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It Takes a Village to Create a Full
Professor
by Charlotte Fishman
This column is reprinted with permission of the AAUP from the May/June 2005 issue of Academe, the magazine of
the American Association of University Professors.
In October 2004, the American Association of University Women (AAUW) released a report called Tenure
Denied. The message was dark. Most of the women whose cases are described in the report lost their suits against
universities. Others "won," but only in the sense that they received money to "compensate" for the
loss of their career goals. The overall conclusion was depressing: if you are denied tenure because of gender bias,
don´t expect the law to provide a solution.
My own experience suggests a more optimistic view. As an attorney who has successfully represented women
in tenure battles (where success means "tenure"), I know that law, in the right hands, is a powerful tool. The
trick is to know when and how to use it. I suspect that behind many an academic with a successful career is an attorney
who got in early and helped develop a strategy to overcome discrimination. The problem is, unless tenured women faculty
share this secret, an entire generation of young women may remain clueless about their options, hobbled by the belief that
they cannot do much when career adversity strikes.
Why do I say it takes a village? In my experience, the women who successfully fight back have friends, as well
as strong academic records: colleagues who support them, women´s faculty groups who champion them,
administrators who go to bat for them, journalists who write about them, legislators who inquire about them, and students
who root for them. While every situation is unique, a supporting cast is essential - the "lone ranger" academic
is not going to ride into the sunset on the back of her excellent work product alone. Why don´t professional women
know this, as a rule? Why are women reluctant to reach out for help? The belief that virtue (merit) is rewarded has deep
roots. Many high-achieving women were taught as little girls that if they did good work, recognition would follow as night
follows day. They simply don´t know what to do when this myth is punctured by the reality of discrimination.
And what creates a successful partnership between an academic and an attorney? Well, a lot depends on their
ability to collaborate. The academic must learn that just because she´s a great biologist, literature professor, or art
historian does not mean that she is a great, or even competent, strategic thinker when it comes to analyzing and presenting
evidence of discrimination. But if she has the foresight to seek legal counsel at the first inkling of a problem, and together
the academic and the attorney pore over the rules, regulations, policies, and sundry institutional documents relating to her
situation, the disparate strands that make up an academic´s entitlement to fair evaluation of performance can be
woven into an effective strategy. If, in addition, she develops allies who provide information about the composition and
receptivity of internal review committees, it becomes much easier to decide what avenues to pursue and which to avoid.
The attorney, on the other hand, must be willing to learn and respect the culture, quirks, and enormous
complexity of academia, while probing for institutional vulnerability. Is the university proud of its family-friendly policies,
which were violated? Did a recent legislative audit criticize its hiring and retention of female faculty? Have its alumni
organized to withhold funds because of diversity issues? Does it fear a faculty revolt if forced to hand over confidential
tenure files? In a well-functioning academic-attorney partnership, each partner´s expertise will help to frame the
issues and choose the most effective forum in which to raise them: Internal appeal versus formal charge, mediation,
arbitration, or lawsuit? Discreet inquiry by powerful figures versus wide media coverage? Well-informed strategic choices
can exert a powerful pull toward institutional self-correction.
The somber cast of the AAUW report is, in my view, a product of a skewed population sample: women who
received AAUW funding for a lawsuit already in progress. Most successful tenure cases are resolved long before they go
to trial. Understandably, but unfortunately, women who win tenure with low-profile legal help tend not to advertise that fact,
fearing it will undermine a hard-earned academic reputation. Their silence is shortsighted. Those who face down
discrimination need to "come out of the closet" to empower the next generation. Young women need to know
that the world isn´t the black-and-white scenario of girlhood myth, and that with the help of a village, there can be a
happy ending to "tenure denied."
Charlotte Fishman is an attorney in San Francisco and executive director
of Pick Up the Pace, a nonprofit whose mission is to identify and eliminate
barriers to women´s advancement in academia and other professions. Academe
accepts submissions to this column. See www.aaup.org for guidelines. The opinions
expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily represent
the policies of the AAUP.
-wage@wage.org-