Forum on Public Policy 1 Inequity in the academy: A case study of factors influencing promotion and

The literature on higher education in the United States has maintained a place for the specific topic of discrimination against women in the American academy. Institutional restrictions, invisible ceilings, hidden hierarchies—all of these have entered into the discussion surrounding both the failure of women to progress through the academic ranks in numbers consistent with those of their male colleagues, as well as the perceived disparities in salary between men and women at all academic ranks. This paper utilizes a case study approach in exploring the progress of female academicians at a large, Midwestern university in terms of both salary parity and rates of promotion to senior academic ranks. The salaries and rates of promotion for male and female academicians over the past 2 decades were examined for an analysis of trends across time. In addition, a variety of factors were introduced into the analyses to aid in explaining existing differences, both in terms of compensation and promotion rates. If these factors reflect the state of American universities more generally, the pressing question to be addressed is whether existing differences between male and female academicians are due to entrenched institutional biases, or whether such differences reflect other, more societal, factors