After a Dozen Years of Progress, MIT Has New Problems with Gender Discrimination—We Should All Have Such Problems!

Any time you tinker with any system, especially one as complex as a university system, purposeful actions will bring about both intended and unintended consequences. These two types of consequences can be both good and bad, depending on what side of the fence you are on. So in other words, no good deed goes unpunished.

And as is usually the case, the victims become the victims again. As reported in the NY Times yesterday, MIT aggressively pushed to change its strategy when it came to gender equity. So what happened? Just like Aladin said, “A Whole New World.” Let’s take each action, one at a time and see.

MIT made great efforts to recruit more women. Some say that the standards were lowered for women faculty and students. And yet, the Dean of the School of Science states no one is hired without at least 15 “off-scale” (must be something really special) recommendations from scholars outside of MIT. The perception of unfair advantage is not based in reality. Just take a look at the prizes and awards of their women faculty.

MIT has made great efforts to become a family friendly institution. Generous family leave policies indue tenure clock stop, term-long leave after having a kid, child care on campus and subsidies for childcare while travelling. Both men and women and their families benefit. But the flip side is that the men are not expected to talk about their work-life balance to students and others. Thus the perceptions of our society, from which MIT is not immune, still hold women as responsible for the “family” way. (Shameful admission: some men use their family leave to do outside work! Unfair!)

Every committee must have a woman faculty. Sounds great. Give the women a voice. Butut there aren’t enough women to go around. A heavier burden is placed on them resulting in women faculty, giving them less time for research and consulting. Win a few, lose a few.

Most importantly, MIT tackled the quantitative elements—resources and compensation, and has “largely” leveled the playing field.

Interestingly, the culture of gender stereotyping is still strong. Manifest in the “narrow acceptable personality range,” women scientists and leaders still find they have to navigate carefully. One professor was quoted, “I am not patient and understanding. I’m busy and ambitious.” Yes! I know exactly how she feels. And of course, this bias finds its way into letters of recommendations where men’s intellect is the focus compared to women’s temperament. This is a tough problem and is the fodder for the next decade.

In only a decade, important, tremendous strides have been made at what we all agree is one of the most influential, highly regarded, academic institutions in the world. New problems have emerged, but old ones that have stymied almost everyone else have been solved.

Charles M. Vest, the MIT president who wrote the 1999 report stated, “I have always believed that contemporary gender discrimination is part reality and part perception….but I now understand that reality is by far the greater part of the balance.” How do we clone him?

What would happen if all of our universities had only the problems that MIT faces just one decade after facing and fixing their former problems? Yes, you got it. We would all be on a higher plane with a new set of problems. We’ll take it! And to think that all it took was a tape measure, a calculator and some really smart, committed, enlightened people to get it done.