It has been simmering for years, but this spring, the issue of women faculty's progress -- or its lack -- moved to the front burner.
An early sign came at the April 3 press conference called to announce the appointment of John Hennessy as Stanford's next president. One of the first questions: what would he do to improve the climate for women faculty -- especially in light of a U.S. District Court jury's finding that Stanford had retaliated against a researcher who complained of gender discrimination. Hennessy didn't mince words. "Our policy is quite clear," he said. "We have zero tolerance for discrimination, and we have zero tolerance for retaliation."
It was the second time in as many months that Hennessy had made a public pronouncement on the issue. In March, he told participants at a forum on improving gender equity, "This is not the time to be complacent. We've made progress, but I think in most parts of the University we still have a ways to go."
Those statements came as a Department of Labor probe into University practices entered its second year. Since February 1999, the department has been looking into complaints that Stanford violated affirmative-action laws in hiring, promoting and retaining female scholars (currently 19 percent of the faculty). The probe involves 32 former and current Stanford employees. The University is subject to Labor Department oversight because it receives $500 million a year in federal government contracts and grants.
One of the complainants was Colleen Crangle, PhD '84, who had her day in court in March. A U.S. District Court jury in San Jose awarded the senior research scientist $545,000, after finding against the University. Stanford plans to appeal. "Obviously we are disappointed with the jury's verdict," says Debra Zumwalt, Stanford's acting general counsel. "Our position throughout has been that the decision made by Crangle's supervisors in the School of Medicine had nothing to do with her gender and nothing to do with any of the complaints she made."
The trial featured testimony from neurosurgeon Frances Conley, '62, MD '66, MS '86, one of Stanford's harshest critics on the issue of gender discrimination. Conley maintained that bias still exists. But Conley and others say Hennessy's appointment as president may signal a turning point. "He's the one person in administration that I know of who has publicly admitted that there is a problem," she told the San Jose Mercury News. "And that's the first step to working it out."
