Minority Investigators Speak Out On The Value Of Affirmative Action

Recent political and judicial setbacks to affirmative action throughout the United States have minority and women scientists concerned that whatever advantages they have gained in the lab or clinic in the 30 years since such laws and regulations were enacted will be decimated. Impassioned national debate on the issue has been sparked by a number of widely publicized events. Among them are an effort by two professors in California to do away with any vestige of affirmative action in hiring by state agencies--including the state university system--and last month's Supreme Court decision to eliminate race as a factor in awarding scholarships. But in the halls of academia, perhaps the most strident exchanges are taking place among the parties whom affirmative action programs were designed to benefit--minorities and women. In some cases, argument centers on who in the research community has really been helped by affirmative action. Some African American scientists say that white women have been the primary recipients of affirmative action. "Affirmative action doesn't work to bring the disadvantaged into the mainstream," contends James Wyche, an African American cell biologist at Brown University. "At many colleges, there has been little change over the last 15 to 20 years in the number of minority faculty. Instead, white women have reaped the advantages." White female scientists answer back that their gains are tenuous at best, that many of the positions they have obtained are not tenured and comparably few women have made it to the top levels. Now, comments Utah State University physicist Jill Marshall, men are beginning to feel threatened. The perception still exists "on the part of male scientists that the reason affirmative action exists is because women need a break, that they could not make it on the basis of their qualifications," she says. Meanwhile, members of some smaller minority groups contend they have been helped only marginally or not at all by these programs, maintaining that African Americans and women have been the primary beneficiaries. Still others believe that the net result of affirmative action has been to cast doubt on the qualifications of excellent minority researchers, and should be abolished. Most of all, these scientists are keeping a wary eye on what they see as a partisan "hot zone" virus--the fever to end affirmative action that has infected politicians across the nation. President Lyndon Johnson signed an executive order in 1965 that stated contractors with the federal government "will take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that employees are treated without regard to their race, color, religion, or national origin." Gender was added two years later. But universities, even state colleges, were not considered "contractors" in the strictest sense of the word, meaning that they were obliged to meet the spirit of the law, as was everyone, but not exactly the letter of the law. That generally has meant universities would adopt affirmative action goals and hiring guidelines that were "neutral": Administrators encouraged faculty to diversify the staff, which meant choosing the minority job candidate if all applicants were substantially "equal." They were not under the legislative gun to diversify. Nonetheless, the number of minority scientists has increased; in fact, the proportion of white men in higher-education faculties nationally, across all disciplines, is about 60 percent--the lowest ever--according to figures from the United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEO-6 Higher Education Staff Information" surveys, 1981, 1989, 1991). In 1981, the figure was about 67 percent. But minority scientists now worry that the "spirit" of affirmative action may quickly give way to heated competition for jobs and grants in tight economic times. Thomas Wood, a former philosophy instructor at California State University in Hayward, and anthropology professor Glenn Custred, from the same college, succeeded in placing the "California Civil Rights Initiative" on the November 1996 state ballot. The referendum would prohibit any state agencies from making decisions based on race, sex, ethnicity, or national origin. The fact that this push to end affirmative action in all hiring, including academia, was promoted by two white male college professors in California, one of whom is an anthropologist, has added a veneer of academic respect to the effort to limit the playing field, some scientists complain. On June 12, the Supreme Court voted, 5 to 4--in a case involving a white contractor suing to invalidate a federal contract awarded to a competing Hispanic contractor who submitted a higher bid--to overturn earlier lower court rulings in favor of federal affirmative action programs. With its ruling, the Court, which has been overturning similar state programs since 1989, cast doubt on the constitutionality of all affirmative action initiatives. At the White House, the Clinton administration has been reviewing all such government programs, with preliminary indications that modifications will be made to reduce the scope of some and eliminate others. Congress has been addressing itself to similar legislative initiatives. Sidebar: Faculty by the Numbers Among the minority science-based Ph.D.'s interviewed by The Scientist for this article, no researchers accept the concept of quotas in hiring--setting aside a certain number of employees who must be minority, which is often perceived as affirmative action. Instead, they emphasize affirmative action as a means of providing equal opportunity in hiring. Some of these scientists, however, think that affirmative action has not achieved what it has set out to do, and that the notion of legally requiring administrators to hire a minority if both candidates have equal qualifications should be incorporated. The debate over affirmative action has also resulted in some question as to who has really been helped by such programs. The overall policy, begun to bring opportunities to African Americans, today includes women, as well as several other minorities. "I have lived through an era