CATHY YOUNG: Lab Rats: How the Misogyny Police and Sloppy Journalists Smeared a Top Scientist.

UCL is now under growing pressure to reinstate Dr. Hunt at its next council meeting on July 9. The ranks of his British supporters have been joined by Americans such as Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author and professor at New York University’s School of Engineering, who is boycotting the London school to protest Hunt’s treatment.

Of course, there is a backlash against the backlash. Slate science columnist Phil Plait still insists that Dr. Hunt meant what he said. Others assert that even if Mr. Hunt was joking, he was making women the butt of his sexist jokes—even though he seems to have been poking fun mainly at himself. Predictably, the counter-backlash portrays Mr. Hunt’s supporters as men defending male privilege. In fact, half of Hunt’s former students, postdoctoral fellows and staff scientists who wrote to the Times on his behalf were women. His most vocal champions include former British MP and journalist Louise Mensch, a self-proclaimed feminist who believes Dr. Hunt is a victim of “fauxminism,” and UCL honorary research associate genealogist Debbie Kennett.

While Dr. Hunt’s poor judgment played a role in his plight, he has been wronged. His off-the-cuff remarks were almost certainly reported in truncated and out-of-context form, while voices disputing these reports were ignored. The journalists who covered the story never bothered to find out details that didn’t fit the misogynist caricature: for instance, that before the ill-fated luncheon, Dr. Hunt had participated in a conference event where two European Research Council grantees, both women, presented their work. In the media storm, many were eager to use Dr. Hunt—not the real person but his caricature—as proof that entrenched sexism in science is real.

Dr. Hunt deserves to be vindicated. Cultural disapproval of sexism is, without question, a good thing. But when “fauxminist” outrage over a minor faux pas can ruin a career, this is not good for women, for science, or for the culture.

First Shirtstorm, now this. Women are apparently too delicate for science.