i n my s h o e s
Title IX and chemistry A researcher turns her anger into activism.
ebra Rolison is frustrated with science. Don’t misunderstand. She takes pride in her 25-year research career and her position as head of the Advanced Electrochemical Materials section of the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL). She enjoys exploring, characterizing, and developing new materials—these days, nanomaterials—and she delights in sharing the discovery process with young scientists. Nevertheless, Rolison feels frusAt ease. Rolison (second from left) with Jeffrey Long, trated by the lack of diversity, parwho collaborates with her on aerogel research; Jean ticularly the paucity of women, in Marie Wallace, a former postdoctoral associate; and tenured academic positions and on Jeremy Pietron, a staff scientist at NRL. the staffs of the national laboratories in the U.S. For years, she had chemistry departments that failed to private conversations about the matter attract and retain female faculty in proand observed what happened to others. portion to the number of doctorates Then, in 1992, she coordinated a letter earned by women. Denying financial asto Science (256, 1614), signed by 10 sistance is the “stick” in the Education people, in response to the journal’s Amendments of 1972, popularly known Women in Science section, published as Title IX (www.dol.gov/oasam/regs/ earlier that year. In 1997, she protested statutes/titleix.htm). The law states, on the record about the lack of high“No person in the United States shall, level opportunities for women and mion the basis of sex, be excluded from norities (Chem. Eng. News 1997, 75 participation in, be denied the benefits [5], 6). of, or be subjected to discrimination Three years later, Rolison published under any education program or activity a more radical “Title IX challenge” on receiving Federal financial assistance.” the editorial page of Chemical & EngiTitle IX was immediately applied to neering News (2000, 78 [11], 5). She graduate programs and professional argued that chemistry departments had schools, in which women’s enrollment an unprecedented opportunity “to imhad been limited. Later, the concept prove equity on chemistry faculty” as was extended to women’s sports. the professors who were hired in the Rolison’s editorial acknowledged that 1960s began to retire. “The women only ~10% of the applications for faculty are there, they are good, and the posipositions in chemistry departments tions are there, or about to be there, came from women, even though in droves,” she wrote. women were earning ~30% of the docRather than leave the numbers to torates. She argued that women were chance, Rolison proposed that the fed“voting with their feet” against careers eral government withhold funding from © 2005 AMERICAN CHEMICAL SOCIETY
in academic chemistry because the environment was “unhealthy”. In her view, departments put men and women who wanted to engage in raising their families at a disadvantage. In addition, the academic science community did not recognize and tangibly reward women’s accomplishments on a par with men’s in terms of lab space, salary, funding, and awards. The influential study of faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT Faculty Newsletter 1999, 11 [4]) perhaps best documented this lack of parity. Rolison’s message resonates with many women in chemistry and in other areas of science. She says that a female plant physiologist contacted her a few days after the editorial’s publication and said, “We have the same problems.” Rolison accepted the woman’s invitation to speak on the topic and has given the talk >65 times since May 2000. Several articles have also featured Rolison, including a recent interview in which the Association for Women in Science “applaud[ed] Debra Rolison’s crusade to transform the face of science in America” (AWIS Magazine 2005, 34 [1], 31–33). Of course, all women do not share the same mindset. Some disagree with Rolison. An article specifically about women in analytical chemistry reported a broad range of experiences (Anal. Chem. 2000, 72, 272 A–281 A). However, many of the women noted the difficulties of balancing family and work, and they all said that nobody had previously asked them how they were faring. COURTESY OF DEBRA ROLISON
D
The case The intense controversy that followed Harvard University President Lawrence
O C T O B E R 1 , 2 0 0 5 / A N A LY T I C A L C H E M I S T R Y
377 A
i n my s h o e s
Summers’s remarks in January 2005 suggests that the issue of women in the sciences remains hot. As he addressed participants in a conference on diversifying the science and engineering workforce, Summers discussed “the sources of the very substantial disparities . . . with respect to the presence of women in highend scientific professions” (www. president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/ nber.html). He postulated that the primary cause was “the general clash between people’s legitimate family desires and employers’ current desire for high power and high intensity.” Summers immediately added “that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude [between males and females], and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are, in fact, lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.” Rolison