Sex Quotas on Academic Panels

(Via Instapundit) The American Historical Association has a sex quota for its panels at annual meetings, and it was about to reject this proposed program because all of the panel were men. Happily, one lady professor stepped up to help them out and offered herself as the token woman. It did the trick.

I'm not aware of any such rule at the American Astronomical Society, to which I belong, but there are a few activists within the organization who have gotten something along these lines (I think) instituted at, say, the Space Telescope Science Institute (which runs the Hubble).

One friend of mine is pushing these, and I enjoyed hearing her ask a lady astronomer about sex discrimination at her grad school (I mean, the school where she had been a grad student). When the young lady answered that she hadn't experienced any, my friend was actually taken aback!

Well, if it goes too far, there's always the suggestion in the article above: Have all of the men appear in drag!