HEW, THE UNIVERSITY, & WOMEN
Barasch, Frances
Over the past few years the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the acadamic establishment have been engaged in a contest over equal employment opportunities for...
...Universities will have at least five years to fulfill affirmative action goals...
...After months of negotiations with women of the Professional Staff Congress (CUNY's bargaining agent), and in the face of HEW's noncompliance finding of November 1970 and its finding for a Brooklyn College woman in 1971, CUNY officials shrugged their shoulders and kept their hands in their pockets...
...Thus, at Bronx Community, women comprised only about 15 percent of the English faculty, and all but one were employed at the bottom ranks...
...Over a 20-month period, the City University of New York refused to submit voluntarily full information and affirmative action programs...
...riage or family obligations, and do not publish...
...Until their junior year, girls do as well as boys in mathematics, sometimes better...
...Some untenured women, as in the case of a Brooklyn College woman, are de moted on their return to work...
...quoted by Peter Rossi, in "Statement and Resolutions of the Women's Caucus," American Sociologist, February 1970...
...Women at a number of colleges are forming new groups in order to build strong and valid cases...
...of concentrating women in community colleges, women's and former women's colleges, or in "women's disciplines...
...Assuming fair recruitment procedures are practiced according to HEW guidelines, there is, finally, the problem of choosing the best candidate among male and female applicants...
...This is not to say that the record of Baruch College is a good one...
...Assuming a woman is able to find a job, she starts on a more or less equal footing with men...
...In 1971 its English department (formerly a part of CCNY's English department) employed a total of 39 women...
...Thus, according to the study conducted by the CUNY Women's Coalition (CWC), 15 women of 104 faculty members held professorial ranks, yielding a percentage of 14.4—less than half of the modern languages' national average of available women...
...The concentration of women in the lower academic ranks at lower salaries is a serious economic aspect of discrimination against academic women...
...One is hard put to understand the logic of those who espouse equality of opportunity for qualified candidates, abstractly, but feel it need not be offered everywhere...
...I have no faith in the judgment of chairmen who recently have been writing rejection letters to male candidates, blaming their rejections on HEW's requirement that women be hired...
...The Rossis mention other discriminatory practices in sociology that keep women "un derqualified...
...By contrast, on graduate faculties merely 12 percent of the national total were women, and only 8 per uate Departments of Sociology, 1968-69," paper, delivered on September 3, 1969, before the American Sociological Association...
...The CUNY Women's Coalition (CWC), an organization of about 700 women representing 16 campuses, anticipating a compromise between HEW and CUNY officials in the matter of enforcement, has assembled data from college catalogues, personnel print-outs, faculty lists, and other published materials...
...A limited number of 200 first-rate women students each year were granted admissions at NYU (University Heights campus), skimmed from the top of high school classes so that underqualified male appli 7 Executive Order 11246, as amended, Title 41, December 1971...
...Of those women employed full time in modern languages, most held lower ranks than men and taught on the lower levels...
...They argued, however, that the situation could not be corrected because there were no able candidates...
...22.6 in bacteriology...
...concentrated in the lower ranks...
...the largest group, 28 percent (1,451) were employed as clinical psychologists...
...qualified women want that 50-50 chance...
...In some cases, however, the picture may be far more grim...
...Another study of 1969 salaries showed that female instructors earned $410 less than men, and female professors earned $1,119 less than their male colleagues.r, In the ACE study of ranks, 21.9 percent of the male respondents 4 J. A. Davis, Great Aspirations: The Graduate School Plans of America's College Seniors (Chi cago: Aldine, 1964...
...The arguments for improving the status of university women bear repeating...
...These practices are now illegal, but the superstitions about women that engendered them are still widely held...
...How are we to know when a woman is better qualified than a man in question...
...Evaluation of a candidate's experience to determine entry-level salaries are almost exclusively subject to male judgments...
...I have faith in the studies that prove women make good candidates, and I believe it is time the competition was opened to public inspection with impartial judges watching the match...
...They do not remember, because they never noticed, that many academic women suffered from those old quotas, too, as well as from the new "backlash...
...In 1972, the American Psychological Association (APA) surveyed nearly 5,100 women members...
