Nancy Hopkins was an accomplished scientist surrounded by men. She assumed that the slights and snubs and signs of discrimination were the exceptions, not the rule. But the evidence continued to mount over time, and finally Hopkins had enough. She and fellow women scientists at MIT blew the whistle, and the university was forced to admit it had held women scientists back and down, in everything from salary to lab space.
Kate Zernike broke the story for the Boston Globe, and she returns to the issue in book form, with The Exceptions: Nancy Hopkins, MIT, and the Fight for Women in Science.
We visit with the author about the story, and the years it took to unfold.