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Dec. 13, 2006
The Dismal and Unwelcome Science?
When professors at the University of Vermont sent information about a job opening to the American Economic Association this fall about a tenure-track opening, they didn’t think their notice was unusual. After describing the position, the notice said that the university “welcomes applications from women and underrepresented ethnic, racial and cultural groups and from people with disabilities.”
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Those words never made it into the economics group’s job notice list because they were deemed discriminatory by the association. That view has angered enough economists that the association’s board will be meeting next month to consider changing its policies on job listings, but for now economists are trading charges of discrimination, censorship and insensitivity.
“It’s ironic that an organization that believes in free markets is disrupting the free flow of information,” said Stephanie Seguino, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Vermont, and until recently the economics chair there. Seguino said that it was “just wrong” for the economics association to have called her department’s notice discriminatory. She said that the economics department was trying to build a diverse pool in a field dominated by white men and that the ad did not suggest any preference in selecting finalists or making an offer, but only wanted to encourage people to come forward for consideration.
“To signal to certain groups that have in the past faced discrimination that they are welcome is not discrimination, but is legal affirmative action,” said Seguino, who said that the language Vermont used had been reviewed by the university’s lawyers. “We are just signaling that, unlike some economics departments, we welcome diversity.”
Welcoming diversity would have been OK, according to the economics association — the university just couldn’t welcome any particular kind of diversity.
John J. Siegfried, an economist at Vanderbilt University who is secretary-treasurer of the American Economic Association, said that the group’s policy was to bar any mention of any group in a job ad as discriminatory. “We have taken the position that we do not want to help anyone discriminate in any way, shape or form,” he said. So while colleges can (and do) include references to being in favor of diversity, or being equal opportunity employers, the minute they mention a group, the ad is edited to remove the relevant phrases. He said that “a few dozen” ads are changed every year, most of them ads that mention a requirement that applicants be members of religious groups (for jobs at certain religious colleges).
In many circumstances, it is entirely legal for religious colleges to have such limits, because of exemptions to civil rights laws that are designed to allow religious institutions to preserve their identities. Siegfried acknowledged that keeping such information out of ads could end up wasting everyone’s time — as a secular person might apply for a job at a college requiring faculty members to endorse a statement of faith. But he said that the association believed this was the right approach. “We want to take the high road morally,” he said.
There is, however, one case where the economics group will allow individual distinctions. Government agencies are allowed to specify citizenship requirements.
As word of the economics group’s action has spread, there has been anger over both the practice of changing ad wordings (other colleges, alerted to Vermont’s experience, found their notices changed) and to the association’s view that Vermont’s language amounted to discrimination.
“This atavistic interpretation counters the legal doctrine of inclusive affirmative action,” said Susan Feiner, professor of economics and director of women’s studies at the University of Southern Maine. “The discipline’s flagship organization fails its constituents by over-reacting to a problem that does not exist.”
The International Association for Feminist Economics has written to the AEA questioning the group’s policy and saying that it has the potential to hurt recruiting efforts. “Economics has been described as a discipline with a particularly hostile climate for women and members of underrepresented ethnic minorities,” the letter said. ” We urge the AEA to do everything it can to dispel this image.”
Adding to the controversy is anger among some non-traditional economists who believe the association is squeezing them out of its annual meeting. The AEA meeting had in recent years featured more sessions from various groups of economists with specialties and areas of interest than from the AEA as a whole, and the larger association has begun taking back more meeting slots. While AEA officials insist that groups are having meeting sessions eliminated based on attendance and not on politics, some left-leaning groups — particularly the Union for Radical Political Economics — charge that their ideas are being set aside. Some professors see the conference and job notice disputes pointing to larger problems with the association.
Siegfried of the AEA said that that it was unfair to link the two issues or assume that they show anything about the inclusiveness of the economics group. He said that the association’s board had decided to revisit the job notice policy next month, in part because of the protests over the Vermont ad. He said that board views on the issue appear to be mixed, so it was unclear which way the association would go. But he added that many “think this has already taken more time than the thing is worth.”
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Comments
Here’s an answer... if they don’t like how the AEA handles job announcements, don’t advertise with them...
