Over at Historiann, an anonymous guest blogger—an assistant professor in a humanities department at a large, public university—tells the hair-raising story of her months-long (and, at eight-months pregnant, still unresolved) struggle to secure paid maternity leave. She describes how her chair first attempted to deny her leave on a weird technicality, even though she was told that her university had paid maternity leave, and then tried to make it conditional on her continuing to do service work while she was out:
The chair listened to my request and then said that he would mention it to the dean during their next meeting. Shortly thereafter the chair came back to me and said: “There’s a problem!” Two problems, actually. The first “problem” was that my child is due in the late spring or early summer, so there was a question about whether or not I qualified for leave in the fall, since (apparently!) I “should” just be taking it in the summer. The second problem was that I had planned to be away in the fall (to be with my partner, who lives and works in another state), but the “leave” provided by the college requires service work. So rather than providing actual “leave” the college gives course-releases, which is actually rather different from paid leave.
Say what? Stunned by her chair’s concerns, “particularly that they would be raised in a way to make it sound like my request was dubious,” she immediately countered that she was entitled under the Family Medical Leave Act to take 12 weeks of maternity leave “any time during the calendar year following a qualifying event—in my case, the birth of a child.”
Although her chair “backtracked” at that point, claiming “not to know the statutes of the FMLA,” it was not until she dug up “a colleague whose child had been born in early May and who had been given the fall off several years earlier, no questions asked,” that the first “problem” evaporated, she writes.
Over the next five months (!) the anonymous assistant professor met with her chair repeatedly in an effort to reach a compromise about the supposed service requirement —”I clearly stated that I would be happy to comply with any service requirement demanded by the department/university and couldn’t we find something that I could do from abroad?” she writes—but was treated like a shirker:
During the course of these conversations, my chair also made sure to tell me not once but twice that he had not been eligible for family leave when his children were born, which left me with the impression that his position was that I was requesting a favor or some kind of special treatment from the department (as a woman), rather than a right, which is naturally how I view maternity leave.
After an eye-opening talk with a “(tenured) female colleague, who told me some hair-curling stories about the treatment of female faculty in my department, and how strongly some of the full professors come out against ‘special treatment’ for women and faculty of color,” she realized that he was castigating her for asking for “time off”:
Because this leave is viewed by some as giving women some kind of advantage or privilege (who doesn’t want a semester off with pay!? What a lark! Think of all the productive work she’ll get done! Which will put her “ahead” of white male colleagues without that luxury!), the service requirement acts as a punishment. Therefore it was less of a basic question of which committee to assign me to (an easy task) but rather how to make sure I was given a heavy enough service load to justify my time “off.”
So much for progress. It seems that little has changed since Joan Williams recounted her own ordeal (from the mid-’80s) in The Chronicle five years ago. Be sure to read the whole post, including Historiann’s commentary at the end. And tell us your (good and bad) parental-leave stories.
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19 Responses to The (Sorry) State of Parental Leave in Academe
tuxthepenguin - April 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm
Sorry, but this is a ridiculous story. If you can travel abroad then you can do service work. Maternity leave is not a paid vacation. I could understand the complaints if it were unpaid leave, but if it’s paid, don’t complain that you can’t travel abroad. Welcome to the adult world.
bertilak - April 22, 2010 at 1:48 pm
I’m sorry, but what does the whiteness of Historiann’s male colleagues have to do with anything here? And anyway, why should those colleagues complain? Aren’t those male colleagues also entitled to paid parental leave? Isn’t *even the chair* entitled to paid leave–maybe in the case of a sick relative–under the terms of the FMLA?
physicsprof - April 22, 2010 at 4:00 pm
“If you can travel abroad then you can do service work. Maternity leave is not a paid vacation.”That’s crap. Fortunately most universities do not have maternity leave police to check out on the whereabouts of a professor. If maternity leave policy exists you are entitled to it. Familiarize yourself with the policy at your institution and apply as specified. Typically chairs do not have a say (it is decided at a higher level) so do not even waste time discussing it with him.
ksledge - April 22, 2010 at 4:07 pm
Ditto to what physicsprof said.
