The University of California has failed to raise its percentage of female faculty hires, despite an increase in the hiring of new professors in recent years, as well as a growth in the percentage of women getting doctorate degrees, according to a recently released report written by four UC Davis professors. The report claims that the university discriminates against women by continuing to lag in its hiring of female faculty.
Titled “Unprecedented Urgency: Gender Discrimination in Faculty Hiring at the University of California,” the report has come in the midst of the university’s 10-year plan to increase its hiring of professors to meet the demands of a growing student population and to replace retiring faculty. The report states that women made up 36 percent of the newly hired faculty in 2003-04, which was the same proportion as in the previous year. Meanwhile, over 45 percent of all doctorate degrees in 2003 were awarded to women.
The study claims that the number of females hired by the university dropped dramatically after the UC Board of Regents abolished the use of affirmative action in 1995 following the passage of Proposition 209, which banned the state from considering race or gender in hiring decisions.
“We have been monitoring the hiring of women faculty for many years,” UC Davis law professor and co-author of the report Martha West said. “After [the] regents abolished affirmative action, we started noticing [that] the percentage of women at UC Davis was declining rapidly. At UC Davis, the numbers went from 52 percent to 13 percent.”
However, national doctoral degree data is not an accurate benchmark to assess the university’s hiring practices, according to a statement released by the UC Office of the President in response to the report. According to UCOP, the applicant pool of women for potential faculty positions vary by each department as well as by the different levels of hiring at the junior or senior level.
Determining the level and field of new faculty hires is the product of a complex academic planning process that takes place at the campus level, UCOP stated.
West and several others began to raise concerns over the hiring issue through the California Legislature. She and her colleagues approached state Senator Jackie Speier (D-San Francisco/San Mateo), who held hearings during three consecutive years in 2001, 2002 and 2003 to track UC hiring practices. The report also details the testimonies of professors from various campuses during the hearings.
“If the discrimination continues, we would lose a whole generation of women faculty,” West said. “We’re worried that the percentage of women hired will go back down unless attention continues to be paid to the issue.”
At the 2001 hearing, faculty reported that UCSD had the lowest number of women in its faculty among the UC campuses, with 17 percent of professors being women.
Since then, the campus has improved, but not by much, according to UCSD ethnic studies professor Ross Frank, who chairs the Committee on Affirmative Action for the campus’ Academic Senate.
“We have a horrible record,” Frank said. “Maybe it’s been getting better, but not by much. Where we are now, things haven’t changed, and more dramatic things must be done at the different levels of hiring for the UC.”
UCSD history professor Michael Bernstein testified in 2002 about women in the history department and how the structure of the search process prevented an increase in the number of females hired. While Bernstein said that the situation in the history department has improved since his testimony, with two additional women senior faculty and many more as associate professors, the university must continue to monitor the problem.
“I think [the report] represents a long period of gathering information that shows lagging efforts to solve a systemwide problem,” Bernstein said. “We also need to improve outreach so that more women come into the undergraduate and graduate programs that provide the pool of qualified professors.”
The report found some improvement in the hiring of women for nontenured assistant-professor positions. It stated that the percentage of women among assistant professor hires went up from 38 percent in 2002-03 to 41 percent the following year.
But the report also showed that the progress of women being hired throughout the UC system continues to be mixed. While UC Berkeley has the highest percentage of women hires at 48 percent of new faculty, the other UC campuses continue to lag. In 2004, UCSD still had the lowest percentage of women faculty, with 22 percent, compared to 27 percent systemwide.
Among the recommendations given in the report are providing more university leadership by communicating directly with academic departments, disseminating data on hiring information from the past years to each faculty member, and expanding the percentage of faculty hired at the entry level of assistant professors.
“We need chancellors and the [UC] president to communicate directly to every department’s faculty,” West said. “They need to send letters to each department [saying] that we need to hire women in that field.”
Ross also said that leadership changes must be combined with efforts to change the way faculty members understand the benefits of a diversified faculty.
“The faculty as a whole has to understand that you can’t have excellence and not take advantage of the full pool in any discipline,” Ross said. “We now have to work at not only encouraging leadership but also devising ways of changing the culture of faculty who actually are the ones making decisions.”
