National Women's Law Center

For Immediate Release

Thursday, November 18, 2004

Contact: Yolanda Norton 202/588-5180

Cathleen Witter: 202/466-9633

Women’s groups Launch National Letter-Writing Campaign Demanding THAT Universities BREAK DOWN BARRIERS TO Women in the sciences

Campaign based on landmark report that reveals that women are severely under-represented

on the faculties of top universities

Washington, D.C. – National women’s groups The National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) and Women’s Prerogative (WP) have launched Women in the Sciences: Left Out, Left Behind, a nation-wide public education and letter-writing campaign addressing the under-representation of women on the science faculties at major research universities. The campaign’s website, www.womensprerogative.org/womeninsciences, provides students, parents, faculty, and alumni with valuable resources to help deal with this problem.

“The under-representation of women on science faculties shortchanges students, faculty, and the university community as a whole,” said Jocelyn Samuels, Vice President for Education and Employment for the NWLC. “Students are deprived of role models and mentors, qualified women are denied professional opportunities, and universities lose out on talented people at a time when progress in the sciences is particularly critical. University officials must address this persistent under-representation of women on their faculties.”

The campaign is based on a landmark study, A National Analysis of Diversity in Science and Engineering Faculties at Research Universities, by Dr. Donna Nelson of the University of Oklahoma. That study evaluates the fifty universities that receive the most federal funding in several different scientific disciplines. The report showed startling under-representation of women faculty in the sciences at major research institutions across the country. For example:

§ The percentage of women among full professors ranges from only 3% to 15%.

There are no African-American, Hispanic, or Native American tenure-track women professors at the top 50 computer science departments in the country.

The number of women receiving PhDs in the sciences is much higher than the number of women going into academia, a troubling indicator that women are not encouraged to pursue academic careers.

“With Left Out, Left Behind, we can all contact the universities and the government directly to let them know that they must act to address the fact that women are under-represented on science faculties,” said Sharon Levin, Founder and Executive Director of Women’s Prerogative. “This is a problem that deserves national attention, so that women will no longer be denied the educational and professional opportunities they deserve.”

From the website, people can send letters to university officials highlighting the under-representation of women in their sciences departments, as well as to officials at federal enforcement agencies urging them to enforce Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bans sex discrimination in federally-funded education. The site also contains educational and advocacy materials that can help members of the campus community spread the word about issues of under-representation of women faculties in the sciences.

For more information about Women in the Sciences: Left Out, Left Behind click here.

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