Battle of Ann Arbor

"You go to coffee with men, you go to meetings with men, but you never spend any time with women. You don't know anything about women! And that's the problem!" Thus an angry law student recently berated University of Michigan President Robben Fleming. Lest Fleming miss the point, a woman representing the "Ad Hoc Committee Concerned That President Fleming Does Not Meet with Women" sat outside the president's office for a week, earnestly recording the sex and other vital statistics of his predominantly male visitors.

The "Fleming Follow" is only one of a score of tactical maneuvers that have been executed by University of Michigan women in their three-year battle against sex discrimination on the Ann Arbor campus. Despite their determined efforts, the U. of M. women seem to be engaged not so much in a war of the sexes as in a slow dance--two steps forward, one step back.

In 1970 Michigan became the first university to have federal funds withheld by HEW on charges of sex discrimination. Threatened with the loss of as much as $3.5 million, the university reluctantly agreed to an "affirmative action plan." But it has moved slowly in fulfilling its promises to end discrimination, and last month HEW investigators were once again in Ann Arbor demanding answers to charges that the university has still not complied with HEW guidelines. With the university's replies finally in hand, HEW is expected to produce a report on the U. of M. that could affect the status of women on campuses across the nation.

The report on the "Fleming Follow" is already in, complete with mock-scientific charts detailing who went in the front door and who went in the back. The tally: of 124 visitors only 21 were women. The composite caller? "Male, white, 50-60 years old...dressed in a blue suit...balding...somewhat out of condition...either ignoring the secretaries or flirting with them, exhibiting an air of self-confidence and likely to remove his coat at some point of the meeting." Such lampoonery, explains Pringle Smith, editor of the business school magazine and a member of the ad hoc committee, is an unexpected result of continued discrimination. "A lot of bright women are in dull, repetitive jobs here, so they spend their spare time thinking up creative things." Among the things is a framed flower-bedecked watercolor sign reading TAKE A WOMAN TO LUNCH. It was a gift to Fleming from campus women, and now hangs in his office. The women also persuaded Fleming to attend several of their seminars, including a "role reversal" slide show. In the show, a male student who wanted to become a doctor was told to "go into nursing" because "marriage and fatherhood will probably change you"; a boy who asked, "Why do we study just the history of women? Didn't men do anything?" was answered, "Yes, but they have played mainly a supportive role." "Touche," said the beleaguered president. "I think he is educable," said Pringle Smith.

Indeed some progress has been made. A women's commission has been established, a "file review" of faculty salaries resulted in raises for more than 100 women, and there is now a grievance committee for nonteaching staff. A new policy of advertising academic openings has helped circumvent the "old-boy net" system of hiring, in which department heads (invariably male) ask other department heads for recommendations. A study by a management consultant firm, commissioned by the administration, found major discrimination against women (70% of those with salaries below the minimum set for their category by the consultant firm were women), and recommended pay increases that would amount to $350,000, if and when implemented. ("Soon," promises the university.)

Myths. Trouble is, say the women at U. of M, even those innovations are often sidestepped by a recalcitrant administration. Grievance procedures are slow and cumbersome, and women find it extremely difficult to get the necessary data (such as salary figures) to support their cases. Despite promises to do so, the university has granted back pay because of discrimination in only one case. Although the school will make an effort to determine whether some faculty women are still underpaid for their present rank, it still refuses to consider whether they are underranked because of their sex.

The biggest stumbling block, the women contend, is the sometimes unconscious discrimination evident in male attitudes. Now, when they think they find that kind of discrimination, the U. of M. women immediately challenge it. Part-Time Student Claire Jeannette, appointed to the university staff as "women's advocate," was in a classroom when a professor, in speaking of "the face that launched a thousand ships," commented, "Personally, I've never seen a piece of stuff that looked that good." Jeannette objected to the remark and the professor conceded, "You're right. I'm sorry, dear." ("I should have answered, Thanks, darling,'" says Jeannette.) When an economics professor said, "Men work overtime because women make them," she demanded documentation, adding: "I suggest that you don't perpetuate myths unless you have the facts to back them up."

The battle has even been carried to the pages of the University Record, the official news organ of the university, which recently printed a poem submitted by James Crump Jr. of the Far Eastern Languages department:

I think that I prefer to see A chairperson who is womanly And, if the choice were up to me, A freshperson who's a comely she.

Replied Meryl Johnson, a female research curator at Michigan's Kelsey Museum:

Indeed we share Your appetite for golden hair And shapely figures slim and trim And do admire a comely him, But keep our minds upon our work And tolerate each shapeless jerk Outranking us in pay and powers Who would demand we all be flowers.

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