UNC's Attitude Toward Salaries Builds Case for More Oversight

Although I have never liked the way University officials and faculty representatives have dealt with the issue, it didn't dawn on me until last week what was really missing from the entire debate -- a fundamental concern for fairness.

In a Nov. 4 DTH article, several female University faculty members sounded off about the results of a recent study of faculty salaries that revealed that, on average, women make less than their male counterparts in most departments.

The same study also revealed that tenure-track minority professors in the School of Medicine made on average $6,261 more than white professors.

As I frantically searched for some comment in the article from just one University official decrying this discrepancy, I (gasp!) found none. Apparently discrimination is OK so long as it is against white people, because we all know that they're all members of the wealthy aristocracy and don't really need the money anyway.

But seriously folks, I have to wonder whether there is really any consideration for equity in any of the studies dealing with gender and racial equity issues that are released on a seemingly weekly basis. It seems that after it is "proved" that some sort of discrimination exists against the chosen victim group of the day, everyone stops searching for the real reasons behind inequalities.

Factors such as seniority and the demand for a certain faculty member can explain the vast majority, if not all, of salary discrepancies. There's no way anyone will convince me that any sort of intentional institutional racism or gender bias exists at an institution that prides itself on liberal thought and political correctness as much as UNC-Chapel Hill does.

In a Nov. 11 article about the same study, UNC-CH Provost Robert Shelton praised the finding. "We as a society and a University in society have a long way to go," he said. "Rather than guess, we can see where we need to work on things, and the hard part is just finding the money to change it."

Funny he should mention that. While University officials seem to be having difficulty finding the funds to heal supposed salary disparities, they had no trouble finding more than $376,000 to pay retiring University Legal Counsel Susan Ehringhaus during the next two years while she leaves her post to work for two Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organizations and to teach at the UNC-CH School of Law. That decision adds a whole new level to the age-old faculty salary debate.

I'm sure Ehringhaus, a 32-year veteran of the University, will be a fine addition to the law school faculty, but allowing her to keep the $188,321 annual salary she earned as UNC-CH's head attorney will put her salary $50,000 a year above the average amount earned by tenured or tenure-track faculty members at the law school.

But maybe the University was just trying to bridge the gap between male and female salaries.

Or maybe it's a sign that University officials have their priorities wrong. At a time when UNC-CH is hurting for faculty, it seems unconscionable to me that anyone would even think about paying thousands of dollars for a faculty member to work somewhere else.

Whatever the motive, the move hasn't gone over well with many in the General Assembly who will be asked to consider allowing UNC-system administrators more latitude when setting budget priorities, as well as to increase faculty salaries by 6 percent across the board in January.

Many within the University community have worried that the new, Republican-controlled N.C. House of Representatives, will scrutinize the UNC-system budget more. But then again, maybe a little more oversight wouldn't be such a bad thing.

Reach Michael McKnight at mmcknigh@email.unc.edu.