Jiaxiong Li Week 2 S2

The article that caught the most attention from me this week was "Injustice against Women of Color in the Academy" by Jane Junn, Mai'a K., and David Cross. In the reading, some statistics of tenure application success rates were shown saying that Asian American Women have the lowest rate of obtaining tenure compared to those of other races at USC. The study seemed credible because it followed numerous cases of people throughout the period of 14 years. At this point, the tenure success rate discrepancy between people of Caucasian descent and people of color is not even surprising anymore. There should be an outrage at this consistency of discrimination across many fields, not only high education. The article also said that USC does not make tenure decisions public, which makes it harder for people to find out about what they do in the background. This type of tenure review is called a "black box" review, because it shuts out any outside eyes looking in. There were multiple accounts of the university breaking its own rules while it determined tenure status for certain staff.  So many instances where USC confided in discriminatory practices makes me sick, but USC definitely are not the only ones that conduct in these practices. To solve these issues, the most basic step is to eliminate this "black box" procedure at all universities, and allow the tenure review procedure to be examined and facilitated by a third party.

Works Cited

“Where Should We Draw the Line Between Rejecting and Embracing Black Box AI?” Singularity Hub, 18 Apr. 2019, singularityhub.com/2019/04/17/in-defense-of-black-box-ai/.
Junn, Jane, et al. “Injustice against Women of Color in the Academy.” UC Davis Canvas Discovery, canvas.ucdavis.edu/courses/392140/files/folder/Weekly Readings/Week2?preview=6318931.