Exclusionary policy hard to understand

I write concerning the article [Yale Medicine, Winter 2017] on the distinguished late Carolyn Slayman, Ph.D., deputy dean for scientific affairs. The article includes a description of her earning her Ph.D. at Rockefeller University, “where only one woman was admitted to each entering class of 15. At a dinner at the home of the president, a classmate asked why this was so, and the answer came back, ‘Because that is the right number.’ ” (Presumably, this was in the early 1960s.)

I find such a gender exclusionary policy difficult to understand, and perhaps now it is out of date.

I much enjoyed Yale Medicine and the coverage of its broad activities in which the school is engaged. Please keep me on your mailing list.

James B.D. Mark, M.D., HS ’60
Professor of Cardiothoracic Surgery Emeritus
Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.