The University of California’s Board of Regents has withdrawn an invitation to Lawrence H. Summers, the controversial former president of Harvard University, to speak at a board dinner next week in Sacramento, The Davis Enterprise reported today. The move followed a petition drive by female faculty members on the university’s nearby Davis campus, where the board is meeting.

The faculty members said it was inappropriate for the regents to have Mr. Summers as their guest at a time when the university is struggling to diversity its faculty ranks. Mr. Summers resigned as Harvard’s president in 2006, after an epic battle with the faculty over a range of issues that came to a head when he suggested that women’s innate differences from men might explain why relatively few women reach the top in mathematics and science. He also criticized the work of Cornel West, leading that prominent scholar of religion and African-American studies to leave Harvard.

The petition, which drew 150 signatures, said, “Inviting a keynote speaker who has come to symbolize gender and racial prejudice in academia conveys the wrong message to the university community and to the people of California.” Replacing Mr. Summers as the dinnertime speaker will be Susan Kennedy, chief of staff to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. —Andrew Mytelka