Torres Report Revisited

 

     Remember the Torres reports? In 1994, Senator Art Torres sponsored a bill requiring UC to make annual reports on spending for outside attorneys in tenure cases in which discrimination was charged and on progress made in reforming the tenure review process.

      Part of item 6440-001-001 of the Report of the Committee of Conference on the 1994 Budget Act, states, "The University shall report annually by March 1, until the 1999-2000 fiscal year, to the appropriate legislative policy and fiscal committees on progress toward streamlining and reform of the tenure review process, and on legal expenditures, including use of external counsel, for defense of appeals and litigation of academic appointment and tenure disputes which include a claim of discrimination."

      Summaries of the required UC reports have appeared in past issues of this Newsletter. These reports were to include information on "progress toward streamlining and reform of the tenure review process." No such information was included, suggesting that no such progress was made. If so, women who come up for tenure are still vulnerable to the same processes that allowed gender and racial bias to play a role in the tenure denials described in past Newsletters.