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From: geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Discrimination studies?
Message-ID: <1989Sep8.154533.2108@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu>
Date: 8 Sep 89 15:45:33 GMT
References: <57397@aerospace.AERO.ORG>
Sender: nadel@aerospace.aero.org
Reply-To: geb@cadre.dsl.pitt.edu (Gordon E. Banks)
Organization: Decision Systems Laboratory, Univ. of Pittsburgh, PA.
Lines: 36
Approved: nadel@aerospace.aero.org

In article <57397@aerospace.AERO.ORG> twinsun!uunet!orc.olivetti.com!jan (Jan Parcel) writes:
>
>My high school daughter has been given a history project, choose one 
>of the following statements to prove:
>
>	1. There is still significant institutional discrimination 
>	   against minorities in America.
>
>	2. Within the American institutional system, there is no discrimination.
>
>	3. There is still significant institutional discrimination against
>	   women in America.
>
>        4. Women and minorities now have an advantage in America.
>
>The teacher specified that individual bigotry was not to be considered
>institutional discrimination.

Unfortunately this is nothing more than a sad commentary on the mind-set
of some high school teachers.  Cultural phenomena such as how minorities
and women are treated whether by individuals or institutions (what
is an institution if not a collection of individuals anyhow?) can't
be captured by a few simplistic questions.  Well, let's give her
the benefit of the doubt and assume she only was interested in
the public attitudes about such).  It really is complex, though.
For example, at the entry level of most institutional hiring, it is certainly 
a plus to be a woman or even more a minority (women + minority = a double
hit) and you certainly would have a leg up on another candidate
with equal qualifications in most places.  But at the level of
department chairman, it is a different story entirely.  Probably
this is because at the entry level, when no one knows you from Adam
(Eve?) bureaucratic hiring procedures bias in favor of affirmative
action, whereas the upper levels are filled by the hierarchy largely
from their personal friends, and women and minorities have a social
disadvantage when it comes to "hobnobbing with the brass" due to
individual discrimination.