Region I office in April 1972, following a compliance review. Since then the University has received one letter from that office, requesting clarification of certain data. This was provided, and as of two and one half years later, no further written communications have been received by the administration.

At last count, something under 1% of all the colleges and universities in the country have received formal acceptance of their Affirmative Action plansa full two years after the Higher Education Guidelines went into effect, and nearly five years after the first sex discrimination complaints were filed. Indeed, less than 10% of all the institutions of higher education have even filed Affirmative Action plans. The great majority clearly do not intend to do so until compelled. It is my understanding that during the past year the Office of Civil Rights has been reviewing its enforcement procedures and intends to issue a uniform set of guidelines shortly.

That enforcement has been slow, haphazard, and inept is only one side of the coin, however. The other is that institutions have on the whole been evasive and uncooperative, with the exception of a shining few who voluntarily filed Affirmative Action plans. The majority have not bothered to educate their faculty and middle-level administrators in the requirements of and necessity for Affirmative Action, yet it is just these people who make most of the hiring decisions. In working with faculty members and search committees, it has been the experience of our office that once they understand fully what the needs and requirements are, they become much more cooperative.

Since the area of faculty recruitment and hiring is the one with which we are most closely involved, I would like to discuss this in some detail.

To put the overall problem in perspective, it must be pointed out that between 1968 and 1973 the total number of women on faculties increased by less than 1 percent, from 19.1 to 20 percent. Virtually all of that increase is due to hiring at the lowest ranks. No national statistics are yet available on any increase in the number of women at senior or tenure level; in early 1973 our office attempted to survey all of the New England institutions in an effort to obtain such data on a regional basis. Out of a 55% response rate, so many of the replies were evasive or nonresponsive to the specific questions that it is difficult to draw firm conclusions, but the data do suggest that there has been no measurable increase in the proportion of women in senior faculty ranks. In other words, while junior faculty in general continue to be promoted to tenure despite economic pressures on the institutions, such promotions are still rare for women.

Because broader and more open recruitment for faculty is central to providing equal opportunity for women and minorities, and is therefore required for Affirmative Action, most institutions have devoted some effort to adapting their formerly exclusive recruitment procedures to the new necessities. This usually takes the form of designing explicit procedures for defining the position and the bona fide prerequisities of training and experience, open advertising, and the actual recruitment, review, and hiring process, together with procedures to monitor each of these steps. However, no procedures ever devised has been without loopholes, and faculty and administrative search committees have, in our experience, been quick to take advantage of these. Among common abuses are the following practices :

(1) Misleading advertising of positions

This involves selecting a desired candidate privately before pro forma advertising of the position, and appears to be common. One woman reported to us that she had applied for seventy-two positions advertised in the Chronicle of Higher Education within 24 hours of their appearance; in every case she received replies stating either that the position was already filled or they were in the final selection process and could accept no further applications. One president of a state college, searching for a new dean, wrote us confidentially asking to review our files of candidates "before we have to go public".

(2) Late advertising of positions

An estimated five to ten percent of all the vacancies listed with our office have been received either after the deadline for applications or so close to it that no response was possible.

Very frequently we receive telephone calls a few days or sometimes literally hours before a final selection is to be made by a search committee, asking us to furnish at least one female candidate "because there aren't any on the final list". Such cases nearly always involve major positions, including university presidencies, and the women are obviously requested as tokens. Their chances

of selection under such circumstances are nil; the collecting of necessary Information about a serious candidate for a major position takes many weeks or months. (3) Discriminatory treatment of applicants

Hundreds of women have reported that interviewers did not show up at scheduled interviews during professional meetings, or that interviews were scheduled only at times when they had clearly indicated they could not be available. Similar numbers report that they receive no replies at all to applications. One women reported that when she applied for an advertised college administrative position she promptly received a letter stating the position was already filled; in the same mail two of her male colleagues, one which similar qualifications and one clearly less qualifled, received letters warmly inviting them for interviews.