...The testimony of many women bears witness to this pattern...
...Of the full-time women, 27 percent were full-time lecturers and instructors, 14 percent assistant professors, 9 percent associates, and 4 percent full professors...
...High attrition rates among women students in graduate sociology departments were attributed to "the negative influence of the structure of typical graduate schools...
...At the University of Chicago, for example, only 2 percent of all professors in a 1968-69 survey were women...
...These guidelines can help those who wish to be helped...
...Almost half were still on their first jobs, and 30 percent had changed jobs only once...
...CCNY not only reflects historical patterns of discrimination but persists in the discriminatory practices of its founders...
...is required of women for positions with rank, more women, both in number and in percentage, are employed in the English department than at Bronx Community College, a two-year school that has lower job requirements...
...In October 1967, Executive Order 11246, as amended by 11375, extended equal employment rights to women in universities holding federal contracts...
...Is it facetious to inquire how we have ever known a man was the better one...
...CUNY refused, offering to surrender its government contracts rather than reveal confidential employment records...
...There were no women professors or associates...
...married women Ph.D.'s who were employed full time published slightly more than either men Ph.D.'s or unmarried Ph.D.'s...
...New York is a city of graduate schools where the number of qualified women is higher than elsewhere in the country and interviews with graduating students are more easily arranged...
...more than one-half of this total were in social work, that is, 6 of the 11 women professors at Chicago were concentrated in sociology's low-prestige departments...
...More data were then compiled, demonstrating the extent of available competent women...
...In administration in both fields, however, recent trends have been to replace women with men.s In social work, education, and nursing, and in the modern language departments, too, a greater number of women is found than in other academic disciplines...
...She showed, in fact that, as job candidates, women have more stability and promise than men...
...In November, however, Pottinger left the Syracuse Conference for Affirmative Action in exasperation, saying that the government's program was "losing ground . . . to a growing rhetorical backlash from male faculty members and administrations...
...A national study on the job drop-out rates of women Ph.D.'s and their publication records, conducted by Helen Astin, answers the conventional objections about women...
...Within the academy, many dismiss such evidence on the ground that national statistics do not prove that, in individual departments in specific universities, qualified women in general or individual women with appropriate credentials have been victimized by sex discrimination...
...HEW, THE UNIVERSITY, & WOMEN cants could be screened out...
...If noncompliance was found with the terms of federal contracts, Mr...
...By contrast, the Wisconsin report found the percentage of women who had earned the highest degrees in mathematics in the top graduate departments remarkably low— only 5.5 percent...
...Almost all were concentrated in low-prestige occupations and positions...
...Yet some members argue it is not...
...In 1969 it seemed that the status of women would be improved if statistical information was presented showing patterns of discrimination in colleges...
...With these data, and with the full understanding that catalogues and lists are often inaccurate, CWC filed charges against CUNY with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC...
...0 339...
...Only three-quarters of the APA women responded to the questionnaire, and not every women psychologist is an APA member...
...of this sample 57 percent (2,903) held Ph.D.'s, and 8 percent (425) held Ed.D.'s...
...Those employed on subpro fessorial levels, even with a Ph.D...
...She referred to patterns of keeping women at bottom ranks...
...At Berkeley in 1970, for example, only 2 percent of the full professors were women...
...In this field, however, it is not...
...Professor Sidney Hook, one of the more outspoken critics of "affirmative action," claimed that HEW enforcement agents did not understand how the university merit system worked...
...These critics fail to take into account that many women who found jobs before having children have been forced out by punitive maternity leave reguWorkers (Washington, D.C.: Government PrintingDffice, 1969) . HEW, THE UNIVERSITY, & WOMEN lations...
...20-20.5 in molecular biology...
...Under this Order, acadamic women alleging discrimination could file complaints with the Office of Civil Rights, directed by J. Stanley Pottinger...
...his distinguished career record (army, public relations) `has been a better preparation for the university than uninterrupted schooling could have been'" (MLA Newsletter, September 1972...
...Department of Labor, Handbook on Women FRANCES BARASCH were associate professors, while 15 percent of the female respondents were associate professors...
