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Charges of Discrimination

One of the aspects of this case that especially rankled Harrison's detractors is the fact that Harrison has on numerous occasions characterized the Berkeley mathematics department as sexist (though she has also said that this charge pertains to only a few faculty). Her critics point out that the P&T Committee, which included two women faculty, found that Harrison's allegations of sexism were not substantiated by the evidence presented to them. The evidence reviewed in the P&T report consists primarily of statements indicating gender bias allegedly made by a number of Berkeley faculty members. P&T found that several of the charges boiled down to one person's word against another's and could not be corroborated by other evidence. In some cases, individuals who had allegedly made biased statements testified that their statements had been taken out of context and, after explaining the context, convinced P&T that the statements had not in fact been biased. ``We are convinced that there was no connection between the decision to deny Dr. Harrison tenure and gender discrimination'', the Committee concluded. ``We find it unfortunate that Dr. Harrison has concluded that anyone who does not believe that she warrants tenure is biased, and that he or she could not have a legitimate reason for a negative view or position.''⁷

However, even some who are sharply critical of Harrison's actions believe that the Berkeley mathematics department does not have a good record with women. Lenore Blum, deputy director of the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute, has written a long article on the Harrison case.⁸ Blum is not a Harrison supporter, as her article makes clear. Nevertheless, Blum sees major problems regarding women and the Berkeley mathematics department. ``Blanket denials that [the department] ever behaved badly towards women--or categorical statements that its actions have been exemplary--are just not true, nor are they widely believed outside Berkeley,'' she writes.

As an example, Blum recounts an instance in the 1970s when the department, under pressure of affirmative action trends, invited women and minorities to apply for two tenure-track positions. ``The trouble was, the Department had already offered the positions to two men,'' Blum writes. ``This charade was clearly unfair to the women and minorities who applied in good faith and were subsequently subjected to an evaluation which necessarily had to unearth flaws in their records.'' She contends that Berkeley's recent efforts to recruit more women are ``not enough'' and suggests that Berkeley should do more to nurture talented young women mathematicians, instead of only trying to hire from the very small pool of top senior women mathematicians. ``There certainly is a pool of talent out there, if one cares to look,'' Blum writes.

Two famous stories involving women mathematicians have haunted the Berkeley mathematics department over the years. One involves Julia Robinson, who was an adjunct in the department when she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1975. As the story goes, for many years the department had not given Robinson a regular position, citing hazy nepotism rules and her health, but then, when she was elected to the Academy, the department suddenly found a way around these difficulties and appointed her to full professor. Following Harrison's appointment, Berkeley's treatment of Robinson has been discussed anew, prompting Robinson's sister, the mathematical biographer Constance Reid, to write a letter to the editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Because of health problems, ``Julia never wanted and never applied for a regular teaching position at Berkeley,'' writes Reid. ``The story that Julia Robinson was `denied' a position at Berkeley has been widely circulated as an example of an alleged pattern of discrimination against women by the Berkeley mathematics department. The story is simply not true.''

The other story concerns Marina Ratner, who for years has been the only tenured female faculty member in the Berkeley department since Robinson's death in 1985 (Alice Chang of the University of California at Los Angeles spent a short time at Berkeley in a tenured position in the late 1980s). Ratner was offered an assistant professorship in 1975. In a now-famous letter published around that time in the campus newspaper, the Daily Californian, Robion Kirby wrote that although Ratner was well qualified in research, he said that he thought there were several men who were better and that the department had no information on Ratner's teaching record ``except that there is some evidence she does not speak English.'' (A later article on the controversy appeared in the Berkeley Daily Gazette carrying the ludicrous headline, ``Can't speak English, but girl has E=MC₂'' [sic].)

Ratner says that she was in Israel when she received the offer, and she knew nothing about any controversy. Asked what she thought of Kirby's letter, Ratner says, ``I found absolutely nothing that was against me $\ldots$ The letter by Kirby [said] that the department hired a woman and she cannot speak English. And that was absolutely true, I could not speak a word of English.'' When she arrived in Berkeley, she says, the department arranged English classes for her. ``What was written in that letter, in my view, said absolutely nothing that can be interpreted as implying that he was against women,'' she declares.

There have also been rumors of a controversy over the vote on Ratner's tenure. Ratner says she heard about the controversy, but did not know of any details. But anyway, she says, ``everybody has the right to speak his thoughts $\ldots$ Even if there were some who were against, I find it perfectly normal, really, and I don't believe it was because I was a woman.'' Ratner says she believes that there is sexism in the mathematical community, but that it is mostly ``subconscious''. She also says there is discrimination on the Berkeley campus in that women are not advanced as quickly as men. But she believes there is no sex discrimination in the mathematics department and there was none in Harrison's case.

How can there be such differing views of the Berkeley mathematics department? As one observer put it, ``sexism is a very individual thing, for the giver and the taker.'' In any case, it is clear that Berkeley has a reputation in the mathematics community for poor treatment of women faculty and students, and the department is certainly aware of this. There is some indication that, in recent years, the department has made efforts to take action when problems of harassment have arisen. In addition, the university has a newly formed committee (Harrison is a member of it) to look at ways to recruit and retain women in mathematics and the physical sciences.

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