Hi Folks,
Last week Miami University (Ohio) announced that the Office
of Affirmative Action would be renamed the Office of Equity and Equal
Opportunity. The director (Gary Hunter) is retiring in July and the
administration is reorganizing the office as a result. The university
hopes to avoid the "lightning rod" associations with the language
"affirmative action". This is cause for concern to me (I'm the Associate
Director :Women's Issues) since it seems to buckle under the present
Bush conservative lead. The university is also eliminating the position
with a focus on Women's Issues. The university states that the new
director of the The Office of Equity and Equal Opportunity will include
women's issues or might even have a focus on that ,depending on who that
person is. Of course, the person might <bold>not</bold> also. I can't
imagine the same being said for other areas of concern. If there is no
institutional line item / position designated then attention to a given
area is at the whim of the individual named as the director. That seems a
fragile position for women's issues to be in, especially in light of the
larger political atmosphere for women and minorities.
The university has had an increase in reporting of rapes and assaults
against women in the past year. Additionally an unusually high number of
women faculty left the university last year , many with complaints about
the climate.
The pattern seems to be that women faculty join together when conditions
become too severe (negative) and organize. A position is then granted and
later withdrawn, more organizing then a position again , withdrawn,
organize...etc. Great energy is expended by the women on campus to
assure equity.
This is simply an FYI for interested colleagues.I'm sure Miami University
won't be the only institution to back away from such issues in the days
ahead. I have also shared this with the American Association for
Affirmative Action.=
Thanks to so many for the fine discussions on this list and many
resources given.
Kathy McMahon
<mcmahok@muohio.edu>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Fri Apr 12 2002 - 15:16:46 EDT