To the Editor: The genetic inferiority of women is not a "controversial idea," as Rachel Donadio would have it, but old-fashioned prejudice.

Minorities, especially blacks, are often the most reluctant to talk about the gap in test scores, because such discussions have been haunted by arguments about genetic inferiority.

Science could do with a rebuttal to hypotheses of genetic inferiority.

This fund, your article says, financed studies that purported to prove the genetic inferiority of African-Americans.

Vincent dreams of a career in space but is constantly reminded of his genetic inferiority.

In the 19th century, a theory was abroad that dark skin was a sign of genetic inferiority.

(The "trash" in the pejorative "poor white trash" is suggestive of such supposed genetic inferiority.)

Those Jewish spokesmen who challenge such research raise the specter that the research will give rise to theories about the genetic inferiority of Jews.

But he argued that continued school segregation was desirable for another reason as well: the genetic inferiority of blacks in terms of intelligence.

Moreover, Shockley and Jensen never "argued for the genetic inferiority of minorities."