where women were told they couldn't be scientists, and they have been regrouping and starting from ground zero many times since then," says Ellen Weaver, a retired chemist who has lobbied for the rights of women scientists ever since she worked on the Manhattan Project in 1945. Weaver was also the 1992-93 president of the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). "Men today still worry about what their wives will think about hiring a female scientist, and how the woman will fit into the golf social scene. "There's been a slight dent made in the efforts of white men to assume their rightful places, and they don't take it well. The stampede to stamp out affirmative action is tremendously discouraging." Rather than simply fending off challenges to the status quo, some feel affirmative action for minorities needs more federal support to protect against decades of preferential treatment for white men. Affirmative action is not working well because it does not prevent this discrimination, and needs to be strengthened, stresses Anne Briscoe, a retired biomedical scientist, who reports that she counsels at least four women researchers a week who wonder if they should file lawsuits alleging discrimination. (She advises them not to, she says, because they will be financially and emotionally spent, and professionally ostracized.) "The narrow crack in the monolithic male establishment" made possible by affirmative action must be protected, she maintains. Some women students believe affirmative action had nothing to do with their acceptance at male-dominated elite universities, notes California Institute of Technology professor of literature Jenijoy LaBelle, who has served for 20 years on the university's affirmative action committee. "Women are divided. Young women come in believing they got into Caltech solely on merit, not because of the struggles of the past--it is an optimistic innocence. Women were the chief beneficiaries of affirmative action in academia because they were ready to step in. They didn't have that far to come. "Caltech was slow to change. It was at the forefront of science and technology, but [at] the rearguard of social change. But we have really tried because the school has come to believe in diversity." Even so, only 11 out of 276 tenured faculty at Caltech are women. None of them are African American, which is itself another issue causing contention among minority scientists. LaBelle adds that while attitudes may have changed, women "still have to keep on top of affirmative action. What has helped me and many other women is not preferential treatment but strong enforcement of nondiscrimination. That portion of affirmative action must be preserved at all costs." Catherine Didion, executive director of the 5,000-plus-member AWIS in Washington, D.C., points out that the real benefit of the affirmative action legislation is that it gave minorities an antidiscrimination tool by which to question how faculty are hired. Affirmative action has played a "vital role" in opening the door to careers where women have traditionally been excluded, but once they are there, women have to prove their own merit for jobs and promotions, she asserts. That involves an almost continuous struggle to define such "merit," she says. "Some of the best research universities in the country have policies that make sure women get a hearing on a grievance, but they stop the tenure process once the hearing process is enacted." The situation in government research, maintains Hynda Kleinman, a section chief in cell biology at the National Institute of Dental Research, presents similar challenges. Affirmative action at NIH "ain't working. Affirmative action is on paper, but it's not enforced. My sense is that in the government, there are a lot of clouds, but no movement," she remarks. "There are a lot of ways around affirmative action. A job designation may be written so that only one person qualifies, and that's the white guy they wanted all along." Kleinman has waged an almost three-year effort to have the pay adjusted for 53 women whom she proved were paid less than men at the same rank (F. Hoke, The Scientist, Oct. 18, 1993, page 1). Finally, the issue is being resolved. She also notes that of a pool of 35 percent female scientists, only 4 percent hold positions as lab chief. "What happens is that they burn us out and we give up," she says. Many women's groups have taken up the call by minority groups to support affirmative action across the board. If opportunities for racial minorities are the first victims of the death of affirmative action, gender will not be far behind, warns Didion: "The media has portrayed the issue as one in which blacks benefit the most. I would argue that we have all, both race and gender, benefited." Didion is concerned that the current debate will become divisive, pitting those whom affirmative action was designed to benefit against each other. "It's wrongly seen as a case that if I am winning, then you must be losing," she explains; African Americans and Hispanics may accuse white women of benefiting at their expense. Didion says she is guarding against making the issue of affirmative action a question of white women's progress: AWIS "is sensitive to the tendency of women's organizations to focus on white women." Indeed, many African American scientists are torn on the question of whom affirmative action has helped and why. But most of those interviewed agree that however strongly the regulations are interpreted by universities, they should not be repealed. In science, the best way to use affirmative action is to look as widely as possible for minority researchers of "comparable ability" to white male applicants for a position, suggests S. James Gates, Jr., a physicist at the University of Maryland and president of the National Society of Black Physicists (see Opinion, page 12). Affirmative action has worked, he explains, in that unqualified applicants are not given unwarranted opportunities: "I have rarely met a minority scientist or engineer who has not lived up to the quality that has been expected. They got there on the strength of their abilities." But "major, intensive, ongoing efforts" are needed to find promising minority applicants--"good will" by itself doesn't work, he says. Even so, African American men have not been helped by affirmative action as much as African American and white women, observes Gloria Gilbert, a coordinator of the 1,000-plus-member Women in Science and Engineering, sponsored by the Washington, D.C.