Gender Equity at Penn: women get tenure, white men do not

Associate Professor Erin O’Connor reports on the continuing pursuit of Gender Equity at the University of Pennsylvania.

If tenuring patterns in my own department are any indication, white men have been aiding the cause of "gender equity" by getting fired quite a bit over the years. The double standard is as palpable as it is unspeakable. But the bottom line is that women get tenure in my department and white men, more often than not, do not. The disparity has nothing to do with differential levels of accomplishment. Again, more often than not, the men who lose their jobs look as good or better on paper than the women who get promoted. Has this ever been publicly acknowledged? No. We aren't talking about the fact that the graduate program has become a sorority either. Not talking about the problem means, of course, that it does not exist, and so does not need to be addressed. It also means we do not need to ask if this is happening in other departments. And it means that we can all pat ourselves on the back for the great equity work that is being done locally, while at the same time continuing to bitch about the institutional oppression faced by academic women and minorities. Not healthy, not honest, not, quite frankly, conducive to imaginative teaching or inspired scholarship.

It's not just men who are getting screwed by the current academic climate. It's everyone. But last December, when Penn announced its plans to create "concrete incentives and disincentives" to promote the hiring and tenuring of women, no one made a peep (except those who feel that even this is not enough).

The one thing a University typically listens to very closely is its pocket book. Alumni, especially white male alumni, may wish to consider this report when asked to contribute to their alma mater. A few lawsuits by white males who are denied tenure would also be helpful.

via Discriminations
posted at 6:22 PM


Anti-Americanism
Soviet émigré, Jaime Glazov, conducts a symposium for Front Page Magazine on anti-Americanism. The participants are Paul Hollander, Stanley Kurz, Dan Flynn and Victor Davis Hanson. Kurz, Flynn and Hanson all comment on the religious, or almost religious, nature of anti-Americanism. Hollander disagrees:

I would not call anti-Americanism a faith -- it is too negative for that, in fact it is nothing but negativity, rejection and hostility. I agree that in some instances it might reflect failure to find meaning and happiness, but it has many shades and types and not all of it can be said to be a reflection of such states of mind or feeling.

It’s a good symposium and well worth reading.