Tweaking the Minority Numbers at the Kennedy School

While a woman was more likely to be found in the kitchen than teaching at the Kennedy School of Government (KSG) in the 1980s, KSG administration officials were accused themselves of cooking up numbers to beef up their minority representation.

In order to boost its image, the Kennedy School allegedly inflated the number of female and black faculty in a report, prompting many alumni and students to rally behind the cause of greater minority representation and demand greater dedication to affirmative action from the school.

The final complaint, laid at the door of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) by the national women’s rights group Women’s Equity Action League (WEAL) claimed that the positions of two black female research associates at the KSG had been misrepresented to the DOL, labeling them as “instructional” when in reality they had never assumed any teaching role.

WEAL also asserted that the reported five job offers extended to women by the KSG were “not firm at all” and not tempting enough to truly attract the candidates.

These missteps, the group argued, illustrated the school’s lack of good faith in recruiting minorities to its teaching staff. The complaint put into jeopardy the $99.5 million the KSG annually received from various government sources at the time, the receipt of which meant that it had to adhere to federally-mandated affirmative action guidelines.

The KSG faculty had only one woman in its ranks, an assistant professor, and no minorities in the 1980-81 school year. None of its tenured professors were drawn from women or minority groups. There was disagreement between WEAL and the school itself, however, over what exactly constituted a tenured professor. The administration contended that due to joint appointments between the KSG and other University schools, it truly possessed only 13 tenured faculty, while its detractors had placed that number at 22.

KSG officials also said in their defense that they had delineated the two research associates as “non-teaching faculty,” a description that was technically accurate according to DOL regulations.

They disagreed with the complaint’s accusation of their supposedly lackluster job proposals as well, claiming that they had made valid offers that had been rejected by the candidates because of better opportunities. According to then-executive dean of the KSG Hale Champion, one woman they recruited chose to take “a major position in the federal government.”

Nevertheless, KSG students past and present reacted to the accusations swiftly, with the first response coming merely hours after the WEAL complaint in a letter of support signed by over 80 alumni who declared the lack of diversity amongst K-school faculty “shocking.”

Outcry from students at the school also gathered pace, with mention of the WEAL action in a letter sent by the Kennedy School Student Association (KSSA) to the administration three weeks after the complaint was issued. The students wrote that they were “deeply concerned about the disproportionately small number of women and minorities at the school,” although they did not directly express approval of WEAL’s complaint.

Alison Dundes Renteln ’81, president of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) during the 1980-81 school year says there was “a lot of concern that there were so few women on the faculty” of the University at the time.

“There was a tremendous sensitivity at the University about this as it was clear that there weren’t enough women on the faculty relative to the number of qualified women,” she says. “The feeling was that women needed role models and mentoring, and that was one of the main things that RUS worked at when we were there.”

Although former WEAL national president Carol B. Grossman said in 1980 that she expected support from the DOL, the KSG was eventually let off the hook by government authorities after an investigation.

Although initially the DOL noted “deficiencies” in the KSG’s recruitment of women and minority faculty, a report released by them in the summer of 1982 declared that “recent improvement in the numbers of women and minority faculty satisfy any questions raised by the complaint.”

WEAL’s staff attorney queried this decision, however, alleging that the KSG had committed only to hiring one new female faculty member in the next six years and no minorities. A WEAL spokesman postulated that it reflected the priorities of the Reagan administration, which was “reluctant to press private institutions on affirmative action.”

The student body was not easy-going on its school either. The KSSA issued repeated demands for student input to create a more diverse environment, both in terms of faculty and the student body, which in 1981 possessed a mere 19.8 percent of women amongst its approximately 500 students.

Such pressure resulted in gaining student seats on all three of the KSG’s admittance committees, in an effort to counter any perceived institutional bias that might have affected the judgements of the faculty and administration.

Today, the KSG is very aware of the weight of its history.

“We have worked hard on the[se] issues,” Dean of the KSG David T. Ellwood ’75 says, mentioning the recent hiring of economist Bridgette Madrian at the school this fall, as well as “several other women in the pipeline.”

“Increasing the diversity of our faculty is an issue I take very seriously,” he says. “I expect the Kennedy School to make further progress in the near future.”

—Staff writer Alexandra C. Bell can be reached at acbell@fas.harvard.edu.