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Open Book/Open Mind; Kate Zernike ONLINE; The Exceptions

Nancy Hopkins, MIT and the Fight for Women in Science

Zernike, a Pulitzer Prize–winning New York Times correspondent, discusses the story she originally broke about gender discrimination at MIT with longtime Washington Post reporter Dale Russakoff.

REGISTER HERE TO ATTEND ON ZOOM. To attend in person, check our events calendar for the separate in-person listing. The event is free but registration is required. 

Open Book / Open Mind is sponsored by Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, Josh Weston, Rosemary Iverson, and Jill Sorkin Johnson and Alan Johnson. We are also grateful for the generous support of our in-kind sponsors, First Congregational Church of Montclair, The George, and Amanti Vino. To support Open Book / Open Mind and other library programs, click here to donate. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Kate Zernike has been a reporter for The New York Times since 2000. She was a member of the team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Reporting for stories about al-Qaeda before and after the 9/11 terror attacks. She was previously a reporter for The Boston Globe, where she broke the story of MIT’s admission that it had discriminated against women on its faculty, on which "The Exceptions" is based.

ABOUT THE BOOK

"From the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who broke the story, the inspiring account of the sixteen female scientists who forced MIT to publicly admit it had been discriminating against its female faculty for years—sparking a nationwide reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science.

In 1999, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology admitted to discriminating against women on its faculty, forcing institutions across the country to confront a problem they had long ignored: the need for more women at the top levels of science. Written by the journalist who broke the story for The Boston Globe, The Exceptions is the untold story of how sixteen highly accomplished women on the MIT faculty came together to do the work that triggered the historic admission."—Simon & Schuster

"An inspiring but often infuriating account of the ways that MIT had discriminated against some of the brightest scientists in their fields. It's also a cautionary tale of how easily workplace discrimination can take root, even among academics who consider themselves well-intentioned."—The Washington Post

ABOUT THE CONVERSATION PARTNER

Dale Russakoff spent twenty-eight years as a reporter for the Washington Post, covering politics, education, social policy, and other topics. From 1994 to 2008, she served in the Post’s New York Bureau, which included covering the NYC metropolitan area, including Newark. Her book, "The Prize: Who's in Charge of America's Schools," was serialized in The New Yorker. Russakoff is a longtime resident of Montclair and a member of the Open Book / Open Mind advisory board.

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