HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: David.Koert@CoE.Drexel.EDU (Dave Koert)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Date: 9 Sep 92 21:09:52 GMT
Organization: Drexel University
X-Xxmessage-Id: <A6D3E2A7CC0414E2@n1-20-226-hess-lab.coe.drexel.edu>
X-Xxdate: Wed, 9 Sep 92 17:19:35 GMT
X-Useragent: Nuntius v1.1.1d9

This summer, I was one of four finalists to interview for a tenure-track,
faculty position at a land-grant university in New England.  There was
enough
feedback that I felt 99% certain of an offer.  I didn't get an offer. 
Oh, well.

I asked a colleague to find out what had happened (he had a friend on the
search committee at the university in New England).  The reason I was not
given
the offer (so the story goes) is that the Dean and/or Department Head
insisted
that an applicant who was a member of an under represented gender be
given the
offer even though this applicant did not fit the slot (area of expertise)
they
sought to fill.

I know, I know... who ever told me life was always fair.  I always
*thought* that
it was reasonable that members of underprivileged groups be given
advantages
so that past and present discrimination could be balanced.  I find that
since
I was the victim of an instance of this balancing act I *feel* less prone
to be
to be the humanitarian.

In speaking with two colleagues who are search committee members at a
university
that is very local to me and shall rename nameless ;-) I was told that
they made
two lists of final candidates for a recent opening:  list A for women and
minorities, and list B for the rest.  The position was filled by a well
qualified
female.

As I read what I have just written I realize it may look like whining
from a
chauvinist, but I'll risk it to ask for a reasonable discussion of the
subject.
Even though I *feel* I was somehow cheated, I am forced to reason by the
compelling argument that past and present discrimination should to be
compensated for by institutional policies of preference for under
represented
groups.  However, I would like to come up with a list of reasonable
arguments
against this practice also.




dave koert, research assist. prof.        | (disgruntler)
combustion & fuels group, hess labs       |  "Nuke the unborn, gay whale"
Mechanical Eng. Dept. (MEM), Drexel Univ. |          bumper sticker
David.Koert@CoE.Drexel.EDU                |          seen in RI, 1983
From: laws@ai.sri.com (Kenneth I. Laws)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Date: 12 Sep 92 05:40:14 GMT
	<1992Sep10.155554.25549@guinness.idbsu.edu>
Organization: Computists International
In-reply-to: holmes@opal.idbsu.edu's message of 10 Sep 92 15:55:54 GMT

>From Randall Holmes:
>Even though I *feel* I was somehow cheated, I am forced to reason by the
>compelling argument that past and present discrimination should to be
>compensated for by institutional policies of preference for under
>represented
>groups.

For government positions, or those where minority preference
is mandated by law, the justification is "the will of the
people."  Nothing in the principles of democracy requires
that the majority be either ethical or consistent.

In other cases, I would tend to assume that "reverse
discrimination" is still discrimination by race, and hence
illegal.  Whether it is ethically required may depend on
the circumstances -- there may be cases where discrimination
in individual cases is necessary to prevent discrimination
"on the whole."  A policy of hiring one black for every
white, for instance, leaves you with only n/2 degrees of
freedom.

					-- Ken
--

Dr. Kenneth I. Laws, (415) 493-7390, laws@ai.sri.com.
Moderator of the Computists International AI/IS/CS mutual-aid association.
Ask about my weekly online career newsletter, The Computists' Communique.
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: schieber@jetson.uh.edu (Schieber, Jay D.)
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Houston
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 21:44:00 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.165259.26019@tc.cornell.edu>, bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes...
>In article <1992Sep12.155055.22185@news.acns.nwu.edu> len@schur.math.nwu.edu (Len Evens) writes:
> 
>>Of course, they are usually
>>very enthusiastic about exceptional candidates, but they may be even more
>>enthusiastic in the case of women.
> 
>This sentence is typical of the attitude that I find so disturbing
>in senior faculty members. They dont say: we would like to be 
>gender-neutral in our hiring practices, but unfortunately 
>affirmative-action directives instruct us otherwise. Rather, they
>sound so excited and enthusiastic, that  you cannt miss their social
>agenda.

