In 1999, Nancy Hopkins, a noted molecular geneticist and cancer researcher at MIT, found herself underpaid and denied the credit and resources given to men of lesser rank. Galvanized by the flagrant favoritism, Hopkins led a group of sixteen women on the faculty in a campaign that prompted MIT to make the historic admission that it had long discriminated against female scientists. The MIT sixteen were formidable in their respective fields: their work has advanced our understanding of everything from cancer to geology, from fossil fuels to the inner workings of the human brain. And their efforts to highlight the inequity they observed would set off a national reckoning with the pervasive sexism in science that continues to this day. Written by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who broke the story in 1999 for the Boston Globe, The Exceptions is the intimate and unforgettable story of Nancy Hopkins-a surprisingly reluctant feminist who became a hero to two generations of women in science.