Higher Education: Hiring Faculty of Color

“The reason we don’t have more faculty of color among college faculty is that we don’t want them. We simply don’t want them.” - Marybeth Gasman

When I was working in the Bay area, common refrains when it came to the hiring of people of color and women in the tech industry were, “we can’t find qualified candidates”, “they aren’t well prepared”, “they don’t make it through our rigorous hiring process”.

And unfortunately, the institution of higher education shares the same belief when it comes to the hiring of faculty of color.  The difference is, they do it in back rooms, and speak it quietly.  Fortunately, Marybeth Gasman, professor at U of Penn, was candid about the racist attitudes expressed by colleges and universities across the country when selecting their faculty colleagues.

Marybeth Gasman, professor at the University of Pennsylvania, candidly sheds light on this important issue in her article,  An Ivy League Professor on Why Colleges Don’t Hire More Faculty of Color: ‘We Don’t Want Them’.