A University of California, Davis study released Thursday cites
continued gender discrimination in hiring UC faculty.
The study, completed by four UC Davis professors, reveals that
the percentage of women receiving Ph.D.s far exceeds the percentage
of women professors hired at UC campuses.
The study suggests that hiring more entry level professors would
increase the percentage, since more women are getting Ph.D.s than
ever before.
Campus-wide numbers show that just 31 percent of the faculty
hired at UCLA last year were women, according to UCLA’s
faculty diversity Web site. UC campuses as a whole hired women for
36 percent of their faculty openings.
The UC has policies such as the UC Faculty Family Friendly Edge,
which stops the tenure clock for faculty to care for a newborn and
allows for parental leave.
But Martha West, a professor of law at UC Davis and co-author of
the study, said these policies are not being used enough.
“UC has great policies but the women are afraid to take
advantage of them because they are afraid that they will be
penalized,” West said.
West said the UC has to do a much better job of encouraging use
of these policies and protecting women from retaliation when they
do use them.
“The decision-making process is very subjective, so you
will never know why someone voted no on a tenure … so someone
could hold it against you,” West said.
A written response from the UC Office of the President on the
study said the “UC is engaged in significant research efforts
to promote gender equity in higher education” and the data
used “is not an accurate measurement of gender
equity.”
It refers to disparity of women in different fields and levels
of senior hires. There are fewer women in the pool in the senior
level and in the scientific fields.
The study does call for hiring more entry level faculty.
Associate Vice Chancellor Rosina Becerra said increased hiring
of assistant professors rather than senior tenured professors is
part of the answer, though not the only one.
The sciences have had a greater number of women getting
doctorates than in the past, and so more women would be available
for hire at the entry level, Becerra said.
The report compared last year’s numbers to that of 10
previous years, showing that the 2003-2004 number did not exceed
those of the 1993-1994 academic year.
“The report essentially lays out some of the events that
have occurred in the last few years. … There certainly has been a
decrease than in (years prior to proposition) 209,” Becerra
said, referring to the proposition passed in 1996 that prohibits
discrimination in employing, educating and contracting on basis of
race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin.
West suggested that putting more women on the search committees
for new faculty would increase the percentage hired.
There is a larger percentage of male faculty at UC campuses,
with 73 percent of UC faculty being men. This means that there are
more men on the committees who put together the pool of possible
applicants and choose new hires, and so the committees may be more
likely to choose men, West said.
Becerra said she tries to ensure a diverse recruitment pool, and
meets with a variety of deans and chairs about the process. But the
decision of who to hire is ultimately up to the faculty.
UCLA is working on strategies in which improvements can be made,
Becerra said.