B. The University must establish immediately an Affirmative Action Program to rid itself of discriminatory practices against women in conformance with the proposed guidelines of the Office of Federal Contract Compliance under Executive Orders 11246 and 11375. This Program must include goals, an implementing body, and a clearly defined time schedule. C. The University must estimate and establish a budget and appropriate all moneys necessary to enable the implementing body to carry out effectively the Affirmative Action Program. D. The University must commit itself to carry out the spirit as well as the letter of Executive Orders 11246 and 11375. II. Implementing Body The University shall establish an autonomous Office to Equalize the Status of Women, under a newly created and appointed vice president, who shall be directly responsible to the president. The Office shall include one member from each faculty agreeable to the vice president, in addition to all necessary paid professional staff. This Office shall be in operation by September 1, 1970, and shall have the duty of establishing programs and procedures to carry out the Affirmative Action Program, including the following: 1. Research: a) The Office shall initiate, coordinate, and make available needed research on the status of women through the Research Center under the Women's Program of the American Studies Program. b) It shall review for inequities all salaries, rank, appointments, and tenure among women faculty and staff. c) It shall review all major job classifications for adequacy of representation of women. Where disparity of representation is determined, corrective action, described in terms of specific goals and timetables, shall be immediately authorized. d) It shall review all selection systems (including admissions, promotion criteria, hiring, committee appointments leading to tenure, tenure) in all major classifications for disparate selection rates of women. In job classifications where selection rates vary from the level of adequate representation, (Adequate representation shall be defined as the employment of women in each classification in numbers equal to the proportion of the combined faculty, staff, and student women to the University population as a whole.) by 10 per cent or more, an immediate validation study shall be undertaken into the reliability of that selection system. e) It shall initiate and maintain review and research on the granting of all scholarships, assistantships, and financial aid to women students. 2. Advisory: a) The Office shall establish a job bank to search out women to be considered for all appointments and positions in the University. b) It shall be responsible for the coordination of counseling objectives for women as outlined under the section "Equal Educational Opportunities," point 5. c) It shall undertake a coordinated program of vocational counseling and of developing through cooperation with local industry and government new employment opportunities and training for women, including job placement. This shall include a concentrated effort to develop part-time opportunities at all levels in local employment as covered in the proposed OFCC Guidelines on sex discrimination. 3. Publication: The Office shall issue a yearly public report on the University's progress on its Affirmative Action Program in conformance with the proposed OFCC Guidelines (Sec. 60-20.8). The Office will submit the report to the Office of Federal Contract Compliance as its Compliance Review Report. This report shall be made available to the Chancellor, SUNY trustees, U/B Council, president, faculty and students. The Office will urge that its experience and techniques be used as guidelines for the entire State University of New York. GOAL: EQUAL EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY Because the traditional male/female roles permeate so much of our thinking, we must be careful not to extend the traditional penalties our society exacts for being a woman to our women students. In its complaint to the government, WEAL (Women's Equity Action League) points out that "admission to undergraduategraduate programs are akin to the apprenticeship programs of industry." Under the provisions of the proposed OFCC Guidelines (Sec. 60-20.2), the University must make compensatory efforts to recruit women to enter any profession, especially the "male oriented." On principle, it must also assure them the financial aid to make equal education possible regardless of sex, or of marital or parental grounds. Central to this purpose are the points outlined under the goal of freedom from biological penalty, especially the requirement of free child care. 1. The University shall extend all minority recruiting programs to include women in each category, especially in the traditionally "male" professions, such as medical, engineering, law and business management, in conformance with proposed OFCC Guidelies (Sec. 60-20.2 a and b). 2. All departments shall be required to abolish any "no-part-time enrollment" policies at every level of study as discriminatory to women whose opportunities for education are limited by family, in conformance with the proposed OFCC Guidelines (Sec. 60–20.2c). The University shall establish part-time scholarships to encourage women to return to school. 