Study finds sex discrimination at MIT

Off Our Backs, Apr 1999

.A five-year study at MIT found "pervasive, if unintentional" sex discrimination among math and science faculty. The report found sex discrimination in hiring, in the allocation of laboratory space and research money, in the granting of awards and promotions, and in the membership of important committees. Discrimination was found to be the strongest among senior-level women faculty

Although report contributor Jacqueline Hewitt said that discrimination experienced by female faculty was difficult to document, the study found skewed patterns of representation of women among faculty. The following table summarizes the some of the findings:

The data show that although there are at least as many women as men in undergraduate programs, at the faculty level, men had the lion's share of the positions.

Women faculty praised MIT president, Charles M. Vest, for being open about the sex discrimination problems. Nancy Hopkins, a molecular biologist who helped work on the study, said that MIT's comments "are the most forward-looking statements on gender discrimination that I've read by a high-ranking administrator in one of these elite institutions in the 25 years I've been a faculty member. Study authors recommended that equity data be gathered every year to measure MIT's progress. -info from www.feministmajority.com