Instances of such discrimination, or of similar kinds, have been fully documented in hundreds of legal briefs; most victims of sex discrimination, however, do not have the funds to pursue legal action. It is evident that the advent of Affirmative Action has not yet stopped discrimination; it is also evident that many of the procedures need refining and standardizing. But to those of us who observe the field closely it is equally evident that Affirmative Action on the part of colleges and universities is essential, and that the only way it will be achieved is by strict, prompt, and equitable enforcement.

An argument has been made in some quarters that Affirmative Action datagathering and enforcement are costing the universities money which might be better spent on hiring more faculty and improving instructional programs. This argument is fallacious in that most of the money spent on researching and designing a proper plan is a one-time expenditure, often results in increased efficiency and therefore savings in general personnel procedures, and could not possibly support such long-term commitments as added faculty and teaching programs.

It is difficult for institutions which for decades and perhaps centuries have renewed themselves only in their own established image to accept a changing order. It is also remarkable that with all the limitations inherent inthe traditional discriminatory faculty recruitment and hiring practices of universities, we have so many excellent institutions. But such practices are no longer responsive to the expressed needs of society, nor will it serve the institutions' own best interest to deprive themselves and their students of the improvement in the quality of education which must result if their faculties draw on the talents of all educated people rather than only one half.

I earnestly urge this Subcommittee to continue its own distinguished tradition of support for non-discrimination, and to issue a clear mandate in support of truly equal opportunity for all.

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Lilli S. Hornig is Executive Director of Higher Education Resource Services, a project co-sponsored by the Ford Foundation and Brown University to improve the opportunities and status of women in faculty and administrative posts. She received her A.B. from Bryn Mawr and her M.A. and Ph.D. (Chemistry) from Harvard, where she first became fully aware of the problems of women in higher education. She has taught chemistry at Radcliffe and Brown, and chaired the Chemistry Department at Trinity College, Washington, D.C. Her research interests have focussed on biochemical reaction mechanisms, especially in the action of drugs. She also has a long-standing interest in international educational and technological development, and has served as a consultant to the Agency for International Development and as a member of several Presidental missions to explore scientific cooperation with various countries including the Soviet Union, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and a number of West European nations. Her sensitivity to the career problems of educated women was sharpened not only by the discrimination she saw her women students encountering and by her own professional experience, but also by her personal problems in maintaining a career while raising four children and following a husband whose distinguished accomplishments made him more mobile than most. The combination of these experiences led her to accept her present post, where she feels she can work to tackle the problems of academic women on a broad front while making use of her knowledge of and insight into the workings of universities.

Dr. Hornig has published a number of scientific papers and technical reports and a translation from German, From My Life, (the autobiography of Richard Willstatter), and has written and spoken widely on the status of women in

academia. She is a member of several professional societies, a trustee and member of the Executive Committee of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and chairs the newly appointed Committee on Women in Science and Engineering of the Human Resources Commission (National Research Council).

Hon. JAMES G. O'HARA,

STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK AT ALBANY,

Albany, N.Y., September 20, 1974.

Special Subcommittee on Education, House Education and Labor Committee. Cannon House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN O'HARA: I would like to submit, as part of the factual record for your hearings on affirmative action programs, the enclosed material relating to the State University of New York at Albany. As you may be aware, the program as originally proposed was discriminatory on its face; the aid of outside organizations (principally the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League) was sought, and HEW eventually sustained the majority of the ADL's charges in what had by then become a well publicized case. The detailed record of events at SUNYA establishes beyond any doubt that certain specific features of the program, later admitted by HEW to have been discriminatory, were created at the urging and with the knowledge of HEW's own compliance officer, and enables one to fairly infer that other objectionable features were created at the behest and with the knowledge of HEW.

The SUNYA story begins with a compliance review by HEW in the spring of 1971. The resulting report (enclosed) is uncompromising in tone, and in its insistence that the 24 listed "deficiencies" be remedied. Among these deficiencies were the following items:

Deficiency 6.-There are no minority group Deans, Associate Deans, and Assistant Deans.

Deficiency 7.-Aside from the Dean and Assistant Dean of the School of Nursing-traditional jobs for women-there are no females occupying positions at the level of Assistant Dean or higher.