3. Because the University trains women into professions in greater numbers than it is willing to hire them, departments shall be required to hire women up to the minimum of the levels of their representation in graduate programs, if not from outside then from the ranks of their own graduate students. (Cf. Goal I, pts. 1, d and e.) This practice will help keep women from being discouraged from finishing their studies by the limited job opportunities, or the minimal chance of advancement open to them. 4. No women shall be denied equal scholarship or financial aid on the grounds of sex, marriage or possible marriage, pregnancy or possible pregnancy. 5. The University shall establish a plan to coordinate counseling services for women, to include offering advisory counseling in high schools and elementary schools as well as college with a view toward encouraging women to enter traditionally male professions, and increasing counseling to women of all ages who wish to return to the University. 6. The University shall establish a policy and a program whereby it shall recognize the concrete value of the unpaid services of women in volunteer work and community service by granting valid credit for such service, past or present, that shall count toward an appropriate degree. 7. The University shall include the Continuing Education Program in its own program of study, removing from it the burden of being self-supporting. 8. Wherever disparate selection rates of women into any level or program of study appear, validation studies shall be undertaken into the adequacy of the admissions selection systems and criteria. Unless the selection system is shown to be valid, corrective actions shall be described in terms of specific goals and timetables. 9. Since many grants, fellowships, loans and scholarships are made possible through Federal moneys, under the principle of class action the total of University scholarships, grants, fellowships and the like shall be subject to review for adequate representation of women. GOAL: FREEDOM FROM BIOLOGICAL PENALTIES I will not here go into the arguments against the "kinder, kuche kirche” theory, on the assumption that any institution dedicated to knowledge and the future should not need to hear them. The University certainly would not officially subscribe to a principle that a woman's unique biological ability to bear children entitles her to only partial education or secondary employment status. But this very principle is at the heart of the cultural attitudes that deprive women: by not moving to combat it within itself, the University does, in fact, subscribe to it. Therefore it is the University's particular responsibility to initiate any experimental program, no matter how expensive or far reaching which can possibly relieve women of the penalties their biology exacts. 1. Child care: The University shall establish a complete child care facility free to the children of all faculty, staff, and students of children from birth to 12 years, to include educational programs, and to be in operation at all times that the libraries and other facilities are open, classes are in session, and women areworking at the University. This child care facility shall be operated in conjunetion with a certification program for training professional child care personnel. 2. Maternity leave: All faculty members must be granted six weeks of paid maternity leave; all staff must be granted paid maternity leave of six weeks with no loss of job, status, benefits, or seniority, on contracting to return to work for an agreed upon minimum period of time. No woman student shall be denied scholarship benefits, fellowships, academic standing on the grounds of marriage or possible marriage, pregnancy or possible pregnancy. 3. Population control center: The University shall expand its medical services for women to include gynecological examination, complete birth control counseling and prescription, and with the repeal of abortion laws, prepare for realistic unwanted pregnancy counseling and all related medical care allowed within the law. 4. Medical Insurance: The University shall not subscribe to or require or encourage its employees or students to subscribe to any medical insurance plan, which: a) does not ensure equal benefits such as life insurance or survivor's benefits to women employees or their spouses, or which b) takes a moralistic stance discriminatory to women on maternity or pregnancy coverage, such as the 270-day married maternity benefit policy or refusal to cover legal abortion or unmarried maternity. GOAL: ACADEMIC REFORM Existing curricula are particularly responsible for perpetuating through apathy the derogatory attitudes of our culture toward women, by simply not examining course material for sexist bias. Part of the cause for this lies in the lack of enlightened research, for existing research, done mostly by men, is too often sexually biased itself. Therefore, we call for a three point curriculum reform program aimed at 1) developing curriculum, 2) undertaking research in woman's studies, and 3) abolishing sexual bias or reviewing material for sexual bias, in existing courses. 1. The American Studies Program has established a pilot program in Women's Studies to include cross-listed courses in sociology, English Literature, social work and history. This shall be expanded by the immediate hiring of a full-time woman to the faculty to head the program, and of other full-time faculty to teach in it. 2. In conjunction with this program, the University shall establish an adequately-funded center for curriculum development and for research into all questions social, economic, political, psychological, educational, literary, historical, medical-to do with woman's place in society. This research center shall be available to all students on campus wishing to use it in conjunction with course work in any college, faculty, department or program; to any students in the University who wish to undertake independent research projects for credit under the program of women's studies. All departments shall inform their staff and students of such research and research facilities. 