...Thus, the number of qualified women who are potentially available for academic work or upgrading is over 3,000, at a minimum— and the employment figures of women on the faculties of academic psychology departments do not reflect these figures...
...334 cent of this total number taught graduate courses exclusively...
...Alan Pifer, speech, November 29, 1971...
...In 1969, 37 percent of the modem-language faculties in the United States were women...
...Its contents, according to Project Director Katherine Klotzburger, demonstrate discrepancies in hiring practice in a number of disciplines and departments...
...At New York Community College, a woman returning to her previous job level had to begin earning tenure credit all over again...
...With the Wisconsin data, one may begin to understand the impetus behind the professional women's movement...
...A pattern of nonpromotion and slow promotion is revealed in the 1969 data of the American Council on Education (ACE), which reported that 63 percent of all faculty women earned less than $10,000, while only 28 percent of all faculty men were in that bracket...
...A number of these critics demand that, before they will be stirred into action, individual cases of discrimination must be proved...
...After that, they show a sharp decline in their scholarly achievement and a growing interest in social affairs...
...But qualified women will be "unavailable" if 338 universities continue to keep openings secret or pick their candidates before interviews begin...
...One cannot account for the disparate treatment of women at different CUNY units on the ground that qualified women are "unavailable...
...But I have heard of no case in any university in which men were dismissed in order to make way for women...
...male candidates cannot "lose" positions they do not have...
...Professor Hook would have us believe that women who do not engage in academic pressure or cannot readily leave a location are not as worthy of merit raises and promotions as men— even if those women serve loyally, publish regularly, receive prestigious fellowships, and occupy administrative posts...
...The figure reflects recent findings that girls are conditioned to avoid success in "male" subjects when they are at an especially impressionable age in high school...
...Meanwhile at CUNY, the Advisory Committee on the Status of Women, appointed by the university's chancellor, amassed data in preparation of two reports...
...CCNY statistics for 1971 showed a department of 104 members, 22 of whom were male full professors, 17 male associates, and 24 male assistants...
...It is understandable that HEW's desire for goals should be misinterpreted as quotas, for many university men still remember unfair quotas against Jews FRANCES BARASCH of recent decades...
...Formerly, in schools of social work, as in schools of education, women were deans...
...Yet, so far, no corrective program has been announced...
...FRANCES BARASCH 336 Not surprisingly, the CWC data reveal the same patterns of discrimination found in the report of the chancellor's committee and in various national surveys...
...However, of these only 33 percent worked full time, which means that two-thirds of the women then employed in modern-language departments were theoretically available for more desirable full-time jobs...
...Eventually, women will sit on selection committees, and their opinions will be sought and valued...
...Since 1968, only one woman (in remedial English) had earned tenure in the department, for although new women are hired each year, none is retained long enough to gain tenure...
...Meanwhile, men of good faith must learn from women...
...21.4 in biochemistry...
...Helen Astin's study also cleared the married woman with a Ph.D...
...These are facts that should explode the myth that women and science do not mix...
...It may seem that 37 percent is a high rate of employment in modern languages, considering the present low status of women in higher education...
...Hook was especially troubled by the government's lack of understanding that in some situations a merit raise due to a woman might instead be offered to a man who could threaten to leave for a better-paying position...
...Once employment data were available, university officials conceded the point: there was discrimination against women...
...In this group, 39 percent of the women were in the community colleges, sometimes comprising half the modern-language faculty in a single two-year school...
...They imagine that the large numbers of lowranking women in community colleges, in former women's colleges, and new colleges somehow exonerate them of charges of discrimination...
...For example, the Association of Women in Science was chartered recently by a number of scientists, which include Gertrude Shloer, a microbiologist at Mt...
...I believe that women and men recently hired won their jobs on the basis of equal qualifications...
...2 2 Alice S. Rossi, "The Status of Women in Grad...
...In October 1972, the guidelines were issued...
...However, more men are promoted than women, and many women spend their entire careers in the bottom ranks, no matter what their professional contributions...
...In last year's job market, for example, a woman's dossier contained this statement: "Mrs...
