niggardly' causing a stir despite the fact that in meaning and etymology it has nothing to do with another more sinister word, while other words (like 'gyp' for instance, which is derived from 'Gypsy' and I'm sure should be offensive to the Rom) meet no challenge because people don't give them a second thought. Why don't we focus on real problems, people, like real bigotry, hunger, illness, poverty? Goodness.
Of course, according to Newsweek, Summers' problems have less to do with this as with his alienation of the faculty during his tenure. I don't know the man, and so I can't really comment on that...I just know it's easy to read all sorts of things into simple statements when there's an axe to grind. As someone attempting to learn to think more logically, I have to look at the truth value of his statement. I don't know the figures for Catholics in banking, but regarding the others I'd say the statistics would back his statement up.
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