Deficiency 9.-Minority group underultilization in faculty positions is reflected by the following:

1 In reply, SUNYA noted that there were 71 nonwhite faculty, and that the figure of 27 included only Negroes and Puerto Ricans.

Deficiency 12.-A review of the new hires in the past 12 months discloses that less than five percent were minority group members. Additionally, many departments have hired no minority members.

Deficiency 15.-Only 20 percent of the new faculty hired during the past 12 months were women. Further, many departments hired no female faculty

members.

Mr. Peter Holmes of HEW has testified that goals are supposed to be set on the basis of the current availability of qualified minority members and women. However, in Deficiency 12 above, HEW complains that only five percent of "new hires" the previous year were blacks or Puerto Ricans, when, in fact, only about one percent of doctoral degrees are held by blacks, and an even smaller proportion are held by Puerto-Ricans. Deficiency 15 cites as inadequate that only 20% of faculty hired the previous year were women whereas women hold roughly 13% of all doctoral degrees. While the low proportion of doctoral degrees held by women and minority members is no cause for satisfaction, it is clear that HEW is not measuring underutilization according to the standard suggested by Mr. Holme's testimony.

The minimal conclusion to be drawn from the above list of deficiencies is that any department without a minority member or a woman had better hire one, and that women and minority deans and assistant deans should be appointed at the next opportunity. In January, 1972, I phoned Mr. Thomas Barnette the author

of the list of "deficiencies”—and this is precisely the impression of affirmative action which he communicated to me. For example, I began this conversation by describing myself as one who had long been committed to civil rights but who was troubled by affirmative action policies. In reply Mr. Barnette just asked me how many blacks were in my own department, and upon getting an answer of none, said that if we were really committed to civil rights we would go out and hire a black.

SUNYA's reply to Barnette (dated 6/11/74) committed the University (item 24) to a policy of "one-to-one hiring of minorities. . . [to] affect all of the administrative staff," which meant, according to the Vice President for Management and Planning, that for each non-minority member hired, a minority member was to be hired. There is no evidence that Mr. Barnette ever suggested to SUNYA that this would be improper, and it is very difficult to resist the conclusion that Mr. Barnette and others within HEW not only approved of such measures, but insisted on them. However, when HEW had to adjudicate publicized charges that SUNYA was establishing quotas, the one-to-one policy was one of the specific features of the program for which SUNYA was then rebuked, and it goes without saying that HEW has never acknowledged its own culpability in this matter. (Enclosed as evidence is HEW's correspondence with SUNYA President Benezet.)

SUNYA's reply to Barnette refers (with regard to deficiency 9) to a “newly installed faculty vacancy control system" and to "faculty line allocation and appointment” procedures which will be a “major stimulus to the acquisition of minority members." What this meant-as indicated in other documents all but one of which formed part of SUNYA's affirmative action plan and which presumably were forwarded to HEW-is that a moratorium was declared on the renewal of term appointments so that a pool of lines could be accumulated and then reassigned to departments for the purpose of hiring women and minority members. [To explain the terminology: a term appointment is an appointment for a specified length of time usually for a term of one, two, or three years, as opposed to a tenure appointment which is unlimited in time. A “line” is simply a position. When a term appointment expires, a line becomes available on which to make a new appointment. Lines usually remain within a given department whether or not a given individual is reappointed, but the administration reserves the right to reassign a line from one department to another as well as to approve or disapprove of the proposed appointment or reappointment of a given individual.] Therefore, a department might not be able to reappoint someone whom it wished to reappoint, but it could retain the line if it had a minority or female candidate to propose as a replacement, a procedure which amounts to firing white males in order to replace them with minority members and women.