sandler - April 22, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Maternity leave and parental leave are not identical should be treted differently under unviversity policy. Maternity leave if like any other temporary disability (sick leave) (Under Title VII which prohibits, among other things, sex discrimination in employment). The leave is for bearing a childbirth (and thus only available for women) and the amount of time is determined by a woman and her doctor. Since only women give birth only women can take cchildbirth leave, just like only men can take sick leave for prostate surgery.Parental leave is for care of children and if it is available it has to be available for both parents if they want it. Paid parental leave is not required by law — that’s up to the university; unpaid leave is requred by the FMLA
tuxthepenguin - April 22, 2010 at 4:56 pm
“That’s crap. Fortunately most universities do not have maternity leave police to check out on the whereabouts of a professor.”So what you’re saying is that maternity leave is, in fact, paid vacation? This professor wants to draw a salary, go abroad and enjoy herself, all because she had a baby? Talk about a misuse of the system.”If maternity leave policy exists you are entitled to it.”And obviously you are not entitled to use it however you want. You have to be kidding me to claim service can be done from abroad. I’ll have to try that one on my chair for next year. A couple days later, when he stops laughing, I will point him to this website.The policy exists so that we can spend time with our children. It does not exist so that we can be paid to see the Eiffel Tower.
22228715 - April 22, 2010 at 4:57 pm
I’ve not taken advantage of it, but I’ve had multiple colleagues (men and women, young administrators) who have taken both maternity leave and parental leave lately at my university. It seems to work out pretty nicely. Is the struggle partly due to the policies being written for ‘employees’ but faculty having atypical schedules, contracts, attendance requirements, leave guidelines, and benefits structures?
physicsprof - April 22, 2010 at 5:10 pm
“And obviously you are not entitled to use it however you want. You have to be kidding me to claim service can be done from abroad.”Penguin, what “service” are you talking about? Parental leave of absence means exactly that — absence. If you feel that your baby is better taken care of in your parents’ home in Florida, or in Italy, South America, — it is none’s business to tell you otherwise.I challenge you to show me (a link is ok) any maternity/parental leave policy written by an institution of higher education where the constraints you are advocating are outlined (how you FEEL about it is a different story, I already got that part).
22028881 - April 22, 2010 at 5:22 pm
First–I’m not surprised at some of the animosity expressed by some in the story and in the comments. Furthermore, some of the more nasty comments reflect the fact that the writers didn’t read the story completely–the woman involved is not going “abroad” but instead, to be with her partner in another state, presumably to have help with her newborn. Having a baby is not a “vacation” and it is a biological event not under a woman’s control. Things can and do go wrong with deliveries (I had an emergency c-section with my second child); recovery is not like having your tonsils out. Newborns are not always healthy–and even healthy newborns mean sleepless nights and days where you are lucky to brush your teeth, nevermind think about a syllabus. As a faculty member and then as a senior administrator, I’ve supported parental leave. Most of the time, there is great support for it. But the attitudes expressed by a few people above and by the article reflect the on-going belief by some that women really don’t really belong in the academy.
bertilak - April 22, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Thanks for the helpful information, Sandler.
sarannart6 - April 22, 2010 at 6:46 pm
Any college or university that offers paid medical/sick leave must offer paid maternity leave on terms that are at least as generous as those offered to workers who experience non-pregnancy related short-term medical disabilities. This is required by the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 — which was upheld by the Supreme Court in 1987.As a prior poster noted, maternity leave is only available to women (biological mothers) because only women experience short-term medical disabilities as a result of childbirth. The relevant comparators for maternity leave policies are similarly situated workers. Thus the maternity/short-term medical disability leave policy for faculty can be different than the one for staff. If a university does not require a professor to do service work while on leave to recover from a broken leg or heartattack — then the university may not require women using maternity leave to do service work — during the period of medical disability (which is what maternity leave covers). Normally, the period of medical disability ranges from 6-8 weeks depending on the difficulty of the delivery.Being medically disabled doesn’t necessarily mean being in a hospital or confined to bed. A woman may reasonably travel to a foreign country and recover from pregnancy there. Whether or not she can travel is between her and her doctor. It is medically incorrect to assert that if a person can travel to a foreign country — a person can do service work. Travel in a jet takes a few hours and is not strenuous. Service work may or may not be strenuous. In all likelihood a person who suffered a heartattack or had surgery may be able to do some service work from home — or even at the office a few hours/week. The requirement is that maternity/medical leave be granted on terms that are equally generous. Any leave taken beyond the period of medical disability is parental leave. It does not have to be paid and must be granted on equal terms to both men and women parents. I authored a guidebook on maternity leave in higher ed and it is available from the AAUP for those seeking more information on federal mandates. Saranna ThorntonHampden-Sydney College
totoro - April 22, 2010 at 11:51 pm
If we have a child we might well go to China to have the grandparents help out…