I am GLAD that they do not respond in the first way that you suggest.
Perhaps it would be better to say "We would like to be gender-neutral
in our hiring practices, but the current unfairness in society makes
that next-to-impossible".

How horrible that faculty should have social agendas! We should
simply do our jobs designing those purification processes for
uranium-238, teaching students how to design plants that spew
toxins into the air in some little country somewhere south of
here, leave our students to twist in the wind when the economy
is bad (after all they are on their own at hiring times). And
we all know that faculty before *never* had social agendas that
benefitted their groups.  I hope that the implicit smilies are
self-evident in this paragraph.  

Faculty are privileged members of privileged groups of (hopefully)
very intelligent people that should be thinking constantly about
how they can benefit society.  Suggestions otherwise are now 
being used by ideologically-opposed powerful groups to hide the
fact that they had their own social agenda for decades.  At least
some people are now being honest about the debate.



> 
>>Leonard Evens      len@math.nwu.edu      708-491-5537
>>Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208
> 
>
From: merolajs@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (JOSEPH S. MEROLA DEPT OF CHEMISTRY VPI&SU)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
Date: 12 Sep 92 00:01:00 GMT
Organization: Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <1992Sep11.230019.6635@msc.cornell.edu>, hillyard@lynx.msc.cornell.edu.UUCP (Sean Edward Hillyard,F7 Clark,50649,) writes...
>From article <11SEP199217133005@jetson.uh.edu>, by schieber@jetson.uh.edu (Schieber, Jay D.):
>[...]
>> 
>> There is no leap of faith involved (the deleted sections of the
>> poster imply this).  Being a faculty requires much more than
>> strictly technical skills; to think otherwise is quite naive.
>> In industry it is even more true.  Industry looks for people who
>> fit into the "corporate culture"--clearly not a technical 
>> qualification.  I am mentor to hundreds of students, who ask
>> me questions about many aspects of working and studying, with
>> at least half of the questions having nothing to do about 
>> technical matters.
>[...]
> 
>Yes, but explain to me the difference between these two situations.
> 
>We'd like to hire you, but you're black and the rest of the staff won't
>work with you very well.  So you won't get as much done as the less 
>able white we're hiring.
> 
>or
> 
>We'd like to hire you, but you're white and won't be as good a mentor to
>the black students as the less able black we're hiring.
> 
>SEH

Well, I know that I'm not going to be able to convince you that there
is a difference, but the fool that I am, I will try.

In the first case, the person is perfectly able to carry out the
technical job that is being filled.  To accept the rest of the 
staffs bigotry in coming to the conclusion stated in the first case
is wrong.  There are no other positive reasons (as stated) in 
favor of hiring the white candidate.  You present negative reasons
for not hiring the black.

In the second case, there are both technical and non-technical
components of the job description:  the person must do the job as
well as be involved in specific mentoring programs, etc.  The
people doing the hiring must then balance the relative
importance of each of these components.  If it turns out that
the mentoring portion of the job is of high importance, then
there is nothing wrong with giving this person the job.  I
submit, though, that if the job is given to someone who is
UNqualified to do the primary (technical) job, then a 
mistake has been made.

This all seems to boil down to the way that most of these
posts are phrased:  "A less qualified person" has been
hired.  How much less?  Can you quantify known cases?  What are
the criteria used.  I submit in most cases that the 
magnitude of the difference is not that great. In that case,
non-technical factors can outweigh the technical.

Have I convinced you?   I didn't think so. 8-)

Joseph S. Merola
Department of Chemistry
Virginia Tech (aka VPI&SU)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor)
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
Organization: /usr/local/lib/news/organization
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1992 16:52:59 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.155055.22185@news.acns.nwu.edu> len@schur.math.nwu.edu (Len Evens) writes:
>In article <11SEP199209542037@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu> merolajs@vtcc1.cc.vt.edu (JOSEPH S. MEROLA DEPT OF CHEMISTRY VPI&SU) writes:

>Of course, they are usually
>very enthusiastic about exceptional candidates, but they may be even more
>enthusiastic in the case of women.

