Prying the gates wide open: academic freedom and gender equality at Brown University, 1974–1977

Abstract

In 1974, Brown University’s Department of Anthropology denied tenure to assistant professor Louise Lamphere. Convinced that her dismissal was the product of sex discrimination, Lamphere filed suit against Brown. Lamphere and three other female scholars who joined her suit successfully pressed Brown into an out-of-court settlement in 1977. Significantly, the settlement required Brown not only to provide redress to the plaintiffs but also to take sweeping action in rectifying its faculty’s inequitable gender ratio. While Lamphere’s case marked a rare victory for academic women in the male preserve of the Ivy League, this study concerns the bearing of the lawsuit on academic freedom. It argues that academic freedom entails two interlocking principles: freedom of inquiry and departmental autonomy. Lamphere emphasised the former while Brown advocated the latter. Ultimately, the Lamphere case illustrates how academic freedom loses its efficacy when freedom of inquiry and departmental autonomy are decoupled.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks his anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.

Notes

¹Matthew W. Finkin and Robert C. Post, For the Common Good: Principles of American Academic Freedom (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), 6.

²“Appendix A: General Report of the Committee on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure (1915),” Law and Contemporary Problems 53 (Summer 1990): 400–4. Quotations appear on pp. 402, 404. Reprinted from 1 AAUP Bulletin 17 (1915).

³Finkin and Post, For the Common Good, 39, 43.

⁴Richard Hofstadter and Walter P. Metzger, The Development of Academic Freedom in the United States (1955; New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 261–2.

⁵Walter P. Metzger, Academic Freedom in the Age of the University (1955; New York: Columbia University Press, 1964), 112–22.

⁶Metzger, Academic Freedom in the Age of the University, 162–71, 202–6, 150.

⁷Carol S. Gruber, Mars and Minerva: World War I and the Uses of the Higher Learning in America (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975), 169–72.

⁸A.O. Lovejoy, Edward Capps, and A.A. Young, “Report of Committee on Academic Freedom in Wartime,” Bulletin of the American Association of University Professors 4 (February-March 1918): 40–1.

⁹Gruber, Mars and Minerva, 174.

¹⁰See generally Timothy Reese Cain, “The NEA’s Early Conflict over Educational Freedom,” American Educational History Journal 36 (2009): 361–75.

¹¹See generally Ellen Schrecker, “Freedom and the Cold War,” Antioch Review 38 (Summer 1980): 313–27.

¹²Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, Opportunities for Women in Higher Education: Their Current Participation, Prospects for the Future, and Recommendations for Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1973), 111–2.

¹³Mariam K. Chamberlain, ed., Women in Academe: Progress and Prospects (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1988), 7–8. See also Patricia Albjerg Graham, “Women in Academe,” Science 169 (September 25, 1970): 1284.

¹⁴Joel William Friedman, “Congress, the Courts, and Sex-Based Employment Discrimination in Higher Education: A Tale of Two Titles,” Vanderbilt Law Review 34 (January 1981): 37.

¹⁵US Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to 1970. Bicentennial Edition, 382–3.

¹⁶Chamberlain, Women in Academe, 10, 173, 178; Graham, “Women in Academe,” 1288.

¹⁷Beatrice Dinerman, “Sex Discrimination in Academia,” Journal of Higher Education 42 (April 1971): 263.

¹⁸Emily Abel, “Collective Protest and the Meritocracy: Faculty Women and Sex Discrimination Lawsuits,” Feminist Studies 7 (Autumn 1981): 509. See also Andrew Fishel and Janice Pottker, National Politics and Sex Discrimination in Education (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1977): 12.

¹⁹Bonnie Cook Freeman, “Faculty Women in the American University: Up the Down Staircase,” Higher Education 6 (May 1977): 180, 175.

²⁰Ibid., 167; Chamberlain, Women in Academe, 4-5.

²¹Sandra Reeves, “Is Brown Guilty of Discrimination Against Women Faculty,” Brown Alumni Monthly, April 1977, 32.

²²Graham, “Women in Academe,” 1285.