K.T., at 8:49 am EST on December 13, 2006
The Dismal and Unwelcome Science?
In this hostile climate (given the de facto discrimination against women and minorities as reflected in the demographics of economics departments — or is this a case where they would like to say the numbers aren’t a valid or reliable indicator?), if institutions don’t make it clear that they welcome women and applicants from other underrepresented groups, how else will equity be achieved? Would those who see this kind of advertising as discriminatory prefer a lawsuit? Judging from experience in industry, the mere fact of a discriminatory demographic pattern is sufficient grounds for demonstrating discrimination — is that preferable to explicitly inclusive job postings?
The white male club is getting old. Let’s get over it.
Lindsay Thompson, Professor at Johns Hopkins University, at 8:49 am EST on December 13, 2006
Professor Thompson states “the mere fact of a discriminatory demographic pattern is sufficient grounds for demonstrating discrimination". Almost 3/5 of undergraduates are female; is that grounds for demonstrating discrimination against males?
Enough, at 9:32 am EST on December 13, 2006
I study the labor market for economics PhDs and have never seen a time when prospects for women are strongest. Per minorities, there simply aren’t many in the pipeline, and any decent minority economist gets snatched up faster than you can say tomorrow.
Per the charges, I’d rather the AEA let schools put what they want in their advertisements — everyone knows how hiring committees work anyway. That this is some white guy club is a myth. My college gives explicit preferences to women and minority candidates — and in order to avoid claims of discrimination basically makes up job requirements that can be met only by females and/or ethnic minorities (such as, “new faculty are expected to participate in the college’s new interdisciplinary gender studies program” — man are surely allowed to teach in it, but there is not one male on campus that currently does).
I have no problem with schools, even mine, wanting to hire females and minorities, but let’s not sit here and make believe that preferenes are not already given. As another example of the competition for women and minorities, the new assistant professor that I hired last year is paid $15,000 MORE than the white male assistant professor we hired three years ago — and in the same field. That’s what the market bears for him. If he had been being discriminated against, I find it hard to imagine us having to pay that much for him.
Mike, at 9:46 am EST on December 13, 2006
Why in the world does it make sense to ban colleges that have faith requirements from noting those requirements? Simply removing the text from the ad is not going to make anyone more likely to GET the job.
ML, at 9:55 am EST on December 13, 2006
ACTA Shows its True Colors Yet Again
Those champions of free speech and academic diversity (of a sort) are at it again over at the ACTA blog. The blogger reports that ACTA is pleased with the AEA’s decision to interfere with the University of Vermont’s undeniably legal job search.
Can anyone guess how ACTA might respond if, say, the Chronicle or IHE decided to refuse to run ads for Christian universities requiring candidates to adhere to certain standards of behavior? Or if the MLA passed a rule against listing job searches for scholars studying Eurocentric literatures?
ACTA is a right-wing activist group. That is all it is. That is all it has ever been. It should really stop trying to pretend otherwise.
Unapologetically Tenured, at 10:11 am EST on December 13, 2006
White Males Need Not Apply
Why isn’t the standard “equal opportunity, affirmative action institution” statement enough? Why specifically name any group at all?
If indeed “economics has been described as a discipline with a particularly hostile climate for women and members of underrepresented ethnic minorities,” then hiring women and minorities isn’t going to change the climate — only expose those new-hires to a hostile climate, possibly forcing them to leave the discipline all together. Change the climate first, and diversity of candidates will follow — and they’ll stay.
Tom McCool, at 10:21 am EST on December 13, 2006
Quoting from the article, “Siegfried of the AEA ...said that board views on the issue appear to be mixed, so it was unclear which way the association would go. But he added that many “think this has already taken more time than the thing is worth.””
This comment is profoundly indicative of the discipline in general and in the context of the issue being debated. To the economists at AEA, social concerns seem to be so many distractions. Is their social science totally exempted from these considerations? Can they prove that for the high priests of AEA, the opportunity cost of deliberating on equity in the job market for economists is greater than its benefits? In this particular case it is turning a blind (and callous) eye to legally established guidelines about affirmative action. For those of us in the profession, this is a perpetually troubling situation.
