Her reference to unconscious biases as the pretext for prescriptive changes based on gender may not be off base. Unconscious bias is now the theory - of highly debated merit - used to prove employment discrimination cases alleging "disparate impact". In a disparate impact case, plaintiffs point to gender, sex, age or racial disparities in the workforce and allege, not that they are the result not of specific discriminatory treatment, but of policies or organizational requisites (such as an otherwise neutral job test) that carry "inherent bias". This is a pretty scary trend, as there is a lot of pop science here, but the law may soon be going in a different direction, as several large cases (Walmart foremost) will likely get before the Supreme Court within the next couple of years.
 

Do the Radcliffe Fellows meet the test of "disparate impact?" How about the Afro-Am Department?
 

9:24 p.m., are you assuming that Radcliffe Fellows are women only?
 

Greg Mankiw (sp?) is a Harvard Prof of economics who has been blogging recently about a survey on the liberal propensity of faculty. He links to a funny comment by Larry Summers:
Noting that he had served in the Clinton administration, Summers said he identified strongly as a liberal and a Democrat, but that while in Washington he viewed himself as being on “the right half of the left,” in Cambridge, he landed “on the right half of the right.” 02138 should do a survey on Harvard faculty political leanings....Might be surprising.
 

Note Mankiw has disabled the comment function of his blog. He an dish it out, but couldn't take the beating he got for supporting Bush's tax-cuts for th rich and the like. Rich would never do that!
 

And that's something I really admire about Richard. Can't be easy to read the comments every day.

eayny
 

The name of Cornell West has surfaced as candidate to the deanship of the Radcliffe Institute.

This appointment at the RIAS will be watched by many with great interest. It might be time for the first man Dean of Radcliffe. But why Cornell?
 

10:11 a.m.
We know that not all Radcliffe Fellows are men. However, a vast majority are women. That is the disparate impact aspect of the situation. Same with the Afro-Am Department.
Why is it okay for people to discuss the supposed inequities with regard to gender and racial disparities in all the departments of the FAS and in other schools e.g. HLS, but not to address the disparities at Radcliffe and the Afro-Am Department. Why haven't some of the bloggers, who have complained about gender and racial disparities at the University, addressed the apparent problem with these two situations?
 

It would be brilliant for President Drew Faust to appoint the first leader of Radcliffe to be man. And even better to appoint the first minority man to lead Radcliffe into the 21st century.

Just as it is brilliant that the Corporation finally appointed the first woman to be President of Harvard!
 

"It would be brilliant for President Drew Faust to appoint the first leader of Radcliffe to be man. And even better to appoint the first minority man to lead Radcliffe into the 21st century."
Why?
 

Why not?
 

5:11 PM
Because the University shouldn't be making appointments based on gender and race. Isn't that what the University is trying to get away from. If they are trying to get away from it in one way, why is acceptable to use gender and race in another?
Why don't you tell us why you believe it is acceptable to use gender and race in selecting the Dean of Radcliffe.
 

Are you proposing that gender and race should be used to disqualify part of the pool of possible candidates for the Deanship of Radcliffe? Is you view that only women among those elegible should be considered seriously? Why?
 

6.29 has it right. In appointing Drew Faust to the Presidency the Corporation finally made it clear that the best candidate was selected for the job. She was obviously not selected BECAUSE she was a woman but because she was the best candidate among women and men and her gender did not disqualify her.

If a candidate among those groups who would not have been considered for the Radcliffe Deanship is selected, this would reassure all that those exclusionary barriers have finally been set aside.
 

The mission of the Radcliffe Institute is to create an academic community where individuals can pursue advanced work in any of the academic disciplines, professions, or creative arts. Within that broad purpose, it sustains a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender, and society.

Is anyone proposing that candidates of a particular gender are more qualified to advance that mission? Why?
 

Harvard would have moved into the 21st century when the deans of HMS, JFK and HBS are women and when the dean of Radcliffe is a man. It would also be a good to see more ethnic and cultural diversity among the senior leaders in the University. Of course, with the understanding that those leaders were chosen because they were the very best to lead, including all their talents and experience as much as the unique perspective that their background might entail.
 

Anon 8:27
"It would also be a good to see more ethnic and cultural diversity among the senior leaders in the University. Of course, with the understanding that those leaders were chosen because they were the very best to lead,"
Yes, it would be good to see more ethnic diversity (what does cultural diversity mean?) because they were the very best to lead.
Unfortunately, as we've seen with white males over the last twenty five years (and for eons before as well), people were chosen because they were white males, not because they were the very best to lead. We want to get away from that, but every time race and ethnicity is introduced we're right back where we started. Why don't we just choose the best there is? When the departments in the FAS each year have to show how many people were "this or that", we are simply trying to run everything by quota and not by by merit. That seems to be an archaic (and discriminatory) way of doing things.
So far it looks as if at least one dean gets the merit aspect of appointments, but maybe that's because the entire faculty votes on appointments. Look at the last 11 tenured appointments at HLS.
 

Well, maybe HLS is getting it right not just because the entire faculty votes, but because they have a very capable dean --who happens to be a woman who was not kept from being a dean because of it.
 

9:47
Nor, presumably, was she made The Dean because of it.