Reduce Prestige Bias and Inequity in Faculty Hiring: UC the Solution?

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Executive Summary

Academic hiring practices today have a troubling tendency to favor candidates from elite institutions, creating significant inequity gaps for those who aspire to participate in academia. This “prestige bias” has far-reaching effects, contributing to underrepresentation of University of California (UC) PhDs across faculty, disproportionate funding allocation regardless of research merit, and a systemic research publication bias. To help address these issues and promote greater diversity within academia, the University of California UC should take a leading role in promoting faculty appointment diversity and working to combat the negative effects of prestige bias.

Key Findings

• The lack of standardization in the faculty hiring process has led to problems of major inequity due to institutional prestige bias.
• Prestige bias mitigation should be studied systematically to see effectiveness of these strategies for academic institutions.
• The University of California System should enforce the omitting of names of institutions to ensure faculty are getting hired based on the merits of the research.

Introduction

American universities often tout “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” as a selling point to provide a valuable educational experience. However, despite progress, various systemic obstacles still undermine these principles and prevent people from diverse backgrounds from pursuing postsecondary education and faculty positions (Fine, 2010). One major obstacle that needs to be considered is the issue of prestige bias in the academic system, the preference of high social position, reputation, and knowledge (in this case university branding/ranking). A study conducted across three different fields found that individuals holding positions at the top 15% of institutions tend to maintain their prestige level, while those at the other 85% of institutions experience much less stable employment. This frequent job turnover often makes it harder to climb up the academic ladder, with only 25% of doctoral schools generating 71–86% of tenure track faculty (Clauset et al., 2015). This problem of prestige bias has been observed consistently across all departments in universities.

Figure 1: Percentage of US-trained faculty members vs percentage of U.S institutions (Source: Sugimoto)

The current state of faculty hiring sustains inequity in other aspects of academia. According to a study conducted by the NIH on inequality in grant funding, 70% of funding goes to the top 10% of institutions (Lauer, 2021). Within individual principal investigators, those that are in prestigious institutions, will get 240% more dollars than the average investigator (Wahls, 2018). Consequently, research funding, regardless of merit, tends to be allocated to prestigious institutions, limiting diversity in research. This is particularly concerning for clinical-based studies, as it could potentially skew research towards majority demographics in both gender and race, thereby failing to benefit a diverse body.

Another form of inequity is also evident in journal publications. More recently, a study by Wellmon et al. found that only 25% of US institutions produce 84–89% of articles. This statistic is even more striking when noted that the top 3% of institutions yielded half of those articles in the top four humanities journals (Wellmon, 2015). Even older studies indicate when published psychology journal articles were resubmitted under an institution with “less prestige”, the rejection rate of those articles were 80% (Bartko, 2010). The problem at hand follows a cyclical pattern within elite institutions. Faculty members hired by elite institutions benefit from amplified funding and greater flexibility when it comes to their research publications, which concurrently boosts the prestige and ranking of the institution. Consequently, their publications play a crucial role in attracting additional funding opportunities, thereby perpetuating this self-reinforcing cycle (Rawat, 2014; Madhukarpai, 2020; Brainard, 2021).

Figure 2: NIH funding comparing top 10% of institutions vs the bottom 50%, modified graph from Lauer.

Current Landscape

Although quantitative and qualitative studies suggest that prestige bias heavily influences faculty hiring, there are still no standard practices for faculty recruitment in the United States. This lack of structure may allow hiring to fall prey to committee preference, rather than relying on statistical merit (Lewis, 2020). This leads to an overrepresentation of upper-class White faculty members in prestigious universities (Chappa, 2023). Unfortunately, there are limited studies on the effectiveness of mitigating prestige bias. The few studies that do exist tend to focus on individual and isolated groups, rather than institutions as a whole (Culpepper, 2020).

Figure 3a (top): UC Faculty composition based on institutional ranking. Figure 3b: (bottom): UC Faculty composition based on self hire vs non-self hire. Information compiled from UC individual campuses chemistry department site. Scimagoir was used to determine rankings of chemistry departments in U.S institutions.

Preliminary results indicate that, on average, more than 50% of faculty in a particular department across all UCs come from prestigious institutions. This trend is expected to be consistent across other departments as well. In terms of self-hires, where faculty members are recruited from within the same institution, the data reveals that only 7.68% of faculty fall under this category. It is noteworthy that out of the ten campuses, only three rank within the top 10% of U.S. institutions, highlighting an underrepresentation of other institutions, including the remaining UCs, in terms of faculty composition (Scimagoir, 2022).

Policy Recommendations

It is recommended that the University of California (UC) Board of Regents and the Office of the President (UCOP) make necessary changes to faculty hiring practices, as they play a crucial role in promoting academic excellence and diversity. The UC system was chosen for its significant sphere of influence over individual campuses and other academic institutions. The studies earlier mentioned indicate that one or two UC campuses are directly benefiting from prestige bias, while ten UC campuses serve similar roles as major research centers without enjoying these benefits. This impedes the UC’s ability to contribute to the economic value of the state, particularly when diverse faculty applicants are discouraged from applying to other UC campuses due to the reasons listed above (Bove, 2016). Therefore, it is essential for the UC system to address and mitigate the issue of prestige bias in faculty hiring to create a more equitable and diverse academic environment.

• UCOP and the Board of Regents should fund systematic studies on mitigating bias in faculty hiring. Pro: Provides essential information that can be used to instill future policies to mitigate prestige bias. Con: This is long term study that will require years before applicable data can be used.
• Encourage redacting names of institutions when overseeing grant applications and faculty applications. Pro: Redacting institutions name would mean applications would have to be judge on research merit rather than credentials. Cons: While this is a major step, other processes such as interview and publication bias can creep prestige bias.
• Prior to posting a faculty position, set quantifiable and justifiable standards for research merit to report to an oversight committee in the college to ensure that potential candidates are shown what is the basis that they are hired upon. Pros: Instills transparency so that every candidate is judged on a standardized rubric. Cons: Will require oversight from a non-hiring department thus taking more time and resources to hire.
• Encourage a diverse body for the hiring committee in departments and colleges. Pros: Different perspectives mean higher potential of diverse hires. Cons: Since faculty are still predominantly white, male; it can be difficult for some universities to set up diverse hiring committees.
• Similar to a jury, if the applicant has any prior connections to or collaborations with the faculty members at the hiring institution, the faculty member should recuse themselves to ensure fair and unbiased judgment. Pros: Provides candidates who are not well connected a more fair opportunity in hiring. Cons: Due to the well connected aspect of academia that might be difficult to implement.

Conclusion

The policy recommendations that have been laid out are solutions help mitigate prestige bias to ensure diversity of opinion in the workplace. The UC’s are advantageous to lay the framework for prestige bias mitigation as they have the resources to conduct long institutional studies and use the data for long term policy recommendations.

Acknowledgements

Thank you Raisa Rahim and Hannah Butram for helping with the editing process of this brief.

Supplemental Information

Figure 4: Individual UC campuses faculty composition based on institutional ranking

Figure 5: Individual UC campuses faculty composition based on self hire vs non-self hire

Ranking of chemistry department compiled from Scimagoir in year 2022.