3. All record keeping divisions, all departments and facilities of the University shall be directed to cooperate with the Women's Program research center by: a) keeping all records to do with hiring, promotion, rank, salaries, financial aid, degrees awarded and other pertinent materials coded by sex, and b) making these records available. 4. Every relevant department, especially in the male-oriented professions, shall be directed to consider establishing courses within their curricula dealing with women's studies. (Suggestions: Law School: Women in the Law: Psychology Department: Male orientation in psychological theory and testing; Anthropology: The function of cultural conditioning in male and female roles; Education: Research into traditional sex roles in elementary textbooks.) 5. All courses which present a subservient or degraded image of women shall be abolished, revised, or clearly labeled. GOAL: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES In accordance with the proposed OFCC Guidelines under Executive Order 11375, the University shall move immediately to recruit more women faculty, to effect promotions, and to appoint women to high level administrative posts. It shall assure to all women in the University: 1) opportunities for advancement to top posts, 2) correction of inequities, and 3) the abolition of all rulings, policies, and criteria written and unwritten, detrimental to the employment status of women. Women shall no longer be excluded from the positions of power and decision making in the University. If that exclusion is ever to disappear from American society, the University must encourage all women through example, and through the presence of life models. 1. New Faculty lines: In conformance with the present policy of the standing committee on minority hiring, to reserve a certain percentage of new faculty lines to minority groups, one-half the new lines and of replacement lines shall be reserved for women. 2. Correcting Inequities: The University shall establish a program and timetable to investigate and correct inequities in tenure, salaries, teaching loads, benefits, assignment of assistants and office help. (Cf. Implementing Body, point 1 b and c.) 3. Committees: A determined effort by the University, the Faculty Senate, and the separate departments to place women on all committees, according to an acceptable timetable, shall be undertaken. 4. Nepotism rule: The president of the University and the Faculty Senate are urged to make the strongest possible representations to Chancellor Gould and the University Trustees for immediate removal of the de facto nepotism rule as contrary to the spirit of Executive Orders 11246 and 11375. 5. Tenure: The tenure system shall be reformed to rid it of sexist bias by broadening the base of tenure criteria to include teaching, service to the University and the community, and to take into account the value of faculty women as life models. The tenure system is contrary to the spirit of Executive Order 11375, and shall not be used either to reflect the economic condition of the University nor to perpetuate the employment patterns unfavorable to women in society at large. Therefore, tenure shall be subject to review for disparate selection rates of women and to a validation study into its adequacy as a selection system. The guidelines of appropriate Federal bodies and the New York State Commission on Human Rights shall be rigorously applied to the "granting" of tenure. Decisions shall be made in the presence of the faculty member, and in case of dispute, the State Commission on Human Rights shall be asked for a ruling based on cases of previously "granted"tenure, reserving, however, the faculty member's right to counsel and right to appeal to a higher court as in any extraUniversity case. 6. The Faculty Senate Presidential Search Committee shall be directed by Chancellor Gould and Governor Rockefeller to give priority consideration to the appointment of a woman as president of SUNY/B, who will be the first woman president of any SUNY campus. Presidency of a SUNY campus is a major job classification. 7. A University-wide, specific, step-by-step program shall be formulated under which women in administration and staff can be assured of the opportunity to advance to the top positions in their departments and divisions. The program shall include an acceptable timetable. 8. A minimum of the next 5 of 10 appointments to administrative posts shall go to women, either from outside the University or from present staff or faculty. This will constitute the first step in a program of the rapid appointment of women to all levels of the administration from president, vice president, and on down, to effect adequate representation of women among the faculty, staff, and students. In the case of women appointed from staff to administrative posts, we recommend a contractual basis on the grounds that no one who is without job security will be able to take chances. 