Ruling Alludes to History of Gender Bias and “Good-Ol-Boy” Patronage
An Alabama federal judge has drawn a damning portrait of the state’s
community college system, describing it as riddled with gender
discrimination and rife with political patronage.
“The state’s community colleges, junior colleges and technical
colleges are major habitats for the beneficiaries of patronage,” U.S.
Magistrate Vanzetta P. McPherson wrote.
The judge’s disparaging comments came in a sixty-six-page ruling
issued this month in a gender discrimination lawsuit filed by three
female administrators at two Alabama community colleges. McPherson, who
heard the women’s case against the system three years ago but did not
issue a decision until early June, said the women were denied
promotions “because they are women.”
But even those who believe the thirty-two-college system has been
run by a “good ol’ boy” network since its inception in the 1960s say
it’s unfair to cast the entire system in a negative light. They say new
blood on the Alabama State Board of Education has altered the system’s
hiring course and that substantial progress has been made in recent
years to hire more women and minorities.
System officials deny there are problems, although they are
operating under several consent decrees stemming from a class-action
lawsuit alleging racial and gender discrimination.
“I have a problem in that this sort of paints the whole state with
the same broad brush,” says Dr. Richard Carpenter, president of John C.
Calhoun State Community College in Decatur. “We do not all do the same
things the same way. And so I think it’s unfair to characterize the
whole system in Alabama on the basis of this one case.”
