In an excellent essay Roger Clegg discusses the question of discrimination in tenure decisions, here. He notes that in the absence of “direct evidence of discriminatory intent … , such as racist or sexist comments,” plaintiffs in such cases have a hard roe row to hoe (my trite metaphor, not his).
The track record of such claims is mixed at best, although the scorekeeping is complicated by the fact that many such cases are settled out of court. Race and sex discrimination surely exist, although these days the only institutionalized discrimination of either sort in academia is of the politically correct variety — that is, against whites and “overrepresented” minorities (especially Asians) and men.
Read the whole thing.
