Government Looks for Sex Bias In the University's Hiring Policies

Harvard's employment practices will be scrutinized by the government this year as two separate federal agencies investigate complaints filed last fall.

An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor was resumed last month after a year's delay. The original complaint was filed in August 1973 by Delda White, director of the Radcliffe Publications Office, on behalf of Women Employed at Harvard. White charged that "Harvard has engaged and continues to engage in discrimination against women," basing her contention on the fact that Radcliffe administrators have lower salaries than their counterparts in Harvard College offices.

Investigators halted their work last fall to await clarification from Washington on how to apply the 1972 Equal Pay Act to colleges and universities. In June, department officials called White asking her to update the complaint so that they could resume the investigation. The revised complaint sidesteps the sticky question of whether or not Radcliffe should be considered as a separate institution from Harvard under the terms of the 1971 "non-merger merger" agreement--a question that has threatened to invalidate the entire complaint.

Labor officials met with Harvard administrators last month in one of the first steps in an investigation that could end in a suit against the University in U.S. District Court. But John B. Butler, director of personnel and the overall supervisor of salary and wage levels, has said there is "no situation that I am aware of where the facts support what has been alleged" in the complaint. Butler and Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, discussed the complaint with White this summer in an effort to avoid going to court.

Meanwhile, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has been moving toward an investigation of allegations by the National Organization for Women that Harvard's employment practices discriminate against "women as a class." NOW filed a "charge of discrimination" last November as a formal step in government procedures under the 1964 Civil Rights Act.

The next step, under EEOC procedures, is a government investigation to determine whether or not there is any basis for the allegations. If the commission finds that there is such a basis, it would then act as a conciliator in negotiations between Harvard and NOW to reach an agreement on ending discrimination, including the possible assessment of back pay. Should negotiations fail, the EEOC may go to court to force compliance with the law.

At the moment, however, the investigation rests in the over-burdened hands of the EEOC's district office. No investigator has yet been assigned to the case, although it has been given a "charging number" under which new complaints may be filed.

"My guess is that an investigator will be assigned sometime before the end of the year," Delda White said last week. "The EEOC district office has hiring problems and a considerable turnover. I think they're doing a good job, under the circumstances."

EEOC investigations have produced results in at least two other cases. Last year, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company was forced to award $15 million in back pay to its female employees after the commission found illegal sex discrimination. And just two weeks ago, the EEOC sought a preliminary injunction in Federal Court, ordering Tufts University to reinstate two women faculty members the commission charged were dismissed because of their sex.

The Tufts case marks the first time the EEOC has taken a case to trial against a college or university since it was given the authority to do so two years ago. Now that it's been proven that it can be done, the commission may feel more prepared to take on a more formidable academic opponent.