Comments

1. dcase wrote:

   Boyce Watkins’ letter comes off as a little bitter about his tenure denial. There are a lot of scholars, black and otherwise, who get denied tenure yearly despite having outstanding research records.

   However,I believe that Boyce Watkins does have a point about the inherent mechanism of hiring and tenure in academic departments. In my experience - as an advanced Ph.D student who is near hitting the academic job market -many academic departments are interested in training non-white scholars but are reluctant to hire them in tenure-track positions. I believe this reluctance is driven partly by an extra component of underlying uncertainty about non-white (especially black) academics ability and their fit in the department.. A large part of whether someone gets hired is driven by whether the other profs feel that person will be a good colleague. Often, the discomfort to white profs brought on by black candidates can work against the black candidate. As one professor of mine on the hiring committee one year told me: hiring blacks does not make you go up in the rankings…hence, it is not a priority.

   Posted 10 Nov 2007 at 9:05 am ¶

2. Sewere wrote:

   dcase,

   I believe this reluctance is driven partly by an extra component of underlying uncertainty about non-white (especially black) academics ability and their fit in the department.. A large part of whether someone gets hired is driven by whether the other profs feel that person will be a good colleague.

   But isn’t that what racism is about? The question (coming from this doctoral student) is how to deal with it.

   Posted 10 Nov 2007 at 12:48 pm ¶

3. dcase wrote:

   I’m not disputing racist attitudes but it could be statistical discrimination…

   As for you question, I think it is a difficult problem to overcome whatever underlies it. Still, there is hope…

   Posted 10 Nov 2007 at 7:46 pm ¶

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