...13.4 in psychiatry.' In 1969, women constituted somewhere between 18-22 percent of the total faculty in higher education, with a large proportion 1 Material distributed by Bernice Sandier, executive associate, the Project on the Status of Women, American Association of Colleges (AAC...
...The concept of quotas is abhorrent to qualified academic women who have long been victims of that system...
...Yet all CUNY units have access to the same graduate labor pools, to the same bank of lecturers and part-time women with Ph.D.'s currently employed in CUNY English departments, and to the same national organizations and universities where local and out-of-town recruitments are made...
...Over the past few years the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) and the acadamic establishment have been engaged in a contest over equal employment opportunities for university women...
...A show of "good faith," not actual recruitments of large numbers, will suffice to keep universities supplied with federal contracts—and a reasonable number of female appointees...
...Young marrieds who had met in graduate school, the Porters had studied the same subjects, earned the same degree, and applied for jobs with the same qualifications, except that Mary was somewhat the better student...
...Studies by David Riesman, Ellen and Kenneth Keniston, and Patricia Graham demonstrate these patterns...
...The women's number in professorial ranks had a pinhead and bulging midriff: 3 professors, 9 associates, and 7 assistant professors...
...on demonstrated capability, not assumed superiority" (New York Times, December 18, 1971...
...At CCNY the English department reflects the same tradition of discrimination that has prevailed at Baruch...
...The Brooklyn College English department is nearly as bad...
...Under the watchful eyes of academic women, the "good faith" of university men may have a chance to show itself...
...By the end of the summer, however, CUNY came to terms with HEW...
...Among graduate students, according to James A. Davis,4 the figure for women studying modem languages in the early 1960s was 69 percent, of which 65 percent were in English...
...Astin proved that women's lack of job continuity and professional contributions has been grossly exaggerated...
...It becomes clear, then, that there were proportionally more trained, qualified women in the sci ences than were employed even in all fields of higher education—and thereby the gap in the sciences between qualified women and women in high-level jobs is greater still...
...In the field of sociology, according to Alice Rossi's 1970 report to the American Sociological Association, 2,345 men were employed full time in 180 sociology departments, compared with 300 full-time women...
...Women are concentrated in social work, but even there only a small percentage rise in rank...
...What is needed for the improvement in the status of women is a fair chance for qualified women, not a system of quotas but supervised demonstrations of "good faith" in recruitment: positions announced, job descriptions and qualifications stipulated, papers and documents presented for applications, interviews—and reasons for hiring decisions filed for HEW's inspection and held against complaints from men or women who feel abused by "discrimination," or "reverse discrimination," which both are illegal...
...of the charge of her alleged irresponsibility...
...Under those systems, the number of women admitted to coeducational programs is fixed and inflexible...
...Since then, the National Organization of Women (NOW) and the Professional Women's Caucus (PWC) have filed over 350 complaints against colleges and universities...
...The reports, one assumes, will have official sanction and will lead to an internal corrective program...
...It is to be expected in any era of change that those who must reconsider past practices will be troubled and will attack the instrument of change...
...By 1969, Florence Howe (MLA) reported that only 55 percent of the graduate students in modern languages were women and even fewer were in Ph.D...
...The percentages for women in all categories were better than those for men...
...By the end of high school, women are at an "enormous" disadvantage...
...A fact-finding study commissioned by the University's chancellor produced notable results...
...Yet discrepancies between male and female appointments, ranks, and unit distribution, even within the same discipline, are more glaring in New York than on the national scene as a whole...
...the 12 full-time women were asHEW, THE UNIVERSITY, & WOMEN sistant professors or lecturers...
...Salary records are closely guarded secrets in most universities, but even when discrepancies between men's and women's salaries are revealed, authorities insist that their estimates of merit are the only legitimate ones...
...While national statistics demonstrate that patterns of discrimination against women are a national practice, the data required by HEW to develop specific corrective programs in individual colleges have been withheld by university officers...
...But "the dossier of a forty-year-old man asserted that one should hire this man...
...of offering lower salaries to women than to men for similar job functions, and of limiting women's advancement opportunities...
...Knowledgeable interpretations based on first-hand experiences of department practices accompanied these data...
...Many critics, such as President Bunzel of California State University at San Jose, claim that few women have been hired or promoted simply because few are qualified under the guidelines of "academic judgment...
...Others gave way under a pattern of discouragement by male professors...
...Although the first report, in open hearings that were held last spring, has been released, the second, which contains exact data and recommendations, seems to be reserved for exclusive circulation...
...programs...
...Joe received numerous offers—Mary received none...
...University officials now requested guidelines for implementing the Order...
...Pottinger agrees: corrective action means "men will simply be asked by their universities to compete fairly on the basis of merit, not fraternity...
...only two were tenured, and only one had earned all tenure credits at Baruch, facts that reflect the history of prejudice against women at both CCNY and Baruch until 1965...
...8 E. Alden Dunham, Colleges of the Forgotten American (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970...
...I do not believe that critics such as Sidney Hook or the Cornell professors who protested affirmative action in the New York Times (November 5, 1971, and January 6, 1972) fear displacement by women...
...23.0 in anatomy and histology...
...For example, at Bernard M. Baruch College, which is a four-year school where the Ph.D...
...As in the national pattern of distribution, women faculty members in sociology were concentrated at the lowest, most undesirable levels, including women with Ph.D.'s and ten or more years of experience...
...Recently, however, agreement was reached that CUNY would supply information, provided the names of individual staff members remained anonymous...
...He added that the myth persists and that goals are thinly disguised quotas: "All we can do is keep repeating what everybody should know by now, that you can't redress discrimination against some people by practicing it against others" (New York Times, November 30, 1972...
...The percentage for tenured women in all ranks was 38 percent in contrast to 49 percent for males...
...He explained that individuals are promoted by recommendation of their peers, and for a variety of reasons, sometimes for administrative service...
...Such goals may be contrasted with actual quota systems developed for women students at such universities as New York University (University Heights campus), Yale, and other private as well as state institutions...
...In the sciences, it was found, the percentages of qualified women in 1967-69 were far greater than was generally supposed and far higher than employment rates of women in academic science departments...
...though a woman and older should be as well received as a younger man...
...Only 27.5 percent of the total staff were women, of whom approximately 1 out of 4 was a full professor and 1 out of 2 an associate...
...In the HEW, THE UNIVERSITY, & WOMEN sciences alone, seven organizations of 30, 000 women are suing the National Health Institutes for appointments...
...Of the 39 women in Baruch's English department, approximately 12 worked full time during the 1971 period studied...
...For example, the visibility of women in different English departments within the University differs widely from one unit to another...
...The Women's Equity Action League, women of the Professional Staff Congress (CUNY), and every professional women's committee, from MLA to ASA have spoken for high standards and fair hiring practices, goals, and timetables—not quotas...
...HEW will no longer act on individual CUNY cases, which are now to be handled by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC...
...With the threat of cancellation of federal contracts and as a result of political pressures, such universities as Harvard, Michigan, Columbia, and Cornell have moved toward compliance over the protests of their faculties and are now developing techniques for assembling the information on hiring and personnel practices...
...18.9 in anesthesiology...
...Thus, with a total staff of about 80, nearly half of whom were women, about 15 percent were full time, about 2.5 percent were tenured, and none had obtained senior rank...
...A job survey of this group revealed that only 5 percent (283) were employed in basic research...
...According to national patterns, Bronx Community College should show better rates of hiring than senior units of CUNY, but it does not...
...24 percent of males and only 9 percent of the females were full professors...
...Although the purpose of coeducation was to upgrade the college where standards had been slipping for some time, the NYU quota system was designed to favor men rather than to assure the admission of the "best...
...In the September 1972 issue of the MLA Newsletter, Professor Nancy Hoffman of MIT offered guidelines to men for recommending and evaluating women: avoid comments on her physical appearance, her marital status, and her feminist activities, if any...
...In contrast, no woman was a full professor, 4 were associates (the only tenured women in the department), and 11 relative newcomers were assistants...
...The evidence for prejudicial hiring and promotion practices in the English departments under examination should be conclusive...
...In The Woman Doctorate in America,6 she demonstrated that of the group of women Ph.D.'s studied, 91 percent were still working eight or nine years after receiving their Ph.D., 81 percent worked full time, and 79 percent had worked without interruption...