²³Carnegie Commission, Opportunities for Women in Higher Education, 132;

²⁴Helen S. Astin and Alan E. Bayer, “Sex Discrimination in Academe,” in Alice S. Rossi and Ann Calderwood, eds., Academic Women on the Move (New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1973), 335–6.

²⁵Carnegie Commission, Opportunities for Women in Higher Education, 120.

²⁶Graham, “Women in Academe,” 1287.

²⁷Freeman, “Faculty Women in the American University,” 174, 176–7.

²⁸Lora Liss, “Why Academic Women Do Not Revolt: Implications for Affirmative Action,” Sex Roles 1 (1975): 219.

²⁹Astin and Bayer, “Sex Discrimination in Academe,” 333; Graham, “Women in Academe,” 1285–6. See also Jonah R. Churgin, The New Woman and the Old Academe: Sexism and High Education (Roslyn Heights, NY: Libra Publishers, 1978), 67.

³⁰Athena Theodore, The Campus Troublemakers: Academic Women in Protest (Houston, TX: Cap and Gown Press, 1986), xvii; Chamberlain, Women in Academe, v.

³¹Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VII, Sec. 2000e-2.

³²Carnegie Commission, Opportunities for Women in Higher Education, 128.

³³Ibid., 130.

³⁴Regarding “the financial leverage which the government may exercise to compel colleges to follows its guidelines”, see Note, “Academic Freedom and Federal Regulation of University Hiring,” Harvard Law Review 92 (February 1979): 880.

³⁵Quoted in Terry H. Anderson, The Pursuit of Fairness: A History of Affirmative Action (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 60.

³⁶Ibid., 101–2; Nancy F. Cott, No Small Courage (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 548.

³⁷Harry T. Edwards and Virginia Davis Nordin, Higher Education and the Law (Cambridge, MA: Institute for Educational Management, Harvard University, 1979), 14; Abel, “Collective Protest and the Meritocracy,” 506–7.

³⁸Friedman, “Congress, the Courts, and Sex-Based Employment Discrimination in Higher Education,” 37–69. Quotation appears on p. 53.

³⁹Chamberlain, Women in Academe, 182.

⁴⁰Cott, No Small Courage, 554–7.

⁴¹See generally Dorothy Sue Cobble, The Other Women’s Movement: Workplace Justice and Social Rights in Modern America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004).

⁴²Cott, No Small Courage, 563–7.

⁴³Freeman, “Faculty Women in the American University,” 184.

⁴⁴Abel, “Collective Protest and the Meritocracy,” 508.

⁴⁵Theodore, Campus Troublemakers, xviii.

⁴⁶Louise Lamphere, “Personal Reflections on the Career of a Squeaky Wheel,” Voices 9 (Winter 2009): 9.

⁴⁷Reeves, “Is Brown Guilty of Discrimination Against Women Faculty,” 31.

⁴⁸Lorraine Hopkins, “The Lamphere Suit at Brown: A Case of Litigation Gone Wild,” The Providence Journal, January 27, 1980, M17.

⁴⁹Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 30–2.

⁵⁰Ibid., 33.

⁵¹Ibid., 33–4.

⁵²Ibid., 27, 31.

⁵³Hopkins, “The Lamphere Suit at Brown,” M16.

⁵⁴Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 33–4.

⁵⁵Hopkins, “The Lamphere Suit at Brown,” M18-20.

⁵⁶ Brown Alumni Monthly, “The Lamphere Case: A Settlement out of Court,” October 1977, 3.

⁵⁷Ibid., 3–4.

⁵⁸Ibid, 4.

⁵⁹ Lamphere v. Brown University, 491 F.Supp. 232, 238-46 (D. R. I.1980).

⁶⁰ Brown Alumni Monthly, “Court Gives Final OK to Consent Decree,” April 1978, 3–4.

⁶¹ Brown Alumni Monthly, “Some Issues Are Still Unresolved,” April 1979, 8–10.

⁶² George Street Journal, “University Wins a Round in Sex Discrimination Suit,” September 19, 1980, 1.

⁶³ George Street Journal, “The Lamphere Case: Final Chapter,” December 14, 1979, 3.

