Orange County Voices : COMMENTARY ON DISCRIMINATION : There Are Solutions for Women’s Lack of Advancement at UC : The chancellor should name a blue ribbon committee on gender equity, with the power to make a real difference.

Why is it that in 1992, women were almost half of new American Ph.D.s, but fewer than one-fifth of UC faculty--well behind the national norm? How does it happen that in UC Irvine’s College of Medicine only 7% of the tenured faculty is women--and all 23 departments are chaired by men? In the UC Berkeley math department, why are there only three women in more than 50 faculty positions? Why did the Federal Equal Employment Opportunities Commission make the official finding in 1993 that the UC San Francisco psychiatry department had discriminated against women?

These issues were discussed recently at an extraordinary meeting at UC Irvine: a “Roundtable Conference on Gender Bias and Gender Equity at the University of California.” State Sen. Art Torres (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Tom Umberg (D-Garden Grove) were there. UC Irvine was represented at the round table by Executive Vice Chancellor Spencer Olin, who came, he said, as a “student” to listen and learn.

Riveting personal testimony by women from several campuses, and trenchant analysis of employment patterns by UC Davis law professor Martha West, left no doubt of a pervasive pattern of gender discrimination, often combined with sexual harassment, in our university. West, an expert in employment discrimination law, reported that “illegal discrimination against women seeking faculty positions at America’s research universities has been getting worse, not better, over the last 10 years.” And the higher, the better paid, and the more secure the positions, the fewer held by women, West said. “The only beneficiaries of any ‘affirmative action’ have been white men--the only ones who continue to be hired, year after year, at percentages higher than their availability in the qualified national labor pool.”

At the round table, women told of herculean struggles, often unsuccessful, to obtain academic justice. They told of sex bias that stalled and sometimes wrecked promising academic careers; of extraordinary research and teaching achievements that went unacknowledged by their department chairmen; of retaliation, including denial of research facilities and even firing, against women who complained in good faith of discriminatory practices; of deliberate violation of UC procedures by officials seemingly intent on appointing only white males to tenure.

I was at the UCI round table to tell the story of my colleague, Jenny Harrison, who was denied promotion to tenure in the Berkeley math department in 1986. After she sued, alleging gender discrimination, UC last year finally signed an agreement that included a monetary award and the formation of a distinguished independent committee to judge her qualifications.

Following the committee’s unanimous recommendation, she was appointed full professor, including tenure. This seven-year struggle for equity has created a bitterly divided department that even now is often distracted from its work of research and teaching by the fallout from this case.

Even when they win, these women pay dearly for their struggle, not only financially--legal expenses of more than $100,000 are common--but professionally and emotionally. And these fights also cost our tax-supported university enormous sums of money. Besides the time spent by staff, faculty, administrators and regents’ counsel in hearings and trial preparation, the university hires outside lawyers at hundreds of dollars per hour. There are currently at least seven gender discrimination cases against UC; the costs are staggering.

In a recent press conference, Sen. Torres, a senior member of the Senate Education Committee, announced that in preparation for the vote on the university’s budget, he was calling on the legislative analyst to review the amount spent by the university’s general counsel’s office, and by privately contracted law firms, on defending discrimination suits. “I will make sure every member of the Legislature, specifically those on the budget subcommittee on higher education, are aware of the university’s record with women professors,” Torres said. “The University of California is lagging far behind the rest of the country in recognizing women as a valuable asset.” Referring to sexual discrimination cases, Torres said, “Current university procedures in dealing with these lawsuits are unworkable.”

The Harrison case and others suggest there is a way to settle such cases that would be fairer, faster and cheaper than costly legal battles.

Instead of mindlessly denying every allegation of discrimination, the university should set up a regular procedure in which a panel of distinguished scholars quickly investigates such cases and makes recommendations.

The key step is to obtain an impartial judgment on the worth of a faculty member. Normally such judgments are made by the member’s department; but when discrimination by that department is the issue, this is obviously unsatisfactory. To ensure impartiality the panel would have to be chosen largely from outside the university, as is routinely done now in evaluating university departments.

UCI’s College of Medicine made historic progress 20 years ago in the admission of female medical students. But those gains have not led to similar progress in the hiring and promotion of female faculty members. Some women at UCI are already suing, and others are talking about it.

Meanwhile, legislators and federal officials have begun to take a close look at what’s going on.

There couldn’t be a better time for UCI Chancellor Laurel Wilkening to take action.

Since arriving at UCI last year she has spoken often of her commitment to diversity. If the chancellor were now to name a blue ribbon committee on gender equity, with the power to make a real difference in individual cases, to set goals for diversity, and to require progress toward those goals, this could transform UCI and become a model for the rest of UC.