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California Senate Audit of UC Hiring
After the passage of Proposition 209, the hiring of new
women faculty on all
UC
campuses declined to only 27% in 1999. The lowest
percentage, 16%, occurred
this
year at UC Davis. In contrast, in the United States 48% of
all Ph.D.s are
currently
granted to women. A number of UC women faculty brought this
situation to the
attention of State Senator Jackie Speier who requested that
the Joint
Legislative Audit
Committee authorize an audit of UC hiring practices. This
was granted and the
first
hearing was held in Sacramento on January 31, 2001 with
testimony from a
number
of women faculty on the gender disparity in current hiring
and on local
solutions.
Although the situation at MIT did much to inspire the
current work at UC,
unlike
Charles Vest, the President of MIT who accepted the findings
on his campus and
took
action, the UC spokesperson, Chancellor M. R. C. Greenwood,
presented data
skewed
to make the situation at UC look better than it is.
UC´ s data presentation was analyzed by Professor
Martha West, UC
Davis School of Law, and sent to Senator Speier. West´
s analysis makes
clear
how UC manipulated the data to its own advantage. UC
selected the three best
years
of hiring (1994 through 1998„99) and obtained 34.5% as the
average for new
women
faculty hires. If all five years are averaged, the
percentage drops to 31%.
The worst
hiring year, 1999„2000, in which new women hires were only
25% of the whole
was
not mentioned by UC at the hearing. We applaud Professor
West for her
persistent
advocacy of fair hiring and promotion of women faculty at
UC, and in
particular for
her work on the audit. It is not clear to WAGE why UC cannot
accept the
situation
and take action. By trying to make things look better than
they are, UC
suggests that
it is seeking a means of not acting with vigor. This
Newsletter has
documented over the years how UC consistently fails to act
in good faith. Is
the
official response to the State Audit going to be another
episode of this kind?
We
profoundly hope not.
Possibly campuses will be more responsive. Chancellor
Berdahl of the UC
Berkeley
campus appointed an Advisory Committee on Diversity in 1999
to examine the
decline in women and minority hires before it had become
much of a public
issue. The
report of the Committee completed in July 2000 was
distributed widely as a
link from
the " Chancellor´s Open Letter on
Diversity" in December 2000
www.chance.berkeley.edu/cio/chancellor/ar/diversi
tyletter.htm. This was followed by Berkeley hosting the
UC System wide
meeting of the Coordinating Committees on the Status of
Women in late January
2001. Chancellor Berdahl himself participated in the MIT
meeting hosted by
Charles
Vest shortly afterward which explored how other institutions
could deal with
unequal
treatment of women on campus (see " Nine Universities
Address Sex Inequity" in this newsletter). All of these are
highly laudable
activities
and we hope that the Chancellor will sustain a forceful
leadership position on
this
issue.
Leadership is significant in this issue, but change will
only occur if men and
women on every campus become engaged and are willing to
implement changes in
their immediate environments. This includes how faculty
members interact with
students and staff, and most importantly how faculty members
interact with one
another to ensure that the hiring and promotion process is
fair. The chimera
of "
excellence" has all too frequently been used as a tool
not to hire, not
to
promote. A general complaint of women and minority faculty
is that they are
not
judged by the same standard as white men. Instead, their
publication records,
teaching,
and service must exceed those of white men. Only local
action backed by strong
leadership will facilitate this change. One of the several
good things about
the State
Audit is that it is making knowledge of the differential
treatment in the
hiring of
faculty women much more widely known. The Audit, however, is
not a deus ex
machina. The number and condition of women faculty on UC
campuses will only
improve if many, many more individuals become active in
monitoring and
improving
their local departmental climate. As you read this
Newsletter, think
about
what action, no matter how small, you can take - then take
it!
-wage@wage.org-