There is every indication that the SUNYA administration intended to implement the policies it had enunciated. Having become publicly involved with this issue, I was sometimes contacted by people who were offended by affirmative action policies which they were under pressure to implement, and the general pattern which emerged from such communications was absolutely consistent with officially stated policy. The administration appears to have made its greatest efforts in the areas in which it had relative autonomy; i.e., with respect to nonacademic jobs and academic administrative jobs, and some people with direct hiring responsibilities in the first of these areas claim to have received direct orders to fill certain positions with blacks. With respect to academic jobs, pressure to hire women and minority members took the forms stated in official documents; i.e., requiring departments to fill certain positions with women and minority members, and allocating lines to departments on the basis of the race or sex of proposed candidates. In an effort to verify that such policies were really being implemented, I called two deans and inquired about the pool of ten lines which the Vice President for Academic Affairs had stated were reserved for the appointment of women and minority members. In reply, I was shown a computer printout of all lines under one dean's jurisdiction, and my attention was called to asterisks in the margin next to a few lines. These were described as "affirmative action lines" which could only be filled by a woman or a minority member. The other dean confirmed that he too had such a list, and placed the same interpretation on the asterisks.

As a result of the public controversy, pressure to discriminate in favor of women and minority members decreased toward the end of the academic year, and some of the reserved lines appear to have been filled by white males after efforts to find women and minority faculty had failed. However, the policy of allocating lines to departments on the basis of the race or sex of proposed

candidates was continued, with the sanction of HEW. But the more important point is that in January 1972 SUNYA fully intended to implement the policies it had enunciated, and, to the extent that it failed to do so, was hindered only by the simple unavailability of women and minority members in certain specialized fields, and by the off-campus pressures which its naively candid policy statements had generated.

In conclusion, perhaps a few words on the climate of opinion at SUNYA during the period of the controversy would be appropriate. While there was much grumbling about the program, most of the criticism I heard concerned the feasibility of the stated objectives, and the bullying tactics of some of those responsible for enforcing the program. Comparatively few faculty were willing to argue forthrightedly that equal employment opportunity did not mean reserving jobs or establishing minimum quotas for minority members and womenmuch less firing white males in order to replace them with women and minority members. There were even informal discussions on this last point in which several young white male faculty members of new left or new politics leanings argued that it would be proper to replace them with minority members. No resignations were submitted in consequence, but this bizzare detail illustrates the rhetorical climate on the campus during this period. Even after the controversy surfaced as a result of ADL involvement, few faculty were willing to take a public stand against SUNYA's travesty of affirmative action. In a general way, it is still far safer to advocate certain selective forms of discrimination than it is to oppose all forms of racial and sexual discrimination.

While the abuses at SUNYA are clearly the fault of HEW, which demanded and approved of the policies which were put into operation, it is equally true that universities are fertile soil for the growth of reverse discrimination as a remedy for more conventional forms. I think there is a clear need to design programs with this fact in mind, and to eliminate from university affirmative action plans the coercive features (goals and timetables) which inevitably lead to abuses. There is also a clear need to call HEW to account and to insist that its programs be consistent with the laws and executive orders from which it derives its authority. Thank you for your consideration. Sincerely yours,

MALCOLM J. SHERMAN, Associate Professor of Mathematics.

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE,
New York, N.Y., May 27, 1971.

Dr. Louis T. BENEZET,

President, State University of New York at Albany,
Albany, N.Y.

DEAR DR. BENEZET: This letter is to report our findings as a result of the Compliance Review held at your institution on April 13, 14, and 15, 1971. Before recording these items we want to thank you and your staff for the cooperation given to us while the review was in process. We are particularly appreciative of the information and statistical data gathered to conduct the review.

The following deficiencies exist relative to your institution's Equal Employment Opportunity Program:

1. Faculty handbooks and other employee media do not contain the institution's Statement of Policy regarding Equal Employment Opportunity. Nor, was there any evidence found indicating that periodic meetings are held to disseminate the institution's policy on Equal Employment Opportunity.

2. An Affirmative Action Plan has not been prepared in accordance with Section 60-1.40 of the Rules and Regulations issued by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance.

3. Purchase Orders do not contain the contract language as required by Section 202, Paragraphs 1-7 of Executive Order 11246.

4. Advertisements do not carry the tagline, "Equal Employment Opportunity Employer".

5. There is no indication that tests have been validated in accordance with the test validation order issued by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance. 6. There are no minority group Deans, Associate Deans and Assistant Deans. 7. Aside from the Dean and Assistant Dean of the School of Nursing-traditional jobs for women-there are no females occupying positions at the level of Assistant Dean or higher.