WASHINGTON — When Stephen Jordan, president at Metropolitan State University of Denver, had his institution examine why Black and Hispanic faculty weren’t being granted tenure at rates comparable to their White counterparts, he decided to look deeper into the reasons why.
At the time, Whites were getting tenure at a rate of 95 percent, but Blacks and Hispanics were getting tenure at a rate of 65 and 47 percent, respectively.
“That doesn’t solve the problem,” Jordan said of the disparities. “That means we need to start asking why. Why is that happening?
Jordan had his staff take a closer look at the tenure process four or five years ago.
“We began to see that I would receive the dossiers for promotion from assistant to associate, we would see situations in which faculty of color were denied tenure for similar situations in which White faculty were getting tenure,” Jordan said. “We began to recognize that there were some biases happening in the tenure process.”
In order to put that theory to the test, Jordan set up a separate process in his office for cases in which there was a mixed recommendation for a faculty member of color.
More specifically, Jordan had his assistant for diversity and inclusion and his director for equal employment opportunity find a case in which a White faculty member was granted tenure despite having the same situation for which the faculty member of color in question was denied tenure, put the cases side by side, and then make their independent recommendations.
