MIT Not Alone in Discrimination Problems

To the editors:

Carol Thompson, Harvard's Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, was reported to have stated that Harvard does not have the same discrimination problems as MIT (News, March 23). How does Thompson know? The Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard (CEWH), an activist alumna group, has repeatedly requested that Harvard produce a meaningful report on the status of women other than the federally mandated Affirmative Action plan. Harvard has ignored the request. The fact is that despite the occasional lawsuit or letter of protest by faculty women, no one at Harvard has been willing to investigate the possibility of discrimination.

While the number of tenured faculty women has been slowly increasing in recent years, the current figures remain disheartening. As reported by Elizabeth Doherty, only 58 out of 433 tenured faculty, or 13.4 percent are women. Some of the discrepancy occurs because of the low turnover of professorships, which means that there are relatively few vacancies, but this is an insufficient explanation. Dean of the Faculty, Jeremy Knowles, in a meeting with CEWH members suggested that there were not enough top women in the pipeline. In fact, in many fields the pipeline is overflowing.

CEWH believes that the dearth of women faculty is attributable to Harvard's failure to broaden recruitment efforts. CEWH has suggested to President Rudenstine that Harvard's results do not reflect availability. We have pointed out that it would be reasonable to assume that candidate would be in the availability pool ten to 15 years after the Ph.D. Given that women earn close to 50 percent of the Ph.D.s in the social sciences and humanities, we would expect that this percentage would be reflected in the number of new tenured women faculty.

For ladder faculty, availability is normally one to four years after the Ph.D. Since women are just as likely as men to earn their degrees from prestigious universities and since studies have shown that there is no discernible difference in the amount or quality of publications, it is difficult to find any explanation for the death of women other than discrimination.

While it is not possible to get figures on individual salaries, a report of the American Association of University Professors showed that in 1995-6, women's salaries at the full professor level at Harvard were 88 percent of men's, the actual difference between male and female full professors being $13,200.

A comparison of Harvard with other elite institutions including Yale, Princeton and Johns Hopkins showed that all institutions paid women less than men, but women's salaries at Harvard were the lowest relative to men's.

We cannot report on the kinds of subtle discrimination that were uncovered at MIT because Harvard has not been willing to study the facts as MIT did. CEWH established an escrow account to which approximately 2,000 alumni/ae have donated money that is being held until Harvard takes some appropriate steps to ensure women's equality. Such steps have not been taken, and we are now forced to explore alternative uses for the money.

We hope that Associate Dean Carol Thompson will document her statement that Harvard does not have the same discrimination problems as MIT. If she is unable to do so, then Harvard owes it to students and alumni/ae to investigate and take action now. ANN R. SHAPIRO '58   March 20, 1999