More than 2,000 people have signed a petition calling for Sir Tim Hunt to be reinstated to his honorary position at University College London.
Evolutionary biologist and writer Richard Dawkins has criticised the “baying witch-hunt” that led to the resignation of the Nobel scientist over his remarks about female scientists.
In a letter to The Times, Oxford professor Dawkins said: “Along with many others, I didn’t like Sir Tim’s joke, but ‘disproportionate’ would be a huge underestimate of the baying witch- hunt that it unleashed among our academic thought police: nothing less than a feeding frenzy of mob-rule self-righteousness.”
But David Colquhoun, a professor of pharmacology at UCL, said: “All you have to do to see the problems is to imagine yourself as a young woman applying for a grant or fellowship, in competition with men, knowing that Hunt was one of her judges.”
A spokesman for UCL said it was Sir Tim’s decision to offer his resignation, and it was a “sad and unfortunate outcome of the comments he made”.
He added: “Media and online commentary played no part in UCL’s decision to accept his resignation. Sir Tim held an honorary position at UCL. He was not, and never has been, employed by UCL at any stage of his career.”