9. All departments shall be required to abolish restrictive "no-inbred-hiring" policies as discriminatory to women. 10. All departments shall provide part-time opportunities for women (and their husbands) as called for under the proposed OFCC Guidelines (Sec. 60-20.2a). ONE FINAL PLEA: FREEING THE OPPRESSED FREES THE OPPRESSOR I have described the costs of discrimination to women themselves, but I wish to make my final point by urging that the hidden cost to men is equally high; being favored puts men in the position of profiting at the expense of women. No profit could ever justify such a cost; no one is equal until everyone is equal. Men, too, are the prisoners of their cultural status, forced to maintain a socially determined superiority which is defined by women's inferiority. I cannot seriously believe that any man worth his salt wants to be defined as a man by how much better he is than a woman. I think too much of men to believe that; and I believe and hope men think too much of themselves to allow it. For neither men nor women can ever define themselves fully as human beings until they can define themselves entirely on personal grounds and not, however obliquely, as an adjunct of their sex. To resist the logic of equality is to be deprived of its rewards. 1 The title of this essay was suggested by the cover of Token Learning: A Study of Women's Higher Education in America, Education Committee of the National Organization for Women, (Kate Millett, Chairman), 1968. 2 P. Moebius, Concerning the Physiological Intellectual Feebleness of Women, Halle, 1907. 3 For a convenient set of graphs on women's declining employment status, consult "Rebelling Women," U.S. News and World Report, April 13, 1970 (LXVIII-No. 15) 35-37; for women's declining educational status, Trends in Educational Attainment of Women, U.S. Department of Labor Women's Bureau, October 1969. 4 John Stuart Mill, On the Subjection of Women, 1869; Gunnar Myrdal, "A Parallel to the Negro Problem," Appendix 5 in An American Dilemma, 1941, 1944, Vol. II, pp. 107378; Caroline Bird, Born Female: The High Cost of Keeping Women Down, Pocket Books, 1969. p. 110. 5 Token Learning. 6 Women's Place: Options and Limits in Professional Careers, University of California Press, 1970, p. 55. Jessie Bernard. Academic Women, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1967, pp. 84 and 148-52. Dr. Bernard summarizes the Budner-Meyer study thus: "As a result of such discrimination, . . . academic women have less incentive to be productive and less stimulation to become professionally involved." 8 Psychology Today, October, 1969, 36, 38, 62. Although on the basis of our returns, we list a total of 623 full and associate professors, we list only 553 as having tenure. The discrepancy is partly accounted for by the fact that we do not have tenure figures for the 68 faculty of the Dental School, 34 of whom are full or associate professors, nor do we make a special category of visiting professors. 10 Caroline Bird, in Born Female, refers to such a study by Jessie Bernard, p. 168. 11 Bruno Bettelheim, quoted by Naomi Weisstein in "Woman as Nigger," Psychology Today, December, 1969, p. 20. Mrs. GREEN. I would ask unanimous consent that the statement of our colleague Catherine May, be inserted in the record. Without any objection, that is also ordered. The meeting is adjourned. (The statement follows:) STATEMENT OF HON. CATHERINE MAY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WASHINGTON Madam Chairman, first of all, I want to express my own deep appreciation to you for providing this opportunity, within the context of the very thorough study and consideration of higher education legislation your Special Education Subcommittee has undertaken, to air the very real problems of sex discrimination that exists in our institutions of higher learning. It's particularly unfortunate, I think, that such discrimination should exist in those very institutions that should offer the greatest hope for social progress and the elevation of people to their highest potential. In his "open letter to President Nixon," the President of Beloit College, Dr. Miller Upton, was commenting on what he considers the failure of the academic community during our national trial and turmoil-but it seems to me that his words apply equally to the situation this Subcommittee is considering today. He noted that "This commitment to respect for the individual, intellectual openness, and freedom of inquiry is the transcendent value to which an academic community must be subservient. In fact, it is the only value to which the academy can pledge allegiance if it is to be consistent with itself . . As a matter of fact, my early naivete led me to embrace the academic life because of my belief that members therein were committed to intellectual honesty, rational behavior and humanistic concern and compassion. . . . incidents have merely confirmed all the more what my life's experience have suggested. Academic man is as much motivated by vested interest, is as much controlled by base emotion, and reasons as much from prejudice as any other mortal." I would hope that "the academy" is paying attention to this hearing and that it would take steps on their own to wipe out the undoubted prejudice against women that currently constitutes a false premise for their thinking and invalidates their reasoning. In testifying before the Senate Subcommittee on Constitutional Amendments recently in support of the constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights |