the university’s governing Senate, where members—particularly professors from the philosophy faculty—vehemently opposed officially recognizing Noether as an academic. Were she eventually to become a professor, they feared, she would be entitled to become a member of the Senate, which had never had a female member. Faced with this objection, Hilbert’s response was scathing: “Gentlemen: I do not see that the sex of the candidate is an argument against her admission.… After all, the Senate is not a bathhouse.” Hilbert then allowed Noether to lecture in his name, thus frustrating the Göttingen
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