Received: from acs4.bu.edu (ACS4.BU.EDU [128.197.154.40]) by csf.Colorado.EDU (8.7.6/8.7.3/CNS-4.0p) with ESMTP id NAA22419 for ; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 13:03:09 -0600 (MDT) Received: (from conroyt@localhost) by acs4.bu.edu (8.8.4/) id PAA154701; Fri, 13 Jun 1997 15:02:09 -0400 Date: Fri, 13 Jun 1997 15:02:08 -0400 (EDT) From: thomas conroy Sender: thomas conroy Reply-To: thomas conroy Subject: Re: ratings To: socgrad@csf.colorado.edu In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; CHARSET=US-ASCII On Thu, 12 Jun 1997, Beth Schaefer Caniglia wrote: > It appears that women and minorities are still disadvantaged > in the job market. They get hired in less prestigious jobs at lower > ranked universities than their white male counterparts. Unfortunately, > the data don't include the prestige of PhD granting institution. Well, since we all know that correlation does not equal causation, I need to ask the awkward question: are the candidates who are classified as members of disadvantaged groups being disadvantegedly hired for lower tiered jobs because of the fact that they are women and/or minorities? Or is it somehow connected to research interests, publications, teaching/research potential, etc.? The implication here seems to be that gender bias and racial bias continues to be the rule and not the exception in academic hiring and promotion decisions; but until I see some more solid evidence of such bias, I remain unconvinced. While I don't doubt that some departments/institutions are run (still) as old boys' networks, I think that there is simply way too much evidence of exceptions to this now. Tom Conroy Boston University