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Distributed May 28, 1992
Contact Mark Nickel


News
Announced at Commencement
Lamphere Consent Decree is vacated; Brown cited as a national leader

Chief Judge Francis J. Boyle of the U.S. District Court in Providence granted a petition to terminate the Lamphere Consent Decree. The University and members of a class representing all current and future female professors at Brown had jointly petitioned the court to terminate the decree, which had governed faculty hiring and promotion at Brown for 14 years.


At Brown University’s 224th Commencement exercises Monday, May 25, 1992, President Vartan Gregorian informed more than 15,000 faculty, students, parents and alumni that a 14-year-old consent decree under which the University had made its decisions in the hiring and promotion of faculty had been vacated.

The Lamphere Decree, named for Louise Lamphere, a former anthropology professor who brought suit in 1977 alleging sexual discrimination in hiring and advancement to tenure, established procedures whereby the University would increase the number of tenured and non-tenured women on its faculty. The decree, which settled that class-action suit out of court, also provided a succession of goals and time tables to measure the University’s progress toward full utilization and representation of women on its faculty, based on the pool of qualified women for tenured and non-tenured positions.

Shortly before Commencement Weekend, the University and a group of women faculty representing all current and future women faculty members at Brown, jointly petitioned the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island to terminate the decree. The University asserted that it had complied with all affirmative action procedures of the Lamphere Decree, including goals and time tables. Class representatives for women faculty told the court “that in the fourteen years of the Decree’s existence, Brown has become a leader, among the universities to which it is most commonly compared, in the recruitment and hiring of tenured and non-tenured women faculty.” The University more than quintupled the number of tenured women on its faculty during the 14 years the decree was in effect.

The petition to terminate the decree was granted by Chief Judge Francis J. Boyle late Friday afternoon, May 22, 1992. Gregorian’s announcement, ironically, came during the ceremony which closed the 1991-92 academic year. During that academic year, Brown celebrated the 100th anniversary of the admission of women to the University.

The hiring and promotion principles embodied in the Lamphere Decree will continue to guide the University, though without the involvement of the court. The University and class representatives jointly developed new procedures for hiring and promotion, and those new procedures have been approved both by the University’s faculty and by the Brown Corporation, the University’s governing body.

Editors: Copies of the May 22 court order terminating the Lamphere Consent Decree are available from the News Bureau as are reprints of a feature article on the legacy of the Lamphere Decree (Brown Alumni Monthly, February 1992).


Composition of Regular Campus Faculty
(As of July 1, 1991)

Tenured

Non-Tenured

Men

Women

Subtotal

Men

Women

Subtotal

Total

Humanities7932111143145156
Life Sciences581674161026100
Physical Sciences127813528331166
Social Sciences781189211738127
 
1991-92 Totals 342 67 409 79 61 140 549
1976-77 Totals 334 12 346 84 40 124 470

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