Scientist at a top European lab suspended for remarks against women.

On Monday, CERN, Europe’s leading center for theoretical physics research, announced it was suspending senior scientist Alessandro Strumia after he gave a talk saying that men were the true victims of gender discrimination in the sciences. Strumia, who also teaches at the Univesity of Pisa, made those remarks on a Friday panel on high-energy physics and gender. Strumia is a major figure at CERN and has responsibility for hiring decisions.

“Physics is not sexist against women,” Strumia maintained. According to BuzzFeed, Strumia also criticized “what he claimed is discrimination against men in hiring to senior positions, citing his own failure to win a job at Italy’s prestigious National Institute for Nuclear Physics. His presentation included a slide comparing citations of his papers to those from two named women who were hired.”

Marika Taylor, a theoretical physicist affiliated with the University of Southhampton, helped organize the talk but denounced Strumia on Twitter for his “personal attacks, mistruths, false facts and blatant unprofessional conduct.”