A Duke University report adds to the growing consensus that a climate of exclusion persists despite women's advancement into academic positions. More women may be getting science degrees today than 40 years ago, but that fact has not translated to gender equity in the academic workplace.

Duke's study indicates that lower salaries, fewer leadership positions, and slower promotion rates are not alone in creating barriers that discourage women from continuing in the science career pipeline.1 "We suggest that the appropriate metaphor is of a pipeline that is obstructed at specific points, rather than with 'leakages' along the way," states Duke's President Nannerl Keohane in the report's introductory essay.

Reexamination of gender relationships in academia started with a 1999 Massachusetts Institute of Technology report revealing that lower salaries and fewer research resources contribute to the marginalization of female faculty in its School of Science. Since then, California Institute of Technology,...

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