SACRAMENTO

 Inconsistent hiring practices at the 23 California State University campuses have led to diversity among professors and executives in some departments but not others, a state audit found Tuesday.

The CSU system has no way to gauge whether its professors and executives, or even the job candidates it attracts, reflect the available labor pool of women and minorities, as it is required to do under federal law, the California State Auditor reported.

While some campuses consider gender and ethnicity when they set up search committees for professors, others forbid considering those factors, the auditor found.

The report said that although the CSU Board of Trustees delegated hiring authority to individual campuses, it gave them little guidance on how to make those hiring decisions. The board is made up of the governor, state superintendent of education and other top state officials.

``In contrast, the University of California has developed guidelines stating that a special effort should be made to ensure that minorities and women have equal opportunity to serve on search committees,'' the report said.

The auditor recommended that CSU develop an affirmative action plan and that it advertise executive-level positions in publications aimed at women and minorities.

The findings come a week after a jury awarded the former women's basketball coach at Fresno State $19.1 million for unlawful termination, after she claimed she was fired for threatening to expose the school's unequal treatment of women athletes and coaches. The university contends that Stacy Johnson-Klein was fired because of her job performance and issues related to player safety and has said it plans to appeal.

In July, Fresno State's former volleyball coach Lindy Vivas won $5.85, an amount judge later reduced to $4.52 million, in a similar lawsuit. The university settled a third case for $3.5 million.

The auditor's report included a review of employment discrimination lawsuits over a five-year period, but its assessment of hiring practices for professors and executive-level positions focused on just five CSU campuses: Fullerton, Long Beach, Sacramento, San Diego and San Francisco.