...Because of the large number of women potentially available for appointment in the field, the low rate of employment is more destructive than in most other disciplines...
...In January 1970 the Women's Equity Action League (WEAL) filed the first complaint against a university to be made under Executive Order 11375...
...As for publication, 75 percent had published, and 10 percent published considerably...
...Similar studies in other disciplines support the Wisconsin report findings in the sciences, maintaining that more qualified women are available for most academic jobs than male incumbents would like to believe...
...Of these, 14 were women, distributed by rank in the usual pattern: one professor, no associates, 5 assistants, 8 lecturers...
...Secretary Elliot Richardson reported satisfactory progress...
...But the problem is that proof requires specific data, which many of these critics interpret and control...
...In June 1972, HEW gave CUNY ten days' notice to comply with employment information...
...Compared with national availability averages, Bronx Community, Baruch, CCNY, and Brooklyn nearly break the record for overt discrimination, both in numbers hired and retained in their English departments...
...For example, the percentages of women among all those holding Ph.D.'s in those years were: 26.1 in psychology...
...the second largest, 24 percent (1,248), were teachers...
...Yet the data collected by professional organizations in the past few years challenge this assumption and establish realistic bases for reasonable, affirmative action goals in hiring qualified women...
...I believe, as Alan Pifer does, that fantastic charges are "trotted out by the male academic simply to cover up his deep-seated aversion to having women as equal colleagues, as competition, and possibly even as superiors" (Pifer, in a speech, delivered November 29, 1971) . Despite HEW's efforts to show university men that "goals may not be rigid and inflexible quotas," 7 the critics continue to claim that they are...
...As a recruit, no man owns the position he seeks...
...Pottinger could recommend contract cancellations to the Department of Labor...
...Although female students began to attend City College during World War II (when there were not sufficient male students), the department has maintained its discriminatory policy with few exceptions...
...A total of 19 women were in the professorial ranks, in contrast to 40 men...
...5 U.S...
...These national studies, many of them published in professional journals, unfortunately do not reach the average male professor or the general reader who insist on perpetuating antique myths—that qualified women are not available in the academic labor force, will not remain on their jobs owing to marHelen Astin, The Woman Doctorate in America New York: Basic Books, 1970...
...Most critics of affirmative action have not been notable for opposition to sex quotas and to double standards in college admissions, despite the inequities revealed annually in American Council on Education surveys and despite the protests of women student groups and professional women who have repeatedly urged reforms...
...In 1971-72, according to the CWC study, there was a total full-time faculty of 39...
...Other academics would have us believe that promotions are always based on academic merit and that, because women raise families, they do not stay on jobs long enough for promotion...
...Still others claim women do not publish enough or do not measure up in other ways...
...Under an ideal affirmative action plan, the competition for each position would be equal each time...
...For the rest, Nancy Hoffman's conclusion is the most significant and the most difficult to achieve: "The need for consciousness-raising and for change should by now be apparent...
...Without pressure, however, present practice forecasts the future: one need only cite the case of Joe Porter and Mary Gardner, told in the Newsweek issue of May 17, 1971...
...and years of experience, cannot apply for grants as sole principal investigators, while an assistant professor with a new Ph.D...
...Among the universities required to reassess its assumptions about woman was the University of Wisconsin...
...Professor Howe maintained that the high percentage of male professors in graduate schools indicates to female students that women cannot "make it" to the top...
...The patterns at CUNY, she maintained (in a speech, November 18, 1972, before the Women's City Club), are those of the nation...
...13.4 in botany...
...and no prior research can do so...
...More than half the women studied by Astin were married and had families, though the percentage of childless women was twice that of the general population...
...A coeducational senior college since its inception in the 1930s, Brook lyn College employed in its English department in 1971 a total faculty of 147...
...Women are becoming more and more aware of the extent of discrimination against them, as Bernice Sandler reported to members at the October convention of the American Association of Colleges, and angry women are filing suits in increasing numbers...
...Sinai School of Medicine, CUNY...
...Many were "cooled out" before entering a long training program with no hope of a job at the end of the line...
Vol. 20 • July 1973 • No. 3
