Is Academia Biased Against White Men? Putting identity above merit
For years, we’ve been told that universities discriminate against women and racial minorities – and that White men are the chief beneficiaries of this biased system. A growing body of research suggests, however, that the reality is now closer to the reverse.
The latest example comes from a new paper by political scientist Scott Desposato. Desposato tracked more than 400 political science PhD students who entered the job market in 2023. His question was whether they’d secured a tenure-track assistant professorship by the following autumn.
Contrary to the conventional wisdom, female and underrepresented-minority candidates were considerably more likely to have done so than non-minority men. Was this because the former had better credentials? Apparently not; the disparity persisted even after statistically controlling for PhD-program rank, publication record, degree status, and academic subfield.
Based on Desposato’s findings, John Holbein on Twitter/X calculated the chances of four hypothetical individuals landing a position: a White man, a White woman, a minority man, and a minority woman. The candidates were identical in every respect, other than their sex and race. As shown in the graph below, the White man had around a one in four chance of getting the job, whereas everyone else had closer to a one in two chance.
How important was identity in determining who got hired? The answer seems to be “very.” Co-authoring a paper in the American Political Science Review – the discipline’s flagship journal – substantially increased a candidate’s chances of securing a position, just as you’d expect. But it didn’t increase their chances nearly as much as simply being female or an underrepresented minority. Only a solo-authored APSR paper was worth more on the job market than these demographic variables.
