The Status of Women at Harvard-A Report

Whether or not merger between Harvard and Radcliffe occurs there is another question concerning women which Harvard must face. This is the participation of women in the upper levels of the University-the Faculty and the Administration.

In early April Harvard became the first school in the country to come under preliminary federal investigation for alleged sexual discrimination in its hiring and promotion policies.

It is not difficult to understand why. Under the Faculty of Arts and Sciences women are 25 per cent of the undergraduates and 22 per cent of the graduate students: yet they are only 4.6 per cent of the assistant professors, zero per cent of full professors. Figures for the higher ranks of the administration are only slightly better.

(On July 1, Emily Vermeule, a professor of Greek archeology, will become the third woman to hold the Zemurray-Stone Radcliffe Professorship, established in 1948, specifically for outstanding women scholars.)

Federal law forbids discrimination by federal contractors on the basis of sex. Any university receiving federal money found guilty of such discrimination must, the law says, "take affirmative action... to remedy the effects of past discrimination or to counteract discriminatory barriers to equal employment opportunity." Failure to act could cause the loss of those federal contracts. To Harvard, this means $60 million.

Although it is difficult to imagine the government ever really withholding funds from Harvard, impetus for change should stem from the mere fact that an investigation was deemed necessary.

In fact, beginning steps toward solving the problem have already been taken. Two weeks ago, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, at the request of a group of Harvard's female faculty members, appointed a six member faculty committee (three men and three women). He asked them to examine ways of increasing women's participation in the administion and the faculty, and report back sometime before the end of the next semester.

In addition, the committee will make a general inquiry into the career patterns of women in the academic field.

According to Caroline Bynum, assistant professor of History, and one of those appointed to the new committee. "One reason for the hesitation about hiring women is clearly an awareness by hiring committees of the special problems which women face in working out their career patterns."

Or, as one college administrator said, a tenured University position "requires a tremendous amount of dedication and time that interferes with our normal idea of a woman's role in the family."

But Harvard's female faculty claim that such statements, although valid in one respect, contain a number of unexamined assumptions. They point out that decisions about relocation are no longer solely a matter of the husband's career. They are joint decisions in which the wife's career is weighed.

They also point out that the current trend for schools is to take over more and more of the function of caring for children. The number of day-time hours in which a mother is needed at home-even a mother with small children-is decreasing.

A full study of these changing patterns is necessary if current prejudices regarding the "women's role" are to be eliminated. The new committee will hopefully do this.

But the committee is also charged with suggesting changes in the academic structure so that the specific problems women face need not discourage them from academic careers.

Mary I. Bunting, President of Radcliffe, once explained that there were so few women professors at Harvard because most women were having babies at the very time they were expected to publish. She suggested that part-time positions might allow women to have children and still meet the requirements necessary for academic advancement.

Part-time appointments could easily benefit men as well as women. There are already loud complaints about professors who spend too much of their time serving on committees, advising in Washington, or doing individual research.

It would serve the university and the Faculty if such professors could institutionalize their absenteeism by becoming part-time Faculty members and part-time whatever else they're doing.

Of course, women should not automatically be assigned to part-time positions. The traditional academic career of full time teaching and research is still an appropriate arrangement for some women-and some men.

Child-care centers might also serve to increase the number of women faculty and administrator's, while taking the distinctive life styles of women into account. These could easily serve all employees of the University, not just Faculty and administration.

Clearly part of the reason there are not more female Faculty members at Harvard is the specific modus operandi and philosophy by which Harvard chooses its senior Faculty. This fact stands out when Harvard is compared with other New England colleges and universities.

A recent survey by the Boston Herald Traveler of 21 New England colleges and universities revealed that, of the coeducational institutions, Harvard had the smallest percentage of tenured women faculty.

Many senior positions at Harvard are not filled by direct promotion of assistant professors. Faculty search committees rely on the suggestions of their members to find whom they consider to be the outstanding scholars in their field. Few male Faculty members are aware of the women in their fields.

Perhaps they should be provided with lists of qualified women.

Considering the strength of the existing prejudices of Harvard's male Faculty members, even the above-mentioned structural changes will not be enough to change the situation in the near future.

A clear statement of policy from the University will be necessary, Princeton, for instance, has expressed a definite intention to hire women faculty and there is now a special administrative officer there working on the hiring of women.

These are the types of solutions the new committee is expected to suggest. In view of its commitment to educate women it is hoped that Harvard will soon start to make use of the potential it has created.