Recently, a woman was turned down for tenure, so she filed a lawsuit claiming that she’d been rejected because of poor student evaluations. Of course, it couldn’t be that the students didn’t think much of her teaching — it had to be rooted in sexism!
What should we make of the argument that student evaluations are unreliable due to sexism? Not much, argues professor Bruce Gilley in today’s Martin Center article.
Gilley writes:
In August, the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) filed an amicus brief alongside the faculty union of Nevada public universities in support of the gender-discrimination claims of Alice Wieland, a former University of Nevada, Reno, business professor. Wieland, whose research is on gender discrimination, claimed that her tenure committee based its decision on her poor teaching evaluations from students, which reflected not her teaching but widespread sexism against women. The lower court tossed the case out on summary judgement. Wieland appealed, and the AAUP jumped in.
The judge who dismissed the case obviously had a good sense for silly litigation, but the legal battle will continue for a bit longer. I’d guess that the appellate court will uphold the dismissal and would undoubtedly do so if the judges read Gilley’s article. He demolishes the AAUP’s argument.
Among the judge’s sharp observations: “Further, what would be the negative effects on teaching on a campus with no accountability mechanisms at all? In other words, what sorts of “bias” would be introduced into the university classroom if students had little or no say in evaluating their instructors? Why should faculty biases about whom to put in the classroom outweigh student biases about whom to learn from?”
Wieland’s case is also undermined by the fact, Gilley notes, that other women have been granted tenure at the same institution, probably because they’ve performed better.
Student evaluations have their faults (mainly that students tend to give high ratings to profs who are easy and fun and low ones to profs who are demanding), but the notion that they’re biased against women is absurd.