The issue is not supposed to be how many white males become tenured professors as opposed to everybody else. What this issue is supposed to be about is equality. All of these ratios are supposed to demonstrate that people have an unfair advantage in university based upon their race, that people who are not white face greater barriers to becoming university professors than their white counterparts. As I mentioned right at the beginning of this composition, I don't think that anybody ever believes that he is racist. It's much subtler than that.
Friends tend to hire their friends when looking for possible employees and co-workers.
But if you aren't of the right social sphere, you get locked out. It has less to do with the colour of one's skin than with the people one knows. It's disgusting, but it is very much a reality. I am as much a participant in this patronage as anybody else. Because I am a Teaching Assistant, and I got my first TA job because I had managed to impress the professor who was doing the hiring that term.