has amassed an 1800-page compendium of publications and discussions about Summers’s remarks. “It’s so big, I can no longer keep it as [a single] Word document,” she says. “The aftermath of his comments has become a touchstone phenomenon.” In her talks, Rolison discusses sociological studies and concepts pertaining to differences in the ways men and women are regarded, and she cites articles in the New York Times, Time, Nature, the New England Journal of Medicine, Science, and Harvard Magazine. She summarizes the disparities documented in the 1999 MIT report and a July 2004 report on gender issues, called Women’s Participation in the Sciences Has Increased, but Agencies Need to Do More to Ensure Compliance with Title IX, produced by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO; www.gao.gov/ new.items/d04639.pdf). Two other congressionally mandated studies, one by the National Research Council and one by RAND Corp., had not been issued when this article went to press. Rolison also presents statistics that consider all women who receive degrees in chemistry versus female faculty members in chemistry departments at research- intensive universities. Previously, some people attributed the scarcity of 378 A
female faculty in certain fields to a “pipeline” problem—few women received the advanced degrees that would put them in line for available positions. These days, however, women earn ~50% of the undergraduate degrees, ~45% of the master’s degrees, and ~33% of the doctorates in chemistry. More recently, she adds, the pipeline explanation “has been traded in for ‘critical mass’”—the notion that once enough women cross the threshold into leadership positions, the disparities will disappear. In Rolison’s view, the real problem lies in the reward system, especially in academic science. She argues that although universities often say that the primary duty of faculty members is to teach and mentor students, the biggest rewards go to those who bring in the most grant money and who excel at promoting their work. Some people note that the current university system serves society very well and produces great science, but her response is, “So what?” She predicts that the university system will serve society—and science— better by becoming more inclusive. Rolison’s to-do list begins with educating faculty and students about the concept that we, as a society, “overvalue the competence, stature, and productivity of men and undervalue that of women.” She argues for on-site daycare and suggests abolishing tenure, which she calls an artifice that is “especially damaging to young women trying to integrate career and family.” Finally, she advocates auditing science and engineering departments with respect to diversity, as the GAO report recommends. In theory, departments that create environments “appealing to women and minorities” will be rewarded with more students, whereas the “toxic” departments will be punished with public exposure, Title IX sanctions, and a loss of interest among students, who will migrate elsewhere.
Uppity women Rolison says that she has been a feminist since about age five. She recounts a family get-together in Nebraska during which the boys went off to play baseball, leaving the girls behind. Rolison
A N A LY T I C A L C H E M I S T R Y / O C T O B E R 1 , 2 0 0 5
wanted to play, too, so she assembled the other girls. “We marched down and demanded to be let into the game,” she says. When her cousin Kenny (several years her elder) refused, she picked up the bat and hit him over the head. Years later, Rolison wields a figurative bat. She playfully addresses likeminded colleagues as fellow “uppity women and men” but contends that people who do not see the problem are “wearing a ferocious set of blinders.” During a December 2004 workshop on gender discrimination at Barnard College (www.barnard.edu/bcrw/ womenandwork) she joked, “What’s the opposite of diversity? Answer: university.” Furthermore, for her talk she favors the provocative title (or subtitle), “Isn’t a millennium of affirmative action for white men sufficient?” Rolison remains unapologetic. “Scientists are smart people,” she insists. “We should be lifelong learners. We should understand the value of people who can ask questions from different perspectives. Yet we’re so comfortable being monoclonal.” Rolison also says that she expects resistance to her ideas and her manner, and in some cases she has gotten it. She has been called names, confronted during and following her talks, and blasted by critics in emails and print. Yet Rolison takes satisfaction in knowing that she is not alone. U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) chaired a hearing on Title IX and science in October 2002 and commissioned the GAO report. On May 11, 2005, the senators accepted a letter, signed by >6000 people, urging Congress to break down barriers to women and girls in science, engineering, and mathematics. In response to the GAO report, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and NASA have formed an interagency committee on Title IX enforcement. The result of all of these efforts, she adds, is that the notion of applying Title IX to faculties in science and engineering “has gone from being an absurd idea to being an inevitability.” a —Elizabeth Zubritsky
