Welcome to the second issue of the WAGE newsletter!
It Only Makes $en$e
Beginning January 1, 1995, the University of California must report to the
legislature:
- Legal expenditures for defending lawsuits and appeals of academic
appointments and tenure disputes that include a claim of discrimination,
including the cost of using external counsel;
- The number, gender and ethnicity of faculty hired, reviewed for
tenure, granted tenure, denied tenure, and seeking review of tenure
[denials], for the most recent academic year and the most recent
five-year period;
- Its source for figures that reflect the availability pool of women
for academic positions, by rank, and in comparison to those employed
at UC, and
- Progress toward reform and streamlining the tenure [review] process.
(With thanks to Women in Higher Education, (Oct. 1994), 3(10) )
Welcome
WAGE started in Irvine where people organized to promote the
status of women at the University of California, Irvine. Women on other
campuses who had similar problems found each other; an informal network
began in 1992. In July, 1993, the first statewide meeting of WAGE took
place.
Since then, we have issued our
first newsletter
and sent it to academic
women on all but two campuses. Members in the north of the state met in
December, hearing two special presentations. Gayle Sakowski, a lawyer in
the Office of Civil Rights, U.S. Department of Education,
basically said its mandate is students, not faculty. Then Attorney Shyamula
Rajender explained her famous ten year, class action case against the
University of Minnesota which she eventually won (meanwhile turning from
a chemist into a lawyer). Not one woman joined her suit. They even feared
to sit in the courtroom with her. But, the week after she won, 286 women
filed claims against the University!
In January of '94 the WAGE governing council met to explore grant
applications to raise funds and work on a structure for WAGE.
In March, a WAGE organized Roundtable
Conference
was held in Irvine with
State Senator Art
Torres
and Representative Tom Umberg.
The WAGE governing council has met several times since with further
progress on fundraising, the development of bylaws and, we hope, attainment
of nonprofit status. WAGE members have received a copy of our bylaws and a
ballot with this newsletter.
We still very much need your donations. Do whatever you can to support
this work. Distribute the WAGE newsletter, write a check, get your friends
to
join.
Remember, this is a new phenomenon, a statewide UC organization
that is not part of the UC administration. We can only accomplish our goal
of achieving equity for women in UC by working together.
We are trying to change a large institution which has tremendous
inertia, a thoroughly entrenched privileged class, and an army of lawyers
defending the status quo. This is NOT an easy job. We must all contribute
to the work if we are to succeed.
You can go to our
Newsletters.
Or search for a word here:
-wage@wage.org-