Dismal Scientist, at 10:25 am EST on December 13, 2006
Women and minorities not welcome in profession, says AEA
The subject line says it all.
If the AEA maintains this policy then we should just stick a fork in it because — for all intense and purposes — it’s done.
Perhaps we could donate the remains of the AEA to the Museum of Natural History, wherethey could be placed alongside the bones of other dinosaurs.
Earth to AEA: It’s the 21st Century! Pleaseadjust you clocks accordingly.
Jerry
Jerry Levy, Instructor at Pratt Institute, at 11:50 am EST on December 13, 2006
I work in an economics department in which there are no tenured female faculty members and the one female faculty that was on tenure track did not get tenure this year. I am a full-time NTT faculty who has worked over 10 years in the department. I have a Ph.D., excellent teaching credentials, etc. This year during a budget cut I was the one asked to leave while a white male with only a MA degree and fewer years of experience was allowed to stay. However, a weird turn of events worked in my favor and I am back at the institution with a 14% pay hike. If this is considered equal treatment, I wonder what discrimination will feel like!
Ethnic minority female economist.
Ethnic minority female economist, at 11:50 am EST on December 13, 2006
Reply to Mr. McCool
Tom McCool wrote:
Change the climate first, and diversity of candidates will follow — and they’ll stay.
This is backwards. The way the climate changes is as a result of the change in the mix of individuals. The “first woman” — the “first person of color,” the “first person whose native language isn’t English...” will have the hardest time but once there are some underrepresented people in a particular department, it makes the climate change.
That then makes it more welcoming.
Over a three year period out Department interviewed a number of women economists for positions in an all-male department. Our efforts to improve the climate involved having a woman faculty member from another department on the search committee and making sure the candidates met with a long time woman adjunct professor during the campus visit.
But nothing will make our efforts to be completely non-discriminatory towards female applicants more than the fact that this year while we are searching we have a fulltime tenure track woman on the faculty and on the search committee IN the economics department.
I also disagree with the idea that economists of color are not “out there.”
We are not an elite institution by any means and our teaching load is quite daunting for individuals who might be just as much interested in research as in teaching. Nevertheless we received 212 applications (and many more arrived after the deadline) for a tenure track assistant professor position and I would guess that fully half of the applicants were economists of color — most from Asia.
One of the ways we attempt to create a welcoming climate is if we have a candidate on campus whose first language for example is Mandarin, we make sure they get to meet with a number of the Mandarin-speakers on campus to learn about about their perspectives on the college and the local area.
The same applies with Spanish speakers.
The fact that our department has a member who was born in Haiti and speaks fluent French sends another important signal about how welcoming we are.
ALL THE VERBIAGE IN THE WORLD FROM A BUNCH OF WHITE MALE ENGLISH SPEAKERS cannot substitute for the facts that we can demonstrate because one of our faculty is a woman and one is a man whose first language wasn’t English.
The bottom line is that Vermont is right and the AEA is wrong — and the posts from those who are anti-affirmative action are disgusting.
MIKE
department chairman at a decidedly non-elite institutione
Michael Meeropol, Professor at Western New England College, at 11:50 am EST on December 13, 2006
Get a grip
” .. Can anyone guess how ACTA might respond if, say ..”
Hypothetical 1, Hypothetical 2, blah blah blah, yada yada yada ..
When those things happen — right have Hades freezes over — let us know.
Until then — get a grip. Your students expect you to work with actual events, not contrived docu-dramas. Chicken Little never had it so bad.
The Old Curmudgeon, at 12:20 pm EST on December 13, 2006
The message is a familiar one to those of my ethnic group: “No Irishmen need apply.”
“Mick”, at 12:30 pm EST on December 13, 2006
One comment above, from K. T., suggests that UVM Economics Dept just choose a different forum for their job advertisements. Unfortunately, the AEA’s JOE is the only major, centralized job listing for Economists. No viable alternative exists.
The monopoly is natural, so it doesn’t make sense to have alternatives anyway. That’s why the JOE is run by the AEA in the first place: it’s essentially a public good for the economics profession.
