From: julie@cucbs.chem.columbia.edu (Julie Wright)
Newsgroups: sci.research.careers
Subject: Re: Hiring quotas and faculty positions
Date: 10 Sep 92 14:41:37 GMT
Organization: Center for Biomolecular Simulation, Department of Chemistry,
	Columbia University

In article <14685@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu> Annette C. Hollmann writes:

>I think that it is worng to make separate lists for minorities and
>"majorities" wit the intent of discriminating for or against the minority.
>The ideal way to handle the situation would be to cover the names on the
>cv's during the first stages of selection. All publications should be
>cited showing the first initial and the surname rather that the complete
>name for each author. That way, the committee will not know if the
>applicant is male or female until they decide to invite that person for an
>interview. To avoid identification of gender before that stage,
>communication should be limited to email, fax, or snail-mail rather than
>phone. Because most applicants will not be invited for an interview,
>covering up the names will prevent 90% of the discrimination.

	This suggestion strikes me as impractical.  In my field, at least,
several members of a search committee would be likely to have heard of a
given applicant anyway, and the chances that the first name could be 
hidden through all the bureaucracy seem slim.  
	I am not making this argument because I feel the system favors
me.  I would be perfectly happy to have my gender concealed if I applied
for an academic job, and in fact I think it would work to my benefit most of 
the time.  This attitude comes mostly from personal experience, and partly
from studies.  For example:

"[S]tudies in which male or female names are applied to resumes, proposals,
and papers that are then evaluated by both male and female evaluators
consistently show that the potential and accomplishments of women are
undervalued by both men and women, relative to the same documents with
a male attribution." -- "AAAS Presidential Lecture: Voices from the
Pipeline," S.E. Widnall, in Science, Vol. 241, p. 1740, 30 Sept. 1988.
(very interesting article, by the way)
The citations (which I have not read) the author gives for that statement are:
"The classroom climate -- a chilly one for women" (Project on the Status
and Education of Women, Association of American Colleges, Washington, DC,
1982)
"The classroom climate revisited: Chilly for women faculty, administrators,
and graduate students (Project on the Status and Education of Women, Assoc.
of Am. Colls., Wash., DC, October 1986)
R.M. Hall and B.R. Sandler, "Out of the classroom: A chilly campus climate
for women?" (same source, 1984)

>I would not accept a position that was obviously part of an affirmative
>action program. I would rather know that I got the job by fair and square
>competition.

	I used to think the same thing, because it seemed unfair to me
that someone equally or more qualified would lose out to me, and it seemed
like it would reflect badly on me, too.  Now I see it as a much fuzzier
issue.  Suppose a department was looking for a combinatorics expert
and you were one, and another applicant was an algebraist.  Suppose that
other applicant was both smarter and harder working than you, in the opinion
of everyone involved, including yourself.  It is still quite plausible that
you would get the job offer because you were in the field they wanted that
year.  Is this fair?  Of course not.  Suppose it was easier to get professor-
ships in the '60s than in the '70s.  Does that mean that every time you
hear a lecture by a professor of the earlier generation, you think, "Of
course, he (it is most likely a "he"!) probably only got that job because
he's the right age... he's probably not as good as any of the people who 
were hired in the '70s..."  In this day and age, I think that at many
colleges and universities, you can make a good case that a female or 
minority applicant will do more good than an identical-on-paper white
male applicant would do.  It should be one of many factors people use
to evaluate what they need.  If they have *no* women on the departmental
faculty, it will probably cause them trouble retaining or getting qualified
students, and it will certainly also cause them trouble attracting female
candidates for jobs in the future.  *I* wouldn't take a position in
an all-male chemistry department even if it were the only academic job
I could get.  Of course, like a lot of women and men, I'm pretty 
disillusioned about academics anyway, by now.  

	This is not even addressing the question of sexism *before*
the applicants get to that point where they're being evaluated.  I feel
that on average, if a woman and a man had identical applications, it
would probably mean the woman was better.  But that's another story,
and a much longer one, and you don't have to accept that to follow the
points above.	

>C.A.Hollmann ;-)

J.R. Wright

-- 
I wonder why it is that when I plan a route too carefully it goes to pieces,
whereas if I blunder along in blissful ignorance aimed in a fancied direction
I get through with no trouble.
				--- John Steinbeck (Travels with Charley)