⁶⁴ George Street Journal, “Court Dismisses Appeal of Women Faculty in Lamphere Case,” March 21, 1990, 2.

⁶⁵ George Street Journal, “University, Female Faculty Terminate Lamphere Decree,” September 4, 1992, 3.

⁶⁷Hopkins, “The Lamphere Suit at Brown: A case of litigation Gone Wild,” M16.

⁶⁶Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 31.

⁶⁸Ibid., 31.

⁶⁹Lamphere, “Personal Reflections on the Career of a Squeaky Wheel,” 10.

⁷⁰Amy Goldstein, “Lamphere Tenure Denial to Settlement: A Long Road,” Brown Daily Herald, September 16, 1977, 5.

⁷¹Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 32.

⁷²Hopkins, “The Lamphere Suit at Brown,” M18.

⁷³ Brown Alumni Monthly, “Women at Brown: The Merger Plus Five,” May–June 1976, 3.

⁷⁴ Brown Daily Herald, “University Women Meet to Discuss Sexual Harassment by Profs,” November 22, 1977.

⁷⁵ Brown Alumni Monthly, “The Playboy Issue: Public Nudity Has Its Price,” December 1979, 5.

⁷⁶ George Street Journal, “Faculty Panel Established at Brown University,” December 8, 1978, 1.

⁷⁷Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 31.

⁷⁸Arlene Gorton and Albert F. Wessen, “The Lamphere Settlement: A Faculty View,” Brown Alumni Monthly, November 1977, 25–29.

⁷⁹Amy Goldstein, “Professors Laud Lamphere Settlement,” Brown Daily Herald, September 20, 1977, 1.

⁸⁰Joan Marini, Barry Hill-Tout, letters to the editor, Brown Alumni Monthly, October 1978, 3–4.

⁸¹Reeves, “Is Brown guilty of discrimination against women faculty,” 35.

⁸²Goldstein, “Professors Laud Lamphere Settlement,” 1.

⁸³ George Street Journal, “Brown, Lamphere Settle Suit out of Court,” September 23, 1977, 3.

⁸⁴ Brown Alumni Monthly, “Lawyers fees total almost $1 million,” February 1980, 13.

⁸⁵ Brown Daily Herald, “Swearer Advocates University Autonomy in Convocation Talk,” September 20, 1977, 1–2.

⁸⁷Letter to the editor, Brown Alumni Monthly, July–August 1977, 52.

⁸⁶Editorial, “Long-Range Impact of Brown’s Settlement,” Providence Journal, September 16, 1977, A24.

⁸⁸Richard Bernstein, letter to the editor, Brown Alumni Monthly, October 1977, 55.

⁸⁹George Payne, letter to the editor, Brown Alumni Monthly, January–February 1978, 46.

⁹⁰Goldstein, “Professors Laud Lamphere Settlement,” 1.

⁹¹Philip E. Leis, “It Is Clear the University ‘Lost’ the Case,” Brown Alumni Monthly, March 1978, 27–9.

⁹²Claude Carey, Helen Cserr, Pat Russian, “The Plaintiffs Reply to Professor Leis,” Brown Alumni Monthly, May/June 1978, 43–5.

⁹³Laurie A. Brand, “Middle East Studies and Academic Freedom: Challenges at Home and Abroad,” International Studies Perspectives 8 (2007): 385.

⁹⁴Philip G. Altbach, “Academic Freedom: International Realities and Challenges,” Higher Education 41 (January–March 2001): 205.

⁹⁵Silvia Federici, “The Economic Roots of the Repression of Academic Freedom in Africa,” in A Thousand Flowers: Social Struggles Against Structural Adjustment in African Universities, ed. Silvia Federici and George Caffentzis Ousseina Alidou (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, Inc., 2000): 61–8.

⁹⁶Terence Karran, “Academic Freedom in Europe: A Preliminary Comparative Analysis,” Higher Education Policy 20 (2007): 295.

⁹⁷Michele Rostan, “Challenges to Academic Freedom: Some Empirical Evidence,” European Review 18, Supp. 1 (2010): S78–S85.