Nobel Prize-winning scientists Sir Tim Hunt was forced to step down from his position at University College London due to making light-hearted remarks about women in the laboratory.

Professor Michael Arthur, who is president and provost of the university, said that he would not reverse the decision to accept the resignation of Sir Tim Hunt, and that it was the right decision, according to a Daily Mail report.

Arthur added that reinstating Hunt would send the “wrong signal” about his remarks, as even though they were meant in jest, they contradict UCL’s values, he argued.

Sir Tim Hunt had been getting a lot of support from other Nobel Prize-winning scientists, with one calling it a manhunt and another calling it an overreaction.

Hunt, who is 72 and won the Nobel Prize in 2001, had joked at a South Korean conference that men and women should work in separate labs, because when men are in labs with women, they either fall in love with the men or the men fall in love with them, and that they cry when criticized. Hunt claimed the comments were meant to be light-hearted.

After returning to the UK, he resigned his honorary professorship at the university when a social media storm erupted.

Arthur said he had accepted the resignation in good father, and it was the honorable thing to do.

He admitted it was a tough decision, and that he respected Hunt, but that equality and diversity were too important to the university to allow the comments to slide. He said that Hunt’s comments create a potentially hostile working environment for women.