At least two of five women who were denied tenure at DePaul University this year intend to sue the university because they believe it discriminates against women, according to the Chicago Tribune. Of 33 faculty members up for tenure—18 men and 15 women—all but seven received it, the newspaper reports, and of the seven only two were men. Four of the five women appealed their rejections to the university’s president, Dennis Holtschneider, but he e-mailed each of them Friday afternoon to say he would not overturn the decisions, which have prompted protests and sit-ins by students. Four different faculty panels heard the four appeals, and two of the panels concluded that the process for awarding tenure was so badly flawed that the women whose appeals they heard should not be denied tenure. But a spokeswoman for DePaul, Denise Mattson, said: “Every faculty member seeking tenure is held to the same standards: scholarship, service, and teaching.”
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Typical feminazi move.
Typical comment from a typical anti-intellectual troll.
actually, both comments are off the mark. the issues that blocked tenure were neither sex-related ( the school is full of gays and lesbians, albeit not very activist-minded) nor intellectually related (the paucity of intellectual capital is well documented.) they truly blew it on process violations-ineptitude. too bad the candidates were poorly advised on their defense. they should have sued the faculty! the admnistration would have supported them.and before you critcize the administration-check your facts on their decision to overrule the vote to deny tenure by faculty and the dean against a colleague, who, by the way, was female. the board and the provost got it right!
Let me see if I’ve got this right. 16 men were tenured and 2 were not.10 women were tenured and 5 were not.Chi-square (1 df) = 2.42, p = .12. There is no evidence women were denied tenure at a greater rate than men.
Chicago Tribune reports that there are student protests and sit-ins. The poor students just don’t seem to be able to get past the following:16/18 males tenured = 8/9ths tenured, 1/9th not10/15 females tenured = 2/3rds tenured, 1/3rd notSomehow, in their gen ed courses, someone neglected to teach them that 1/9 and 1/3 are insignificantly different ratios when discussing sex discrimination and similarly-situated males.
Vfichera, I appreciate your point, and thought about that issue before I posted mine. But imagine this example:1 man gets tenure and 0 did not. (A total of 1 man.)0 women get tenure and 1 did not. (A total of 1 woman.)Do we now conclude that 100% of men are tenured, 0% of women are, and there is absolute and systematic gender discrimination? Or could it be a coincidence?Right now, there is not enough evidence that there is a statistically significant relationship between gender and tenure. I think we need more data.
@adambcohenYes, more data, please. And will they not likely include that the number of women tenured at DePaul is less than 1/3 of the total number of tenured faculty? Indeed, that the total number of women on the tenure-track is likely also inferior to that of men and likely in the same low ratio? That women are clustered at the assistant professor level and that tenure is a threat to the institutional status quo?As I stated, I have articulated what students at DePaul are probably thinking. Students at DePaul are operating, it seems, at the earliest stages of evidence: prima facie. Of course, making a Federal case (Title VII, Title IX, state human rights law, etc.) either way, as plaintiff or defendant, is more complex — and definitely more complex than a simple Chi-square analysis would have us believe.
again…you are both missing the point! it is not about gender discrimination! forget the statistics. it is all about the FACULTY being INCOMPETENT to make the best case for their colleagues regarding tenure. the PROCESS was flawed and the arrogant faculty refuse to accept reponsibility and thus blame the board and use other lame excuses to obfuscate the truth: they were incompetent to conduct tenure reviews acording to their own published criteria. check the facts, folks! call your colleagues at DePaul.this will have major implications in future negotiations. it will impact the current practice of peer-review, rights of faculty to judge scholarship, rights of faculty to conduct tenure and personnel processes, rights of faculty goverance, to name a few. someone (perhaps those organizations in charge of our professional standards)better investigate the faculty actions at DePaul, or a lawsuit may expose this ineptitude of faculty and set a precedence we don’t want to live with.don’t bury this one! don’t close ranks with the wrong side of this issue!
@ teacheroneIsn’t that what administrations are for? The last stop in the process to ensure that the preceding steps were conducted properly? The Chicago Tribune reports that the administration is defending the process.
And most if not all universities have a university wide, or in the case of large ones, college-wide revue boards (usually called the College RPT Committee) composed of members of several disciplines. There are too many moving parts and pieces missing for us to form an nonlegal appraisal of this case. And the legal one appears to be on maybe thin ice.
I agree that the administration is supposed to have the last word. In this case, the DePaul administration upheld the process! Let’s not forget it is the responsibility of the faculty, their assigned promotion&tenure review committees, and the dean (who are all faculty) to make the best case for their colleagues, which they present to the administration. The administration makes their decision based solely upon the documentation provided by the faculty processes. If this process is flawed at the faculty levels, and if the case presented is inadequate, then the administration must act in the best interest of the university and the students and reject the faculty recommendation, according to the published standards and criteria for promotion and tenure.Kudos to the DePaul administration for following the approved processes, especially in the case of one female faculty member, who would have been denied tenure if it had been solely based upon the vote of the faculty and the dean. The administration in doing their job determined that the process and the criteria to deny this professor tenure were flawed. Folks, in this case, the system worked when the faculty were the culprits.This is the unntold story that the Chicago Tribune and the Chronicle failed to cover. You may want to interview her – a person who gained tenure as a result of the support of the administration and not the faculty.
@doctormod (#2): Typical intellectual poseur move.@teacherone (#3): Feminazi moves typically involve ineptitude.