Hiring Record in Critical Condition : Faculty who are members of We Advocate Gender Equity will campaign to correct UCI College of Medicine’s shortcomings in employment, promotion and compensation of women.

It’s sad but true: At UC Irvine, administrators continue to condone and perpetuate one of the country’s worst records of sex bias in the hiring, promotion and compensation of women faculty.

This deplorable record of institutional sexism was evident once again with the recent release of summary data regarding women faculty at the UCI College of Medicine. The numbers are shocking:

* Women constitute only 10% of the faculty at the UCI College of Medicine, compared to the national medical school average of 25%. There has been virtually no improvement at UCI during the past 10 years.

* During the period 1987-1991, 15 faculty members were hired into tenure-track positions at the College of Medicine. Not one was a woman.

* During the same period, 11 faculty members were hired in the non-tenure clinical professor series at the full professor rank. Not one was a woman.

* From 1987 through 1991, no women holding MD, Ph.D., or MD/Ph.D. degrees received College of Medicine appointments as department chairs or as assistant or associate deans, despite the numerous appointments made to all these positions.

* Women faculty at the medical school receive annual salaries that on average are $4,000 to $16,000 less than what men receive for doing the same job, in clear disregard of the bedrock principle of equal pay for equal work. An investigation into total compensation packages would likely reveal even greater disparities.

* At the medical school and on the main campus, UCI administrators have squandered millions of dollars on needless lawsuits and legal fees--all to deny tenure to qualified women faculty.

As bad as these numbers are, the real story is probably even worse. So far, the numerical evidence of sex bias has come from an “executive summary”--some suspect a “sanitized summary”--of a medical school study that was completed nearly a year ago, in March of 1992. Women faculty have called for release of the full report, including all data, to determine for themselves just how bad things are.

So far, Dean Walter Henry of the medical school has refused; aides to the dean initially cited the need to do further internal analysis of the data and then later said that release of the full report and all data would somehow violate “confidentiality.” Apparently the medical school administration has lost sight of the fact that the report is a public document prepared at a public university at substantial public expense.

The administration has coupled its stonewalling tactics with tired, recycled promises to do better once they figure out “why” women faculty are faring so badly. Translation: more delays, more studies, more obfuscation.

Well, this time it won’t wash. Fed up with sex discrimination, women and men faculty committed to overcoming sex bias at UCI have joined together to form a new organization. Its name is WAGE: We Advocate Gender Equity. And that’s exactly what we do.

But our advocacy is more than just talk. It is intended to produce major institutional progress--and quickly. No more excuses from university administrators. No more studies. No more searching for explanations as to “why” women don’t get hired, don’t get promoted, and don’t get fair and equal compensation for their work.

Now is the time for UCI’s administrators, from the chancellor on down, to earn their pay by immediately putting strong and effective remedial policies in place. Here’s what must be done, here are our WAGE demands:

* First, we demand that UCI College of Medicine Dean Walter Henry release the full study of sex discrimination at the medical school, including all data on hiring, promotions and salary differentials.

* Second, we demand that the percentage of tenured women faculty at the medical school be at least as high as the national average for medical schools within three years, and that comparable progress be made on the main campus at UCI.

* Third, we demand that as positions for assistant or associate deans and department chairs become open at the College of Medicine, they be filled by qualified women on a ratio of at least 2 to 1 until parity is achieved.

* Fourth, we demand that the principle of equal pay for equal work be honored and that the women-men wage gap at the medical school be eliminated by administrative action within three months.

We have requested that the chancellor meet with WAGE representatives during the week of February 22 and monthly thereafter in order to publicly report on progress in satisfying our stated demands and otherwise redressing the consequences of sex discrimination at UCI, both at the College of Medicine and on the main campus.

While we deplore the now decades-old pattern of sex discrimination at the UCI College of Medicine, we note that genuine progress is possible with determined leadership. Under the leadership of Stanley van den Noort, former dean of the medical school, historic barriers against the recruitment and admission of women students were swept away during the early 1970s.

Now, 20 years later, we expect similarly dramatic progress in the hiring, promotion and compensation of women faculty--not just at the College of Medicine but throughout UCI and the entire statewide UC system.