This sentence is typical of the attitude that I find so disturbing
in senior faculty members. They dont say: we would like to be 
gender-neutral in our hiring practices, but unfortunately 
affirmative-action directives instruct us otherwise. Rather, they
sound so excited and enthusiastic, that  you cannt miss their social
agenda.

>Leonard Evens      len@math.nwu.edu      708-491-5537
>Dept. of Mathematics, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL 60208


Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: lseltzer@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Linda A. Seltzer)
Subject: Re: Asian-American success (was Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions)
Originator: news@nimaster
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 13:26:48 GMT

In article <1992Sep12.145305.21269@news.acns.nwu.edu> len@schur.math.nwu.edu (Len Evens) writes:
>they attributed this discrimination not to direct action by the institution
>against Asian-Americans but to the fact that it gave preference to
>children of alumni and to athletes.  Since Asian-Americans were not
>highly represented in those groups, they were in effect discriminated
>against.  However, the Department of Education found that Harvard's
>standards were rational, so they did not require them to change them.
>Perhaps the reasoning was that 20 or 30 years from now the Asian-Americans
>will get their due when a much higher percentage of children of alumni
>will belong to that group.  Of course, the children won't have to work

Berkeley has gone through similar debates, but being the child of
alumni wasn't the issue there.  The issue was extracurricular
activities.  It was clear that if admissions were based on
academic criteria alone, Asian Americans would constitute a
much larger segment of the Berkeley student population.  
If it's not the "children of alumni" excuse, it's the "extracurricular
activities" excuse.  Maybe colleges should simply say that they
need affirmative action to assure some representation of white
students even though they are less qualified.
From: gilligan@bldrdoc.gov (Jonathan M. Gilligan)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
Date: 11 Sep 92 20:21:14 GMT
Organization: National Institute of Standards and Technology

In article <1992Sep11.162439.26974@tc.cornell.edu> bai@msiadmin.cit.cornell.edu (Dov Bai-MSI Visitor) writes:
>In article <lb1cbgINNelp@utkcs2.cs.utk.edu> primeaux@wham-o.cs.utk.edu (David Primeaux) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep10.233803.17047@mailhost.ocs.mq.edu.au>, wskelly@laurel.ocs.mq.edu.au (William Skelly) writes:
>>|> In article <1992Sep9.215223.22997@netnews.noc.drexel.edu> David.Koert@CoE.Drexel.EDU (Dave Koert) writes:
>>|> 1. Why and how long do *we* pay for the mistakes of past generations
>>
>>*We* have to pay for the mistakes of past generations because the 
>>results of those past mistakes still pervade society today.  And withour
>>affirmative action laws, IMHO, the mistakes of yesterday would be repeated
>>today, leaving *our* children and grandchildren wondering why *they* had to
>>pay for our mistakes.
>
>Why should anybody have to pay for crimes he/she did not commit ? If there is
>still discrimination today then punish the people who do it, not the innocents.

Let's add to the list.

Why should young people today in the US have to pay for a national
debt that was incurred by their elders in Congress and the White
House? I say, let's default on it rather than pay it.

Why should children of poor people have to grow up in poverty just
because their parents failed to get rich? (And why should the children
of the middle class have to grow up less than spectacularly wealthy?)

Why should young people today have any interest in cleaning up the
pollution that their elders released into the environment?

(etc.)

In other words, can we ask the question differently? I like to think
in these terms: would it be nice to have more women in science? My
answer: yes. Then there is a question of the best means to get more
women into scientific careers.

But as much as I support Affirmative Action, I ask, does anyone
implement it to a statistically significant level? I have seen two
anecdotal claims of individual hiring decisions being made on the
basis of preferential hiring of women, and one statement that the
University of Alberta refuses to hire men until equality is
established.  But can anyone give a list of universities in the United
States that hire a statistically significant excess of women beyond
the fraction that exist in the pool of PhDs? I don't believe that
there are many if there are any at all. I know of no department in the
entire United States that does. Please enlighten me.

