What if Larry Summers were receiving an award from a men's group about what a great role model he is for young men, and during a question-and-answer session, he referred to all the female undergraduates as "girls"?

People would be pissed off, right? Letters to the Crimson...dark mumblings...shaking of heads at the Faculty Club.

But that's exactly what Drew Faust did yesterday, with the genders reversed.

Yesterday the Harvard College Women's Center gave Faust an award for "professional achievement." As the Crimson reports, in a subsequent q-and-a, Faust shied away from talking business, declining to answer questions about her role in undergraduate life, and at one point asking Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 to answer a question about whether the recent focus on equal opportunity for young women had left undergraduate men neglected.

“It’s not a strategy on my part to deflect these questions to someone else,” she said, “but Dick, is there a concern about boys?”

Boys?

Let us hope that line prompted a few winces in the crowd.

Imagine Summers turning to Gross and saying, "Is there a concern about girls?"

A president whose gender was an important aspect of her choice, but who says she does not want to be defined by gender, would do well to be more careful with her language. After all, men aren't the only ones who can be sexist.

Incidentally, this is an unfortunate piece of rhetoric. As anyone who has followed Drew Faust over the past several months knows, it is exactly her strategy to deflect these questions to someone else. There's nothing wrong with that. If Faust doesn't feel that it's appropriate for her to discuss substantive matters in public, that's her prerogative.

But when the double-speak begins—"it's not a strategy on my part," when clearly it is—that's when a leader's credibility starts slipping away.