-based American Association for the Advancement of Science. "White women helped black women more than they did black men," she observes. "That's because white females got somewhere, and black women have two minority criteria going for them--they are both female and black." Affirmative action "has helped a lot of black people get where they are, because they have been given at least the same opportunity as their counterparts. We have come out of slavery, but doing away with affirmative action will put the chains right back on." Others contend that, apart from white women, few underrepresented groups have benefited at all from affirmative action. They point to, among other studies, a 1995 report by the American Council on Education (ACE) that found that in higher education, between 1981 and 1991, the number of full-time faculty members grew by 54,247, with women accounting for 40,283 of the number. White women took up the bulk of those slots, garnering 32,579 positions. From decades of dominance, white men, and now, more slowly, white women have established an infrastructure of success, with executives clearing paths for others like them, says Brown University's Wyche. What minorities now need to do is push for high-level positions in order to foster similar power networks, he contends. The corporate world has made much more progress in meeting the spirit of affirmative action than have universities, argues George Campbell, president of the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering Inc. in New York. That's because "university people don't believe that they discriminate. They think they are open-minded and egalitarian in perspective and that they make judgments based on merit. Of course, that's not true at all. "Even people who are well-meaning, growing up in a society like this they have attitudes that are inevitable. There is no such thing as two equal candidates because there is no way to qualify that." When belief systems reinforce the notion that African Americans and whites are not equal, affirmative action can't help, he contends. Duke University vice provost George Wright has a different view. As the administrator who has led the university's strategic plan to attract more African American faculty to the university, Wright says it is recruiting difficulties that are the greatest hurdle: "There is such a small pot of candidates available. And some people just don't want to come south. These people really do have options." Wright himself will soon leave Duke with one less African American faculty member--he will move to the University of Texas, Arlington, later this summer. Sidebar:Funding for All Whether or not they think affirmative action is good, some Hispanic scientists believe it has not worked for them. Increased placement of Hispanic scientists has been minimal through affirmative action, maintains Hilda Krespo, a spokeswoman for Aspira Inc., an organization for Latino professionals. "The pipeline for Latinos in science has been pretty empty. Although affirmative action has helped open doors to some degree, there is clearly need for improvement," she asserts. "This country does a better job at producing foreign Ph.D.'s in science than minority Ph.D.'s." The American Council on Education supports her assertion that Hispanics have not made much headway. According to ACE statistics, of the 39,754 doctoral degrees, in all fields, awarded in 1993, 834 were given to Hispanic men and women. By contrast, foreign-born candidates took home 12,173 degrees. In 1991, only 2.2 percent of academic faculty members were Hispanic. Although progress lagged for a long time, many American Indians are beginning to enjoy the fruits of affirmative action, notes Jim Chastain, a college liaison with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society in Boulder, Colo. "Most universities and corporations have been attempting to diversify their work force with blacks for years, and now they are coming around to hiring American Indians," he says. "There is great interest in getting American Indian students in the employee database." At the society's annual employment conference last year, 160 corporate and university representatives wooed 800 undergraduate and graduate American Indian science and engineering students, he notes. Some employers who do business with the government need to round out their work force to comply with federal contracts, but many just feel the goals of "diversity employment" make good business sense, Chastain maintains. The net effect of affirmative action is to degrade researchers who make it through good, hard work, some minority researchers contend. While accomplished minority scientists see their success as a product of merit--after all, they competed with their peers for federal grants--other investigators, minority and non- minority, can easily label that success a product of an unfair break, they argue. Affirmative action is a form of "educational welfare," declares entomologist Robert Granados, Charles E. Palm Scientist and director of the plant protection program at Cornell University's Boyce Thomas Institute for Plant Research. "AA may be right for certain people, but not for me. I did not need a handout at taxpayers' expense or someone to bend the rules to give me an advantage. "I [ascribe] to the notion that if a person works themselves hard then they will succeed. I couldn't live with the fact that some persons may have gotten passed over because of me, or that I got a job because of my last name. There is a stigma attached to affirmative action." Renee Twombly is a freelance science writer based in Durham, N.C. (The Scientist, Vol:9, #14, pg.1 , July 10, 1995) (Copyright, The Scientist, Inc.) garfield@aurora.cis.upenn.edu

Minority Investigators Speak Out On The Value Of Affirmative Action

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