Also, is there any university in the US that has enough blacks or
hispanics on its scientific faculty that we can say anything
statistically significant about hiring of underrepresented racial
minorities?

---Jon
-- 

Disclaimer --- The government probably disagrees with my opinions.
From: rsanders@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (RRobert M Sanders)
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 06:44:25 GMT

On that same subject, the sort of screening of candidates described above may 
be able to hide gender, and in some cases ethnicity.  For example, my own 
surname 'Sanders' could easily be black or white.  However, what about names 
like 'Sanchez,' 'Wang,' 'Singh,' etc.?  A much more important issue in all of 
this has to do with how affirmative action is understood.  Some take it to mean
an obligation to hire anyone but a white male.  Others simply take it to mean 
that every effort be made to identify and encourage qualified non-white and/or 
female applicants to enter the applicant pool.  Much to my surprise I have 
found that administrators often prefer the first interpretation, I guess 
because as one colleague once told me- "Deans don't think, they count," which 
is to say, it is a lot easier to say we hired N non-white and/or female faculty
than to deal with the thorny questions of why certain fields don't produce 
many non-white and/or female Ph.D.s.

Of course there are other differences of opinion as how to interpret the 
intention of affirmative action, which also raise difficult questions.  For 
instance, my brother attended a very respectable medical school which made a 
strong effort to recruit a diverse student body, with the assumption, I 
suppose, that this would make doctors out of people who traditionally never had
the opportunity.  For the most part non-white students did come from poor and 
lower-middle class families.  However, for one ethnic group, the majority of 
its members came from families where at least one parent was already a doctor.
Were these people in need of affirmative action? (This is NOT a rhetorical 
question!)  Also, I have a friend who was just hired at one of the most 
selective universities in this country.  She is originally from Japan, but 
received her Ph.D. in this country.  She of course is very well-qualified for 
the job, but the university was treating her as an Asian female as a means of 
demonstrating their committment to affirmative action.  Surely she did not 
suffer growing up because she was not white, though without the protection of 
affirmative action she might be vulnerable to discrimination in this country.

These are just some thoughts at 2:45 in the morning.
From: laws@ai.sri.com (Kenneth I. Laws)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Dr. Fabrikant and honesty in science
Date: 7 Sep 92 16:02:42 GMT
	<1992Aug27.132822.4428@bb1t.monsanto.com>
	<DASU.92Aug28183543@sscux1.ssc.gov> <hpry3lk@rpi.edu>
Organization: Computists International
In-reply-to: maniattb@cs.rpi.edu's message of 29 Aug 92 00:21:44 GMT

> citation counts are used as metrics for hiring and promotion purposes.
> Employers can be faked out into rewarding non contributors if they use this
> metric and non contributors get into the author lists.

Authors publish for their own purposes, and review committees
review for _their_ own purposes.  It seems strange that review
committees would try to control the publication process.

Let the employer beware.

					-- Ken
--

Dr. Kenneth I. Laws, (415) 493-7390, laws@ai.sri.com.
Moderator of the Computists International AI/IS/CS mutual-aid association.
Ask about my weekly online career newsletter, The Computists' Communique.
Xref: sparky sci.research.careers:975 soc.culture.canada:6457
From: masticol@cadenza.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers,soc.culture.canada
Subject: Re: News of Fabrikant - 3
Date: 10 Sep 92 14:09:27 GMT
Followup-To: sci.research.careers
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

ray@philmtl.philips.ca (Ray Dunn) writes:

[ Fabrikant:]

>"Violence is not being produced by itself out of nothing.  This particular
>act of violence was carefully planned and nurtured and I have documents for
>that."

That makes it first-degree murder. It appears that the man is trying,
successfully, to self-destruct. Too bad he had to take others with
him.

Does Canada have the death penalty?

