It's the ones who know better

Sometimes, the people who disappoint you the most aren't the ones who do the wrong thing; it's the ones who know better, but don't stand up for what's right.

Before deciding on the next math department Chair at Ohio State, the Dean interviewed all the tenured and tenure-track faculty, one by one. He reported that the main concern of the faculty was a lack of collegiality. He said that three names recurred in the interviews. Around the (purely metaphorical) water cooler we asked each other "Who's the third?" Not because we couldn't think of a third one, but because there were several possibilities.

Of the three "non-collegial" faculty, the first two were obvious. One I'll call Nick Machiavell (not his real name). Soon after I arrived at OSU, Nick told me the useful and important observation that "collegiality" is a codeword that academics use to marginalize people they don't like. While there's a lot of truth in that, it was also an excuse Nick used to ignore criticism of his behavior.

For example, Nick often disagreed with our colleague Greg, but he might phrase it by stating that Greg was stupid. Greg recalls standing up at a faculty meeting and asking everyone, "why do you put up with this behavior?" After one of the times that Greg pushed back, Nick implemented a new strategy. Right after Greg said Y at a faculty meeting, Nick, rather than calling Greg stupid, said that anyone is stupid who says Y.

Nick and I often had the same views on what the right outcome should be. But he and I had very different views on how to achieve that outcome. Nick became so unpopular in the math department that when some of us (including Nick) wanted X to happen, the best strategy was to try to prevent Nick from attending the meeting at which X was discussed.

Hamlet Prince (not his real name) was well educated, well spoken, and well respected by his colleagues. Ham wanted the department to hire R for one of our postdoc positions. R had a strong file. Nick told me that he was against the appointment, since "eastern Europeans are lazy --- they stop working after you hire them." Nick added that he knew this was an "illegal reason" to not hire someone, but that he'd deny saying it, if I told anyone.

I let Ham know that I and others would support his proposal to hire R, despite Nick's objections (which Nick had also told Ham, "illegal reason" and all). However, Ham (who was a tenured full professor) told me he decided to back down since standing up to his colleagues wasn't in his best interests. 

Without the strong support of Ham, who was closest to R's field, the department wouldn't offer a postdoc position to R. While I understand the need to pick one's battles, I wished that Ham would choose to fight more of them.

Greg was eventually so miserable at OSU that he accepted a job offer elsewhere. Shortly before he left, I asked Greg if Nick drove him out. He replied that it wasn't the Nick Machiavells of the department who drove him away, it was the Hamlet Princes. It's the ones who know better, but aren't willing to do the right thing.

"There are no blacks in Ohio"

 When I arrived at Ohio State University in 1984, OSU's student body looked much more homogeneous than those of Harvard and Princeton. It seemed as if most of the female students dyed their hair blond, and most of the male students wore baseball caps (often backwards). But what I found most striking was that the students seemed almost uniformly white. Even Princeton, with its history of "eating clubs" that at various times discriminated against women, Jews, Catholics, and people of color, looked racially diverse compared to Ohio State. I asked a colleague why this was. The answer was "there are no blacks in Ohio." As I drove east from campus to the Columbus airport through miles and miles of African American neighborhoods (before Interstate 670 was completed), I wondered what that really meant.

Until 1987, OSU had open admissions; I was told that all you needed to get in was an Ohio high school diploma. In 1987, OSU raised its academic standards for admission to the Columbus (flagship) campus, basing it on grades, test scores, and minimum course requirements. Looking around campus, it seemed to me that the number of students of color went up. When I've told people this, they've immediately tried to correct me: "No, you mean the number went down."

I mean it went up. Enough for me to notice. Why was that? I asked around, and was told that open admissions at Ohio State had been on a first-come, first-served basis. Submitting an application by the publicly stated deadline wasn't soon enough. The high school students from the wealthy white suburbs were told by savvy guidance counselors the date by which they needed to submit their college applications in order to be accepted to the main campus of Ohio State. The inner city schools didn't have that information. 

Open admissions policies often have noble goals of equal access. But to achieve equal opportunity and equal access, one needs equal information.

A Response to Feedback

While many of my stories thus far are from the 1980s or 1990s, for almost all of them I could tell very similar stories that happened recently. 

I've postponed some tales of recent incidents since they're more problematic to write about. In some cases, I still need to work with the people involved. For some, I might be able to make more of a difference behind the scenes, rather than making the stories public now. And for some of the recent stories, and all of the more serious incidents, I would like to distance myself from them a little more so that I can write about them in a way that's helpful and compassionate. I'm hoping that readers will stick around as I figure out how to do that!

It's interesting that some people consider the stories to be horrifying or depressing. I've mostly posted stories I find amusing; I haven't yet written about the more extreme incidents that seriously and negatively impact someone's life or career. Those are still to come!

Why is this job candidate like a writing-desk?

Mr. Big had big demands, according to the department Chair who was trying to hire him. He wanted a large salary, an ample slush fund, a nice office, and a tenure-track assistant professorship for his wife. The Chair told the math faculty this last demand as if it were equivalent to negotiating for a large desk. Lewis Carroll asked "Why is a raven like a writing desk?" I wanted to ask "Why is this woman like a writing desk?"

It was one of the first departmental hiring committee meetings since I arrived at Ohio State. Mr. Big's qualifications were stellar, but my colleagues were worried that he was too much of an "operator" and that things might sour after we hired him. We didn't discuss the qualifications of "Mrs. Big." The Chair's case for her was "If we want Mr. Big we have to hire his wife. If we later decide that we don't like him, we just won't give her tenure when she comes up for it." In other words, if we don't like him, we can get rid of them both in six years by kicking her out, independent of her qualifications for tenure.

I was new and didn't know the rules, but I was pretty sure this wasn't in the tenure rulebook. If it went unchallenged, did that mean it was being agreed to? As the faculty member with the lowest seniority, I didn't want to risk my own chances for tenure by speaking out; I signaled to others more senior than me, but they didn't want to get involved.

Finally, I raised my hand and said meekly, "I'm sitting at the back where it's hard to hear. Perhaps I heard wrong. Surely we wouldn't deny her tenure just because we don't like him?" The chair of the hiring committee quietly and briefly said something about how we wouldn't do that.

The next day I ran into the department Chair's wife, while she was photocopying his exams for the course they were both teaching. (She had recently earned a PhD in mathematics education and was a lecturer in the math department.) She had heard that I had challenged the department Chair at a faculty meeting. She told me that wasn't in my best interests.

She had been friendly to me in the past. She had told me tales of growing up in Brooklyn, and learning that her family was in the Mafia---she'd complain about some bully and the next day her cousins would break his kneecaps.

Sometimes there's a fine line between friendly advice and a threat. I was very protective of my kneecaps for the next few weeks.

The committee voted for a fancy job for him (they could hardly not; he was Mr. Big after all), but only a temporary instructorship for her. While these may have been the correct decisions based on their qualifications, someone told me that it was merely a face-saving way of saying no to him. The department Chair, embarrassed about not meeting Mr. Big's demands, went against department rules and didn't make either offer. 

I never found where in the rulebook it said that we could deny someone tenure because we don't like her husband, but maybe that's because I hadn't been given a tenure rulebook. Thankfully, my kneecaps are still intact.