A Look At The Salk Institute Since Gender Discrimination Settlements

Speaker 1: 00:00 Venerable Salk institute in La Jolla were shaking in recent years by gender discrimination lawsuits in 2017, three of the just for women among socks, 32 full professors filed suit. They claim the institute was an old boys club that restricted women when it came to funding lab resources and influence gender discrimination within top US bio science institutions was explored in depth this week in the New York Times Sunday magazine. And joining me via Skype is the author of that article, Mallory Picot, she's a Los Angeles based journalist who writes about science, the environment and technology. Mallory, welcome to midday edition. Speaker 2: 00:39 How do you think so much for having me? Speaker 1: 00:41 Well, for this story, you look back at the Salk institutions, uh, in the decades leading up to last year's gender discrimination lawsuits. Give us a sense of what you learned about what it was like to be a female scientist at sock. Over the years Speaker 2: 00:54 I learned from speaking with the three women who filed lawsuits and several other, um, you know, former female faculty. What I heard, and this was actually echoed by a lot of male faculty as well, was that there was basically a sort of small group of male faculty who had a disproportionate amount of power at the institute, especially over private funding. They seem to benefit the most from a lot of the, the private donations that the salt got. Um, and the women faculty, uh, felt very excluded from the centers of power and weren't able to get access to the resources they needed for their, their labs to really grow and thrive. Speaker 1: 01:37 And we should mention the gender discrimination lawsuits against the sock had been subtle. Now you were able to interview the women before the settlements, including a biochemist Beverly Emerson. Tell us more about what she experienced. Speaker 2: 01:49 Yeah. Um, what she experienced. Um, and you know, her, her experiences were really similar to the other two women who, um, also settled, um, was a few different things. Um, partly what I mentioned, the not having the same sort of connections to donors that a lot of the senior male faculty, especially the sort of select group, um, some people called them the gang of five. Um, they had more private relationships with donors from, from Doctor Emerson's perspective. It seemed like they were being matched with donors by the fundings office more than her, her female colleagues where she says that, um, she was asked to fire some of her employees and downsize her lab even though, um, she, she did have some funding and she felt that she had enough funding to, to support those employees. Speaker 1: 02:40 No, there was a lot of optimism that things might change. When Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn took over as president of the salt. What happened? Speaker 2: 02:48 Well, it's hard to know exactly what happened because of the ongoing lawsuit. It's feminized reporting and also because afterwards President Blackburn and, and some other people currently at the salt didn't want to speak to me. Um, but from the perspective of, of Dr. Emerson and, and the other women that I spoke to, it seems like she just wasn't able to change the, the fundamental dynamics of the salt. I think that they had a lot of confidence that, that she tried, but she wasn't able to really make a difference in the power structure and the way it was run. Speaker 1: 03:25 And as you point out in your story in the New York Times magazine, it's not just a salt problem and it happens at other elite scientific institutions, right? Speaker 2: 03:33 Yeah. I mean, it's hard to say exactly what happens or what the particular dynamics are at different institutions, but the outcomes seem to be very similar, especially at at other small private research institutions that I looked at. But in general, you see a big drop off of women, you know, women earn more than half of the PHD's and biological sciences and yet are really underrepresented as senior faculty at research institutions and universities. Um, so whatever the particular dynamics already, each place, it seems likely that there's, you know, implicit bias and issues with support for, for women having children. And different things like that. But the outcome is the same, that there are fewer and fewer women. You know, the further up you go, the the ladder of academic science Speaker 1: 04:18 and what's being done now, uh, to address gender discrimination and sexism in the scientific research community. Speaker 2: 04:25 Um, there's a lot, and I'm glad you asked because you know, a lot of this wasn't able to make it into the piece, but I spoke with a lot of researchers who work on studying sort of bias and the structural things that are driving women out and they found that it might sound sort of silly or that kind of thing that you feel like, oh, you, you have to do it. And what's the point? But actual diversity sort of trainings and trainings on implicit bias can really help people be aware that, you know, when you're reviewing a resume, it's possible that there's a subconscious part of your brain that is going to prefer the resume with the male name versus a female name, or assign a higher status to the person with the male name. So if some of the things that can really help our mentorship programs and support for academic couples, scientists are often married to other scientists, but it can be really hard to give to people in a couple of job and women are more likely to make the sacrifice of, of not getting academic job that they want. Um, so support for academic couples and of course, you know, child care and support for, for women who want to have a child during their scientific career Speaker 1: 05:29 can make a difference. No, the Salk institute is admitted, no liability in connection with the recent settlements. What's a happened at salt since the, uh, the lawsuit Speaker 2: 05:39 they have hired? Um, and you know, I can't say this was because of loss of some of these hires were already in process, but there are some new women that they've hired a, the rank of full professor. There are several women who have just been promoted to full professor, which is really notable because there had been no woman had gone through the ranks all the way and been promoted to full professor since Dr. Emerson was, which I believe was in 1999. Um, but, so that's really notable. And um, you know, I spoke to one woman who's a current postdoc there and she says that she feels like there are more conversations about these kinds of issues that are happening and also that the, the Salk institute is making an effort within the institute and publicly facing to really showcase the work of, of the many female scientists that they do have their, um, and, and the work that they're doing. Speaker 2: 06:28 The, the main point that I wanted to make, and what I hope people will take away from the Salk story is that, for example, you know, Dr. Emerson and Dr. Jones, when they began at Salk in the 80s, they sort of had this feeling that things were going to get better. They were hired, they could see that there was maybe a sexist culture there, but they just expected that that time would fix that. And as more women joined the institute, that would change. And I sort of take away from speaking to them. And the other academic scientists I spoke to, an institution can't really expect just sort of time or even a larger number of of women being hired to really fix a systemic issues or to just sort of naturally lead to inequality. Like it really takes active work to lead to real equality in the system. I've been speaking with Los Angeles journalist, Mallory picket, who writes about science, the environment, technology. Thanks Mallory. Thank you so much.