Women, Minorities Make Gains on Cal State Faculty, Study Finds

Women and minorities have made gains on the California State University faculty in the last 12 years, although the percentages of blacks and Latinos among junior faculty members have declined, a study released Tuesday said.

The affirmative-action status report, presented to the university’s Board of Trustees meeting in Long Beach, showed that overall, racial minority group members made up 14.22% of the faculty on the 19 Cal State campuses in 1987, compared to 9.97% in 1975.

Blacks and Latinos made gains in the faculty overall and in the tenured faculty but lost ground in the junior ranks of lecturers and tenure-track faculty, meaning that their share of tenured faculty posts in “the immediate future will be even smaller,” the report said. In particular, the hiring of black teachers for tenure positions does not compare well with the record of 13 other universities surveyed around the nation.

Since 1975, women have increased their share of the overall faculty from 20.25% to 24.85%. Blacks increased from 2.72% to 2.78%, Latinos from 2.76% to 3.63% and Asians from 3.94% to 7.35%. However, American Indians decreased from 0.55% to 0.46%.

All minority groups made gains as tenured faculty, but among tenure-track probationary faculty, the percentage of blacks decreased from 6.16% to 3.64%; Latinos declined from 5.88% to 5.19% and American Indians declined from 0.52% to 0.50%.