Online Comments

In response to “Faculty diversity: ‘We’re not doing shit’” (by Brittny Mejia, Nov. 5):

According to a study by Jacobson (2008), 5.4 percent of all tenure-track/eligible faculty are Black/African-American, 4.5 percent are Hispanic/Latino, and 0.04 percent are American Indian/Native American, even though these groups represent, respectively, 12 percent, 14 percent and 0.8 percent of the total U.S. population. Therefore, this problem is not specific to UA as is implied in the current article. Moreover, with 19% of the UA faculty identifying as being a member of a minority group, perhaps some people here are doing sh*t to help address the issue of disproportionality .

— Guest

This is the best point I have seen here. You also need to take into account that, just because the population is distributed in such a fashion, the pool of qualified applicants may not be distributed in such a way. It’s unfortunate that it plays out this way, and I don’t have a reference to call on, but it seems that you need to take into account the percentage of each race that reaches a level of education making them eligible for these positions, in which case, the number would most likely skew heavily towards whites.

— Justanotherwhiteguy (in response to Guest)

It seems to me that the first step is to look at the proportionality of minority individuals in the pool of APPLICANTS. Without this critical piece of information, it is pointless to look at the small percentage of minority professors and deem it unacceptable. It is entirely possible that there simply aren’t as many minority applicants applying to these positions, and so it would be inappropriate to give them hiring priority over whites simply to prove a point. Yes, “minority” has different meanings depending on geographical location, but, in context, it does mean that there is a small sub-section in a larger population. Thus, it would make sense for minorities to make up a smaller proportion of hires.

— Alex

Just hire the best professors based on their merits, when are these liberals going to get it? Stop trying to shove this affirmative action down our throats. Affirmative action is racisms and we are sick of hearing about it.

— Erin Anderson