UO officials defend minority faculty recruitment program.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

The University of Oregon is rebutting a professor's claim that a program aimed at recruiting more minority faculty members is illegal.

UO Provost Linda Brady and general counsel Melinda Grier said the program, which provides money to help new minority faculty set up an office or lab, does not violate federal law. They called the program an important tool to help attract minority faculty in a competitive market.

Economics professor Bill Harbaugh has challenged the program, known as the Underrepresented Minority Recruitment Program, in e-mails to UO President Dave Frohnmayer. He calls it an "obvious violation" of the Constitution and Civil Rights Act.

Harbaugh declined to comment further for this story.

The minority recruitment program provides up to $30,000 a year for three years to reimburse departments and colleges for the cost of "start-up packages" used to make competitive offers to new faculty members from underrepresented groups. Start-up packages cover the costs of setting up an office at a new university and typically include computers, lab equipment and other materials but also can include support for graduate students, summer pay, conference sponsorship or a variety of other incentives depending on the professor's field.

Start-up packages vary widely and are difficult to compare across fields or even within a department. They can be especially influenced by market factors, which often come into play with minority faculty because of the many universities seeking a more diverse campus.

The UO spends about $500,000 a year on the program, part of an array of diversity-building initiatives that cost about $4 million a year.

Diversity issues have been hot topics on campus for a long time but particularly so over the past three years. During that time the university has worked to complete a controversial diversity plan that sets out broad goals and a path to meet them.

The effort set off intense debates around campus as people clashed over the specific steps to be taken to meet the goals. Among them were debates over whether special treatment or incentives were justified to help attract more minority students, faculty and managers.

Harbaugh has been a critic of the UO's diversity efforts. Instead of using incentives to compete for a small pool of minority candidates, he believes that efforts should be focused on helping more low-income children prepare for and attend college and ultimately increase the number of scholars in the academic job pool.

Although comparisons are difficult, Harbaugh says the start-up package for a new, nonminority faculty member in the economics department typically would total about $7,000 over the first three years. A faculty member who qualifies for the minority recruitment program could get up to $97,000, he said.

Harbaugh's e-mails to Frohnmayer don't set out detailed arguments against the program but urge him not to approve the university's affirmative action plan, which makes reference to the separate Underrepresented Minorities Recruitment Plan.

"I hope that you will agree that, as structured, this UMRP is an obvious violation of the Civil Rights Act and the 14th Amendment and that you will decline to approve the 2006 Affirmative Action Plan until the UMRP has been replaced with a non-discriminatory alternative," Harbaugh wrote earlier this month.

Frohnmayer has since signed the affirmative action plan. Grier said the minority recruitment plan is a separate, stand-alone program that would not have been affected had Frohnmayer not approved the broader affirmative action plan.

Whether the program is an obvious violation is open to debate. Universities around the country are wrestling with the same issue as they seek more diversity on their faculty, and experts in the field say the use of incentive plans similar to the UO's are very common.

According to information compiled by the American Association of University Professors, the only court decision addressing the use of such incentive funds, at the University of Vermont, found the practice legal as long as the availability of the money was not used in hiring decisions.

Grier said that doesn't happen at the UO.

The funds only come into play after a selection committee has chosen a candidate and made an initial job offer; the funds then can be used to negotiate a final contract.

She said it's also important to note that the funds don't go directly to a faculty member.

The money goes to the professor's department as a reimbursement for the cost of the start-up package.

"Dollars aren't allocated based on race," she said. "Departments get reimbursed for costs."

That distinction is lost on some opponents of affirmative action.

Linda Chavez, chairwoman of the nonprofit Center for Equal Opportunity, said the fact that the program allocates money based solely on race makes it illegal.

"If that pool of money is available and access to that money is available only to individuals who happen to fit a certain demographic profile, it's not legal," she said.

Chavez said the center, which describes itself as "the only think tank devoted exclusively to the promotion of colorblind equal opportunity," has succeeded in shutting down many similar programs. She acknowledged that by not giving money directly to the faculty member the program could avoid action under the Civil Rights Act or Equal Pay Act but said she still believes it to be illegal.

Brady and Grier do not. They said the fund does not influence hiring and simply allows the university to compete for faculty members that are in high demand.

"Part of what's critical here is the nature of this market," Brady said.

"If we're going to be competitive in the marketplace, we need to offer competitive start-up packages."