This point suggests that if the AEA truly has the interests of its members at heart—i.e. it is trying to maximize the welfare of its members—then it ought to recognize its members demands on JOE. The conflict over this policy merits a debate and a vote. I’m sure the board faces opportunity costs, but I can’t think of any AEA administrative issues in the last several years that have generated this kind of furor.
Grad Student, KT: JOE is a monopoly & a public good, at 3:15 pm EST on December 13, 2006
Outcomes are irrelevant
The demographic outcomes are totally irrelevant. Equality of opportunity is a legitimate goal of policy; trying to get a particular outcome is not.
It’s a racist quota system, of precisely the same sort that used to regard “too many Jews” as a problem in academic admissions.
S.M. Stirling, at 3:35 pm EST on December 13, 2006
Good for the AEA. I don’t want to get hired just because I’m a woman. If openly saying that you’ll only hire ‘women and minorities’ (which is what such coded job ads mean) then it’s discrimination. Women should not be on the side of discrimination. They should be on the side of equality and excellence and get jobs on the strength of their ability.
Sue Trevor, research university, at 6:25 pm EST on December 13, 2006
Reply to Michael Meeropol
How can the climate change when the perpetrators remain, driving out all those who threaten their power? You have it backwards, I’m afraid. Change won’t happen because a few minorities and women are “allowed” into the club. It’s easy to talk the talk. The climate must be inviting and supportive when they arrive, or they won’t stay long. It’s a game that’s been played out within former white male bastions since the civil rights movement. Dodge pubic opinion by opening your doors to minorities and women, but treat them poorly when the actually show up so they leave right away.
Tom McCool, at 6:30 pm EST on December 13, 2006
Outrage
The PC Taliban is rightly outraged that its own tactics have been used against it. But it’s all just academic, folks, because there aren’t enough minority candidates out there to begin with. THAT is what we ought to be working to change. Unfortunately it will have to change from the bottom up.
Bill, at 8:00 pm EST on December 13, 2006
The terms “employment discrimination” and “affirmative action in employment” are actually legal terms whose definitions have been hammered out over decades in U.S. statutory law, administrative law, and case law.
Employment discrimination cannot occur unless a decision is being made regarding hiring, firing, promotion, pay or other terms and conditions of employment. Thinking about the process of applying for a given faculty job as a funnel with the wide end being the part where the college/university seeks applicants and the narrow end as the point in time where the job offer is made — under U.S. federal employment law it is always legal to take actions that widen the fat end of the funnel (e.g., adverstising for an engineering professor position in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, Inside Higher Ed, as well as in the women’s and minority engineers’ caucus publications.
Federal courts have already ruled that the kind of language utilized by the University of Vermont in its original job advertisement text is *legal* affirmative action. (See Honadle v. The University of Vermont,56 F. Supp. 2d 419, District of Vermont, 1999 as well as Shuford, et al., v. Alabama State Board of Education, et al.; 897 F. Supp. 1535, Middle District of Alabama, 1995). The trial courts’ opinions in both cases ruled that language stipulating that an employer “welcomes applications from “women", under-represented minorities, covered veterans, etc. is not a signal to white men not to apply, but a legal means of increasing the applicant pool to include traditional applicants and non-traditional applicants. Likewise a nursing college could write a job ad stipulating that the department welcomes applications from men (who typically make up a tiny minority of nurses).
Finally, Executive Order 11246, signed in 1967, by Lyndon Johnson mandates that federal contractors (i.e., those receiving $50,000 or more in federal contracts) must engage in affirmative action in hiring. Thus, virtually all research universities with federal contracts are required to use Equal Employment Opportunity language in their job advertisements. Any disciplinary association that prohibits such language in job advertisements it publishes will not be useful to the universities bound by Executive Order 11246.
Saranna Thornton, Professor of Economics at Hampden-Sydney College, at 4:20 am EST on December 14, 2006
Reply to Mr. McCool
TOM McCOOL WROTE:
How can the climate change when the perpetrators remain, driving out all those who threaten their power? You have it backwards, I’m afraid. Change won’t happen because a few minorities and women are “allowed” into the club. It’s easy to talk the talk. The climate must be inviting and supportive when they arrive, or they won’t stay long. It’s a game that’s been played out within former white male bastions since the civil rights movement. Dodge pubic opinion by opening your doors to minorities and women, but treat them poorly when the actually show up so they leave right away.