11242283 - April 23, 2010 at 6:57 am
The confusion in the comments here no doubt reflect why the professor who is the subject of this story is having such difficulty. Even she, though, seems to confuse maternity with parental leave. I’m trying to sort out the issue:1. The baby is likely being born after the end of spring semester, so the period when she might eligible for paid maternity leave seems like it may end up “off the clock” — what are her university’s obligations here?2. What she seems to want is to exercise her rights to parental leave in Fall, but she wants paid parental leave — which is not required by FMLA. It seems that her university wants her to do some “work/service” to justify their continuing to pay her when they don’t have to do. (Maybe they should have to do so and/or maybe they should off to, but that’s not the law we have)3. If, she had merely wanted to take the parental leave without pay, I gather that the university would let her go — but that’s not what she wants4. Still, according to her, another person (in another department?) received a no questions asked, no service required, parental leave with pay. She should find out the details here. Did the university subsidize it? If so, they should do the same for her. Did the other person’s department offer to cover it out of their budget? A different matter it seems to me . . . .5. So we are back at the issue of her wanting paid parental leave when the university is only required to offer unpaid leave. It seems to me that if she wants to be paid, she should be willing do reach an agreement about what kind of service each side could live with. I know she wants the leave to be with her child and partner, but . . . . I know she probably doesn’t feel like the fact that she and her partner live in different states in order to practice their professions is a choice, but it actually is (no one HAS to be an academic) and hard as it may be to hear the university is under no oligation either to grant paid parental leave but if it does agree to excuse her from teaching but wants her to do service to justify continuing to pay her (let’s face it, this is no longer parental leave), the university is under no obligation (legal or moral) to arrange that work to suit every contour in this woman’s life. The university is not responsible for the decisions this woman and her partner have made about where to live.6. If this were me: 1) consult an employment lawyer — esp. to see if the fact that the university gave someone else a paid leave without obligations somehow affects what they have to do for me (be prepare to hear that some individual unit actually budgeted — when they didn’t have to — for this and that it doesn’t require your department to do the same) 2) consider taking an unpaid leave.7. Should the law be different? Should employers be required to give paid parental leave? What I think about is moot in this situation as it is not the law we are working under. It ought not to be an indictment of this university or her department that they did not do more than the law requires. It is a public university and they are under the gun for how they use taxpayers funds.8. This story seems to be related with an eye towards maximum outrage. But is this fair? I think we can all agree that things are tough for women who have children (less tough in academe than in some other profession, but still pretty tough). It serves no good purpose for women anywhere for articles like this which seem to confuse the disappointment of an individual for not getting what she wants from her employer in a way that precisely fits her individual situation with some generalized notion of hostility of the academy towards mothers.
_perplexed_ - April 23, 2010 at 11:39 am
“So much for progress. It seems that little has changed since Joan Williams recounted her own ordeal (from the mid-’80s) in The Chronicle five years ago.”Just how is a broad a sweeping conclusion like this justified? If tomorrow we learn that a semester’s leave with pay is granted to another woman in similar circumstances do we conclude that there is no longer any problem at all? Ms. Montell has an unusual notion of “progress”.
neoconned - April 23, 2010 at 2:13 pm
tuxthepenguinyou are definitely part of the problem rather than part of the solution. that’s the nicest way i can sum up your attitude.the less nice way would be to say that you are talking out of a feature of your anatomy which is not normally open to public view.i don’t know if you’re one of the dreaded white male academics, but i am and i think not providing generous paid maternity and parental leave does a disservice to our universities and our profession. up in canada is one year which can be split beween both parents any way they wish. and that’s not for universities it’s for EVERY job
22250655 - April 23, 2010 at 4:47 pm
Nasty, prejudiced, illegal behavior like that documented in the blog and in some of the responses are one reason why our revised promotion and tenure policy grants a year extension to the probationary period for anyone who has a child come into the family who asks for it. No approval is needed. The extra year cannot be held against the person at the time of consideration for tenure. Does this allow some fudging, perhaps. I think, however, that most people who earning tenure here are not lying around on their backsides looking for excuses. In addition, the most important thing any society, human or animal, does is to ensure the next generation. As a tenured white male, I have to ask why do we shoot ourselves in the foot and discourage faculty from undertaking the most important job in the culture?
bertilak - April 23, 2010 at 9:51 pm
Excellent, 22250655–and very good to hear from a tenured male–but why mention your whiteness in this particular context?
rambo - April 23, 2010 at 10:58 pm
how many women’s studies department allow maternity leave??? What about philosophy (is babies necessary) or the English department (Does MLA allow babies??)?
neoconned - April 23, 2010 at 11:42 pm
bertilakprobably because white males are held to represent the oppressors, the’establishment’ and everything that is retrograde and/or conservative about it. the matter of race also came up earlier so he (like i) was probably responding to that.sheesh.