Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard

The Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard was formed by members of the Radcliffe Class of 1953 in 1988, and chaired by Margaretta (Peggy) Schmertzler. They were later joined by members of the class of 1958, and incorporated in 1993 with the goals of advancing women's equality at Harvard and increasing the number of tenured women faculty. The committee issued annual reports and recommendations on the status of women, entered into dialogue with Harvard administration, alumni, faculty, and students, and gained broad media coverage. They instituted the Harvard Woman Junior Fellowship (1993) at the Bunting Institute and established an escrow account (1995) to enable donors to protest gender inequity while giving to Harvard. They sponsored faculty/student panels, developed a newsletter, "Update," and held a conference, "Women in Research Universities: the Next Quarter Century" to explore ways to integrate women fully into higher education. In June 2002 they released money from their escrow account and helped to raise funds for the Radcliffe Alumnae Professorship, a joint appointment at Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. With improvement in the numbers of tenured women (2003), they turned their attention to issues relating to sexual assault, women's studies, and other concerns of women undergraduates.

Meeting at their respective reunions, alumnae of the Radcliffe Classes of 1953 and 1958 recalled the discrimination they experienced as students and resolved to advance women's equality at Harvard. First, members of the Radcliffe Class of 1953 formed an Ad Hoc Committee to analyze the status of women at Harvard (1988) and in 1993, joined by members of the Class of 1958, they incorporated as the Committee for Equality of Women at Harvard, with the goals of increasing the number of women tenured faculty and working for equity of all women at the university. Included among the board members were Gabriella P. Schlesinger '58, Alice (Acey) Carbonaro Welch '53, co-chairs, Elizabeth Hatfield '58, Cornelia Dimmitt '58, Margaretta (Peggy) B. Schmertzler '53, Ann R. Shapiro '58, Eleanor W. Williams '58, Sunny Yando, Jane Marx '41, Nancy Tobin '49, Lilli Hornig, Ph.D '50, Millie Marnin '58, Jane O'Reilly '58, Deborah Socolar '75, and Phoebe Telser '58. Their organization came to have 2000 Harvard and Radcliffe alumni friends and supporters.

The Committee members issued annual reports charting the status of women at Harvard and other major research universities and publishing comparative data on numbers of senior women faculty, salary levels of women, supply of women Ph.Ds, and proportion of Harvard women undergraduates. They entered into dialogue with the administration, and lobbied women faculty, nominees for the Harvard Board of Overseers, Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates, and alumni, and succeeded in gaining broad media coverage for their findings. They instituted the Harvard Woman Junior Fellowship at the Bunting Institute (1993) to help advance the careers of women junior faculty and established an escrow account, the Harvard Women's Faculty Fund (1995), as a means for donors to protest gender inequity while giving to the Harvard campaign.

They sponsored several student/faculty panels, developed a newsletter, brochures, and publicity material. In 1998 they convened the first national conference that addressed the issues of institutional change required for the full integration of women scholars and students into major research universities. It was sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, with additional support from Albert Gordon '59. In 1999 and 2000 they petitioned for, but failed to obtain, a self-study similar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's study of gender inequity in the Sciences, and in 2001 they sponsored their own survey of women faculty at Harvard University.

In June 2000 they released the money in their escrow account to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (the successor to Radcliffe College) and, with Ellen LaFollette '54 who had raised money from alumnae groups in California, launched a campaign for a joint professorship at the Radcliffe Institute and Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. With a matching grant from Harvard, they endowed the professorship (2002) and helped endow a new junior faculty fellowship.

The appointment of Drew Gilpin Faust as Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2001) and installation of a new administration at Harvard (2002) led to more cordial relations with both administrations. The report of the Committee (2003) noted improvement in the status of women faculty and a new focus on sexual assault policy, the development of women's studies, and other issues relating to undergraduate women.