I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU THINK THIS IS A RESPONSE TO MY POST. You’re actually making my point and the point of all of us who see diversity as a goal that can only be achieved with NUMBERS ... TO use your insulting terminology: “driving out all those who threaten [our?] power” is less possible the MORE of the under-represented people there are. Those of us who have actively worked to expand the number of under-represented people on our faculty KNOW that they only real solution is to HAVE MORE women and people of color working here.
It’s obviously a difficult chicken and egg problem which is why I started my commentary before by insisting that the more people you actually have there the better the climate will be.
[AS AN ASIDE, I’d like to say it’s a really rotten assumption to assert that the white males who are here are the “perpetrators..."].
Institutions have cultures however — and these cultures can create a less welcoming environment — THUS, (returning to my original post) numbers mean a lot. Increasing the number of previously under-represented people means a lot.
And I do agree, the LARGER the numbers the MORE effect that will have on the over-all culture of any institution, not just an academic one.
THE POINT OF ALL OF THIS is that Vermont is right to try and increase the number of under-represented people.
Michael Meeropol, at 9:50 am EST on December 14, 2006
This discipline is overwhelingly white and male. It appears that the only folks who don’t see a problem with this are.....well....white and male. Why is that.....?!
And they wonder why this dogma slumbers on?!
Bryan Snyder, Lecturer at Bentley College, at 10:55 am EST on December 14, 2006
FYI, here’s what I blogged on National Review Online earlier this week:
And No Irish Need Apply, Either[Roger Clegg 12/13 11:31 AM]
Interesting InsideHigherEd article today on politically correct criticism of the American Economic Association’s very reasonable policy of not allowing job notices to single out groups (racial, ethnic, etc.) from whom applications are welcome. Here’s the text of a letter that the Center for Equal Opportunity and National Association of Scholars sent to the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission earlier this year on this topic (which I will reraise, among other topics, when I testify before the Commission early next year):
“The Center for Equal Opportunity and the National Association of Scholars are concerned that it has become increasingly common for colleges and universities to include in their advertisements for faculty positions a stated preference for applicants on the basis of race, ethnicity, and sex. We have enclosed some recent examples, although we could have included many more.
“As you know, Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits the consideration of race, ethnicity, or sex in hiring and promotion decisions, and explicitly makes it illegal `to print or cause to be printed or published any notice or advertisement relating to employment … indicating any preference, limitation, specification, or discrimination’ based on race, ethnicity, or sex (42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-3(b)). Specifying particular groups from whom applications are sought, and not listing others, would seem clearly to violate this provision. Suppose, for instance, the shoe were on the other foot, and an ad specified that `White males are encouraged to apply,’ let alone ‘especially’ encouraged to apply? We think that the Commission would, quite rightly, take a dim view of this.
“To be sure, the Supreme Court has of course upheld the use of limited preferences based on race, ethnicity, and sex—see United Steelworkers v. Weber, 443 U.S. 193 (1979), and Johnson v. Transportation Agency, 480 U.S. 616 (1987)—but only when there is a `manifest imbalance’ in a ‘traditionally segregated job category.’ It would seem to us very unlikely that most institutions of higher education in 2006 would be able to meet this standard, especially the necessary showing that they have a history in recent times of having ‘traditionally segregated’ a job position.
Do you agree with this analysis? If so, and given the widespread practice of violating 42 U.S.C. sec. 2000e-3(b), we would request that the Commission communicate in some way to universities and colleges that they should be more careful in their wording of employment advertisements.
Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel at Center for Equal Opportunity, at 12:16 pm EST on December 15, 2006
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Thank you American Economic Association for taking a stand against discrimination. Administrators at a public university such as Stephanie Seguino have no right to discourage people she does not care for (white men) from applying for a position by showering attention on everyone but them.
Enough, at 7:50 am EST on December 13, 2006