Report Finds Bias Against Women in Science and Engineering

DONNA SHALALA: It has to do with the climate of the departments, with the fact that we tend in the academic world to reproduce ourselves. We look at a young woman and say, "Does that look like a scientist?" Particularly an all-male department.

And, of course, the most productive years and the years in which you're trying to get tenure, that seven-year track, are also the child-bearing years. So we've got a rigid system in higher education; it needs to be more flexible, I think, for men and for women.

But it's a combination of the climate, the inability to recognize when we are, in fact, discriminating. Much of this is inadvertent. And we found patterns of discrimination that reflect both women's attitudes, as well as men's attitudes. We need to do better, because we cannot be competitive as a nation. You can't leave out half your talent and be competitive in science around the world.

GWEN IFILL: You are now president of a university. You were chancellor of another major university. You were secretary of health and human services. You have a PhD, yet you say in this report that you were told on more than one occasion that you were a bad investment?

DONNA SHALALA: That's exactly right, but that was 30 years ago, and very few women were coming through PhD programs. When I was a graduate student in political science and economics at Syracuse, there were no tenured women on the faculty. That simply isn't true now.

And that's the point: The pools are there. The desire by young women to go into science is clearly there. The National Academy appointed women to the panel who were distinguished, world-class scientists and engineers, but they're not being hired by the university.

We have to look at ourselves. And, in fact, we have to make an extraordinary effort to make sure that we don't leave out talent. And I expect, over the next 5 to 10 years, that this report to have a major impact on the culture of higher education, who we hire, how we support them.

DONNA SHALALA: It knocks it out of the park. Larry, a very good friend of mine, a colleague of mine in the Clinton administration, he raised a number of issues.

We reviewed the science, the biology, the cognitive science, the brain studies. There's just no evidence that women can't do great science and can't be great computer scientists and engineers. And we reviewed all of that science. This report has a whole chapter.

And you'll never need to ask that question again. It's very clear that the ability is there, the desire is there. What we need to do in universities is to make sure we give people opportunity.

GWEN IFILL: So when women do succeed in these fields, how does it happen?

DONNA SHALALA: Well, sometimes it's in despite of the situation. And every woman on our panel had a story.

A very great scientist, Maria Zuber at MIT, who is a professor of geophysics, told the story about the fact that she used her initials as opposed to her first name, Maria, when she submitted articles to journals. Journals that have decided to take people's names off the articles when they send them out for review have found that more women get through that review process.

And so there are a number of things that we need to do with our journals, with our professional organizations, with the funding agencies to make sure we are not organizing ourselves for this kind of bias.

DONNA SHALALA: Well, for example, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation most recently has called in all the chemistry chairs in the country of the major research universities, put them through training, let them hear from young women who are in chemistry departments the kind of problems that they were having.

The NIH and the National Science Foundation, the other government funding agencies, could make their grants so that people could use a little of the money to pay for child care. The fact is, if you're a young woman, and you're married, and you have children, you may need some child care help to be able during that period of time in which you're trying to get tenure to do great science.

That could be as true for young men, because often it's couples that we're trying to support. So we need to introduce flexibility, both in the time frames in which people have to do their research and to get their tenure, but also the kind of support systems.

We also have to make sure that we support their science. There's clear evidence that women don't get the same levels of support in terms of equipment, in terms of access to grants, in terms of honors and awards.

GWEN IFILL: And on campuses themselves, that is where this problem has to be undertaken first?

DONNA SHALALA: Absolutely. It's the leaders of America's research universities and our department chairs and our faculties, in particular, that have to understand and read this report carefully, understand what's going on. If they want to be excellent, if they want to be competitive, then they don't want to leave out any talent.

This report is about excellence. It's about this nation continuing to be competitive for the very best science in the world and the very best scientists.

GWEN IFILL: Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami, thank you very much.

DONNA SHALALA: You're welcome.