PERSPECTIVES ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION : Is It an Institutional Crutch or Essential to Women’s Progress? : A case study from the trenches shows why strong enforcement of non-discrimination must be protected.

In light of the current controversy, I’ve been trying to figure out if I’m a beneficiary of affirmative action. Here’s my story.

I began teaching at Caltech 25 years ago, the first woman hired on the professorial level in the university’s history. Several weeks earlier, the first man landed on the moon. The lunar surface could not have looked stranger to him than Caltech looked to me in 1969. I wish I could say that I made a giant leap for womankind, but I took only an inadvertent step. I didn’t know there weren’t any female undergraduates or women on the voting faculty. I saw an ad for an assistant professor of literature. I applied. I was qualified. I was hired. No one said anything about affirmative action.

I received a flurry of attention when it became known that this masculine stronghold had a female professor. I appeared on radio, television, even game shows. On “Truth or Consequences,” the audience was to decide who among three women was the judge, the race car driver, the professor. I was picked as the speed demon. This incident brought me to my senses. In truth, I was turning into a media puppet, harming not just myself but other women in academia.

I quit acting star-struck and turned my attention to research and teaching. Life was tranquil for several years, and in 1974 I was unanimously recommended for tenure by the literature faculty. The chairman of the humanities and social sciences division notified me that tenure had been refused because of lack of “scholarly productivity.” Yet two men with fewer publications had recently been promoted. The literature faculty protested, and the university turned to an independent arbitrator. I agreed to abide by his decision and assumed that the division chair had also. But when the arbitrator concluded that I deserved tenure, the chairman denied any such agreement.

Trying to sort out what happened next is like trying to untangle an acre of worms. The chairman sent letters to my former students asking for a “totally honest” appraisal of my teaching. The responses didn’t help his case. He then decided that teaching was beside the point and, instead, the division should raise the criteria for tenure. The faculty adopted what they called the “Princetonian Standard,” which required the acceptance of a book for publication by a major university press. Although I had many articles in respected journals, I was informed that I had failed to meet this newly created standard. But my executioners had selected the wrong brand of hemlock. Within months, I met the standard with a vengeance: My book was accepted by Princeton University Press. I asked the chairman for a reconsideration. I was denied tenure a second time.

My only recourse was to file a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. In 1977, it found in my favor and charged Caltech with discrimination against women in faculty employment. The EEOC discovered that I’d been paid less than male colleagues of equal rank and thought my case could be litigated with excellent prospects for victory. I took the EEOC findings to Lew Wasserman, a Caltech trustee. With his support, I negotiated a settlement. I was given a position as an associate professor and a promise of an unbiased tenure review two or three years after my return to campus. I could breathe again. In April, 1979, I became the only tenured woman on the Caltech faculty.

The rest of the story? Caltech is committed to quality-based affirmative action and has taken positive steps to retain the women and minorities that it recruits. I’m grateful to have become one of the old-timers at Caltech. I’ve served on and even chaired the Administrative Affirmative Action Committee and can now see these vexed issues from both sides. Did I get my position because I’m a woman? Probably not. Did I lose it because I’m a woman? Probably. Did I get it back because I’m a woman? You bet. What has helped me (and many other women) most is not preferential treatment but strong enforcement of non-discrimination. Surely that portion of affirmative action must be preserved at all costs.