Faculty diversity at universities lags behind students: Watchdog

A report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released Tuesday found faculty diversity in higher education is lagging behind student diversity.  

The report, titled “Higher Education: Employment Discrimination Case Referrals between Education and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Could Be Improved,” discovered that while diversity has risen over the years, it still is not on pace with the students that colleges serve.  

In 2021, 8 percent of college faculty were Black compared to the 12 percent of Black students on campuses, according to the GAO. Hispanic faculty made up seven percent while the number of Hispanic students on campuses was 19 percent.  

“Research has shown that faculty diversity plays an important role in student completion and can have a major impact on students’ sense of belonging and retention rates. That is why I asked the GAO to study the state of faculty diversity at institutions of higher education and the hiring and retention policies to promote faculty diversity,” said Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.) Ranking Member for the Education and the Workforce committee.  

“The good news is that faculty diversity has improved over the last twenty years. The bad news is that faculty diversity is still not representative of the students they teach,” he added.  

The GAO also found the Department of Education takes too long to refer discrimination complaints against colleges to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. 

The department says it will refer the complaints within 30 days, but the report found it takes around 71 days on average for the complaints to go to the commission.  

The GAO made two recommendations for this problem: having the department track the timing of referrals and develop a new protocol for receiving and processing complaint referrals.  

The Department of Education has agreed to track the timing but neither agreed nor disagreed to changing protocols.  

“Moreover, the GAO found that the process for faculty to file discrimination claims is not always straightforward or intuitive. And if a faculty member is able to file a claim, it is not always reviewed in a timely manner. I am encouraged that the Administration has agreed to implement the GAO’s recommendations to improve the claims process,” Scott said.