MIT Acknowledges Discrimination Against Women Faculty

In an unusually candid report released Friday, MIT acknowledged unintentional discrimination against its female faculty members.

"I have always believed that contemporary gender discrimination within universities is part reality and part perception,...but I now understand that reality is by far the greater part of the balance," wrote MIT President Charles M. Vest in his comments preceding the report.

The report, compiled by MIT's Committee on Women Faculty, cited discrepancies between male and female faculty members in MIT's School of Science in salaries, office space, awards, resources, and inducements to turn down offers from other universities. It also said many female faculty members feel marginalized within their departments.

Published in a special edition of the school's faculty newsletter, the report is entitled "A Study on the Status of Women Faculty in Science at MIT."

Dean of MIT's School of Science Robert J. Birgeneau wrote in the report that he believed the discrimination was neither "conscious nor deliberate." According to Birgeneau, all the department heads have tried to treat women in their departments fairly.

"It's only when you look at aggregate data that through some accumulation of small things the women faculty ended up at a disadvantage," he said.

Birgeneau said he has received only positive feedback from the report. Several women faculty members have e-mailed him to say they are pleased that MIT has acknowledged its problems, he said.

MIT biology professor Nancy H. Hopkins '64, one of the original women to convince Birgeneau to investigate possible discrimination against women faculty members, said it took years for MIT's female faculty to address the issue.

"You knew something was wrong--you saw how other people were treated--and you began to see there was a pattern," Hopkins said. "But there were so few of us, isolated in separate departments and fields, that we didn't know how similar our experiences were."

In response to the concerns of faculty members, Birgeneau established the Committee on Women Faculty in 1995.

Hopkins said MIT's report marks a major step forward. She said she hopes that other universities emulate MIT's willingness to question itself.

Lotte Bailyn, MIT's faculty chair, urged the committee to write up the report.

"Part of the goal was to get this disseminated so other universities could learn from this and learn how they can deal with these issues," Bailyn said.

Carol J. Thompson, Harvard's associate dean for academic affairs, said she was surprised to hear of MIT's findings, but also said she was encouraged that the Institute had publicly acknowledged them.

She added that she believes Harvard does not have the same discrimination problems.

But Professor of Physics Melissa E. Franklin, one of two tenured female faculty members in the physics department, said that although she cannot point to specific incidences of discrimination, she believes that similar discrimination may exist at Harvard.

"I'm sure the things they find at MIT are probably not very different from here," Franklin said.

Harvard's main obstacle to full equality is the lack of women Faculty members, Franklin said.

"I think [hiring more women Faculty members] would fix all the problems," she said.

According to Elizabeth Doherty, assistant dean for academic planning, in the natural sciences only nine of 164 tenured Faculty members, or 5.5 percent, are women. Of the entire Faculty, 58 out of 433 tenured Faculty members, or 13.4 percent, are women.

Thompson said that although she believes this gender imbalance is undesirable, it is not the result of discrimination in the University.

Hopkins said the general consensus among women in the academic community is that Harvard is "quite backward" in terms of recognizing the subtle ways it discriminates against women.

"I know Harvard pretty well and I love it," she said, "but in this area I think it's behind just about every other place-they're in denial."