Women Denied Tenure at Greater Rates Than Men at SUNY-Buffalo

A group of faculty members at the State University of New York at Buffalo says the university has denied tenure to a percentage of female professors that is more than twice as high as the percentage of males denied tenure.

About 40 faculty members protested what they say is gender inequity in tenure decisions outside a Faculty Senate meeting on Tuesday, according to an article in the UB Reporter, a newspaper put out by faculty and staff members. The group said the Faculty Senate had refused to put the issue on its agenda despite a petition signed by 90 professors.

According to the faculty group, which calls itself the Ad Hoc Task Force on Gender Equity in Promotions at UB, 23 percent of the 53 women who came up for tenure between the 2003-4 and the 2007-8 academic years were denied, compared with only 10 percent of 91 men who made tenure bids during the same period.

In addition, said the group, all of the cases in which the university administration reversed a faculty review panel’s decision from negative to positive were for men, while three-quarters of the cases in which administrators reversed the faculty committee’s decision from positive to negative involved female candidates.

The Faculty Senate has formed a Commission on Academic Excellence and Equity, which is charged with reviewing data and analyzing “the success of various constituencies: women, African-Americans, and various minorities,” Robert G. Hoeing, associate professor of linguistics and chairman of the Senate, said during the meeting. —Robin Wilson