A group of women academics at University College Dublin has accused the college of "direct discrimination against women" in its appointment of associate professors. The academics have sent a letter to all members of the Governing Authority, which meets today, asking them not to approve the university's 1997-98 recommendations for promotion.
They express "dismay at the gender imbalance" in the proposed promotions. They accuse UCD of being in breach of both the Employment Equality Act and of the Universities Act, which says it is an object of the university "to promote gender balance and equality of opportunity".
The letter is signed by eight lecturers, including Dr Attracta Ingram, head of the human rights centre; Dr Mary Kelly of the sociology department; Dr Kathleen Lynch, head of the equality studies centre; and Ms Ailbhe Smyth, head of the women studies department.
They say they have found "substantial evidence that a number of unsuccessful female applicants are better qualified for promotion on the specified criteria than the successful male applicants".
They point out that this year only one out of 20 associate professor posts has been given to a woman, although women made up nearly one in five of the candidates.
In the arts faculty, 35 per cent of the candidates were women, but not a single woman was recommended for promotion. All the posts allocated were given to men, the second year running that this has happened.
At senior lecturer level, 31 per cent of the applicants were women, but just 20 per cent of women were recommended for promotion. In the medical faculty four of the six applicants were women but the one post allocated was to a man.
The lecturers point out that most of the faculty nominating boards making these recommendations contain no women.
The board with the largest number of women is the arts faculty board, which has two out of 11. The College Promotions Board, which makes the final decision, contains seven men and two women.
In a briefing document accompanying the letter, the academics say the worst situation is in the arts faculty. Seventy seven per cent of all female applicants for associate professor posts came from this faculty, and "the fact that no woman has been promoted in Arts to this grade means that a large body of women are experiencing exclusion from senior posts".
In the medical faculty, "although over one fifth of the candidates for associate professorship posts have been women in both 1996-97 and 1997-98, no woman has been promoted in either year".
Over the past two years, 28 of the 30 associate professor jobs in the university have gone to men, says the briefing paper.
An accompanying piece of research compares the career records of one high-flying woman lecturer, who has not been promoted, to four men who have.
This woman has written, has had accepted for publication, or has edited 12 books, compared with seven books for the four men combined.
She has done research reports for eight national commissions and government departments and has over twice as many post-graduate research students as the man closest to her.
In a statement yesterday, UCD's Office of Public Affairs said a new promotions board would take up office at the beginning of the next academic year and would "review procedures for promotions within the university".