New York Times, Questions of Racial Discrimination on Tenure Unsettle DePaul:
As DePaul University seeks to improve its academic standing and raise $250 million for capital projects and scholarships, public accusations of bias and discrimination in the tenure process continue to mount.
On Dec. 7, professors and students protested this year’s denial of tenure to two minorities, Quinetta Shelby, a black professor of chemistry, and Namita Goswami, an Indian professor of philosophy. Of more than 40 professors who applied for tenure this year, 6 were denied, all of them minorities. Last year, the five professors denied tenure were four women and one minority man. …
The Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, DePaul’s president, said this year’s tenure denials were a statistical anomaly at an institution where 19 percent of the faculty members are minorities and where tenure rates for whites and minorities are usually equal. But Father Holtschneider said university officials were concerned and had convened a committee to interview minority and female professors about their experiences at DePaul. …
In the past decade, according to official data from DePaul, 90% of men and 87% of women who applied for tenure were accepted — 201 white professors received tenure and 17 were denied, while 22 black professors applied and 8 were denied. Seventeen Hispanics were approved and 6 denied. Tenure is decided on the basis of scholarship, including publishing, teaching and service to the university.
Sumi Cho, a tenured DePaul Law School professor specializing in race theory and employment discrimination, said she thought a subtle form of racism was at work in the tenure denials for Ms. Goswami and Ms. Shelby, who were both popular with students and had high public profiles. Ms. Cho said racism often did not involve excluding minorities but rather favoring those who were “sufficiently deferential” and “don’t steal the limelight.” “If these two women had been more mediocre, maybe they would have had an easier time,” Ms. Cho said. “Their problem may have been not that they weren’t good enough, but that they were too good.”
Valerie Johnson, a black tenured professor of political science, agrees and plans to call for a vote of no confidence in Father Holtschneider.
Inside Higher Ed, More Than a Coincidence?:
At DePaul, faculty members want to know why so many minority tenure candidates have been rejected while white hopefuls have succeeded.