- Steve (masticol@cs.rutgers.edu).
From: rsanders@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (RRobert M Sanders)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Date: 12 Sep 92 04:06:21 GMT
Organization: The Ohio State University

I have been reading this thread with great interest, but because I am not a 
scientist I have tried to stay out of the discussion, save for one posting 
early one.  As someone who has seen both sides of AA, however, I'd like to add 
my own personal experience.  I am a white male trained in Chinese language and 
linguistics.  This field has traditionally been dominated by Chinese (the 
language teachers have primarily been female, and the linguists have primarily 
been male).  I was hired by a department as the token minority, to serve as the
"role model for american students."  My experience was very depressing, as no 
one took me seriously as a scholar (since no non-native could ever know as much
as a native), and hence trivialized my scholarly contributions to the 
department.  Most of my colleagues were very patronizing to me on the scholarly
level, while at the same time praising me as a role model for American 
students.  When push came to shove the department decided to let me go early 
because in their judgement my work was insignificant (since this decision was 
reached before my sixth year they were under no obligation to send my work out 
for peer review).  Thus when i see arguments like "role model" I can only think
of the great pre-AA phrase "credit to his/her race."  It can be very insulting 
to categorize a person on the basis of a trait or traits which that person had 
foisted upon him/her at birth, though I am afraid that such practices will 
always exist.  I also believe that talk of educating people to be more 
sensitive can only work for people who are both well-intentioned and recognize 
that there is a problem in the first place.  It seems to me that AA is much too
simplistic a solution to a very complex problem.  I'm not sure what the answer 
is, however.
From: adam@concour.cs.concordia.ca (Adam Steele)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Montreal news of Fabricant 1
Date: 6 Sep 92 18:10:18 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec

In article <BtrDIJ.BGq.1@cs.cmu.edu> dstewart+@cs.cmu.edu (David B Stewart) writes:

>According to the Wed. Montreal Gazette, the secretary that was shot in the leg
>by Fabrikant was one of the people that Fabrikant asked for a letter of
>recommendation.  She did not give it to him; instead she notified her superiors
>of his request.  (This might explain why he also shot the secretary!)

Fabrikant had asked many people at Concordia - including the rector,
the dean, and his chairman - to sign his gun permit (actually the
permit to transport his gun).  It seems that this was one of his
intimidation tactics.  It seems likely that he shot the secretary
of his chairman, Ms. Horwood, after he came looking for him and
found that he was out.  She, thankfully, received only a minor injury.

Adam

--
~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~
Adam Steele                                  "... And there is no safeword for
adam@cs.concordia.ca         (Internet)       Doctoral Students."
adam@denovo.lacage1.ntn      (Trivianet)        - Matthew Harelick on a.s.b
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
From: hillyard@lynx.msc.cornell.edu.UUCP (Sean Edward Hillyard,F7 Clark,50649,)
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions (Repost #2)
Originator: hillyard@msc2.msc.cornell.edu
Organization: Cornell-Materials-Science-Center
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 02:46:25 GMT

From article <92Sep13.000934.24022@acs.ucalgary.ca>, by bauwens@acs.ucalgary.ca (Luc Bauwens):
[...]
> 
> The public debt is largely domestic, even in copuntries such as
> Brazil or the United States that carry a large foreign debt.  It is
> also typically much larger than the foreign debt.  To default would
> actually mean that the government would actually decide that things
> like treasury bills will no longer be repaid.
> 

With the typical strategy of non-payment being hyperinflation of the 
currency.

SEH
From: masticol@cadenza.rutgers.edu (Steve Masticola)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Fabrikant: What to do?
Date: 8 Sep 92 14:14:19 GMT
Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J.

ghiselli@vax1.umkc.edu writes:

>	In the U.S. law enforcement cannot act on threats, only on behavior.

Not true. The offense is called "terroristic threatening." I'd be
guilty if I said, or posted (for example!) that I was going to hurt
you, whether I actually did it or not, and whether I actually intended
to do it or not.

It's a criminal offense, but I don't know whether it's a misdemeanor
or a felony.

- Steve (masticol@cs.rutgers.edu).
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers