A colleague called the other night to tell me that she had just visited a department where I had interviewed a couple of years ago. When she mentioned my name to one of the faculty members, the reply was, "Oh, her. She was much too pious for us. She would never have fit in. I don't know why she even applied." My colleague expressed embarrassment in the retelling but thought I would want to know.
The choice of the word "pious" here is neither ironic nor figurative. My religious affiliation is easily identified by the head covering I wear. Moreover it has gradually been dawning upon me, over the course of several years on the job market, that my religious garb has an undue, not to mention illegal, influence on search committees.
If you have not already yielded to the temptation to check my name again, I encourage you not to do so. Does it really matter whether I am Muslim or Jewish? Should the exact size and shape of the head covering affect how you read this essay? How different is it from wearing a cross? Imagine for a moment that I am a human being with a strong academic record who happens to look a little different from you.
How I wish it were so simple. But just as you the reader are puzzling through your own stereotypes of women in patriarchal Eastern religions, so are the members of search committees.
There was the time that the head of a committee where I had a campus interview kept making assertions about my religious practices. "We are a very collegial group," he said. "Often we eat out together, but you wouldn't be able to do that." Or "The gym on campus is excellent, but I don't suppose you would go there."
Within any religious tradition there are many shades of practice. But he was not asking about the reality of my practices; he was alerting me to his personal concerns about what he perceived my practices to be.
Then there was the time that the director of a department called my adviser and grilled him on my family situation. "What does her husband do?" "Would he really be willing to move?" "How many children do they have?" "Do they know about the availability of parochial schools here?" I am fairly certain that I was not the only candidate with a partner and children. I am also fairly certain that none of the other candidates had an audit done on their personal life.
This year at the major conference in my field, I ran into a department head who had interviewed me at another conference earlier in the season. I went over to him to let him know how promising I thought the position in his department was. He told me he was surprised to hear me say that, as he had found me unenthusiastic at the initial interview. I tried to reassure him that I was, in fact, very interested in the job. After the conference, I even wrote him a letter to that effect.
It is not out of the question that we simply miscommunicated. It can be difficult to read the emotional responses of strangers. I began to dissect my interactions with him. It seemed far more likely that it was he who was unenthusiastic -- about me. That was confirmed later, after he had invited other candidates for on-campus interviews. The department head confided to my adviser that he did not think I would have been happy at his institution.
I suppose I should not be surprised. We all make judgments about one another constantly. In the classroom, where I am in control, I am able to use the students' assumptions as a learning tool. At first, some are taken aback that someone who looks like me pushes them into intellectually uncharted territory. By the end of the semester, they have learned not only the content of the course, but also that, in academe, it is analytical skills that matter, not appearances.
Undoubtedly that is the crux of my malaise. I have given years of my life to my field. Like the rest of us, I could have entered a safer and more lucrative profession, but I love the thrill of teaching and research. I am also drawn to the intellectual and social openness, pluralism, and diversity of academe. Now, however, I am beginning to doubt that there is room for me under this big tent.
I do not mean to suggest that my frustrated aspirations can all be laid at the feet of religious discrimination. Every hiring committee weighs a myriad of objective and subjective factors in its decision making. By no stretch of the imagination am I the perfect candidate for every job. Nonetheless, my record would suggest better treatment than I have received.
On paper at least, I make a positive impression. I have published a good deal for my career stage and have strong references. My position now, as a visiting faculty member in the humanities at a large public university, developed out of a postdoctoral fellowship. I was chosen for the postdoc based entirely on my record and without any face-to-face contact. Too bad the tenure-track market doesn't work that way.
This year I applied for nine jobs in my subfield. Seven programs invited me for conference interviews. Then there was silence.
If you remember those cartoons where the predator looks at the prey and instead of seeing a living, breathing chicken, sees a roasted chicken leg, you will begin to see my predicament. I walk into a room ready to shake hands and make an effort to get to know the members of the search committee. But even as I am describing my research questions and teaching experiences, they are seeing some self-generated reflection of their own prejudices.
One friend suggested that I consider going bareheaded to interviews next year. After all, unlike many other candidates, I, theoretically, have the option of hiding my difference. Another friend thought I should retain my head covering but wear pants in place of my habitual skirt. "Never mind that you don't look good in pants. It would send a mixed message and confuse them," she said. Along the same lines, a colleague who called the other night counseled me to make outrageous and radical statements at interviews. "Maybe then they will not think you are so pious."
My father, who served on many hiring committees at the state university where he teaches, once told me an instructive story. One year the top candidate for a position in his department had a doctorate from a Christian university. The members of the search committee were torn and kept trying to probe her opinions on issues like evolution and prayer in school. Eventually the liberal values of the committee members led them to hire her. She arrived on the campus, divorced her husband, came out as a lesbian, and, most important, became an invaluable member of the department.
For the present, I will place my faith in the much-vaunted liberalism of academe and hope that it embraces even people of faith.
