At a White House conference earlier this summer observing the 40th anniversary of Title IX — the 1972 law prohibiting gender discrimination in federally supported educational programs and activities — the talk was not so much about college athletics as about the STEM disciplines: science, technology, engineering and math.

Women, according to the prevailing wisdom at the conference, are “underrepresented” in these fields. More needs to be done to boost their participation. Carnegie Mellon University President Jared Leigh Cohon called the current situation “a national crisis.”