She also suggested that each higher education institution have concrete criteria for granting tenure, such as a certain number of published peer-reviewed articles or classes taught by the instructor. She also noted that college faculties are not properly trained to carry out the tenure evaluation process.
In addition, professors with disabilities also fear bias in the tenure review process.
In 2006, about 45,000 people received their doctorate in the United States, yet a little over 600 of those recipients were classified as having a disability, said Dr. David Du Bois, co-chair of the Disability Rights and Concerns Committee for United University Professors, the union for staff at the State University of New York. Discrimination in academia is keeping many disabled citizens from obtaining tenure, forcing those who don’t have visible physical disabilities to hide their afflictions in fear of bias in the tenure process.
“The concern is clearly there. If they disclose [their disability] they fear that it will come up and be held against them,” Du Bois said.
Before he was tenured, Du Bois said he refused to use his walking cane on campus and would arrive much earlier than other faculty so they would not see him struggle to walk. During a 2002 UUP survey, Du Bois concluded that many disabled faculty “felt very much that they were on the front line of a firing line, in terms of prejudice.”
Click here to post and read comments
© Copyright 2005 by DiverseEducation.com
