Long time PSA member and Past President, Jodi O'Brien, was offered the position of dean at Marquette University. The President of Marquette later rescinded the offer. You can read more about this controversy at the following links.
Statement from PSA President, Past President and President Elect below.
State from from ASA President below.
Members of the association are encourage to send a letter of concern and support as well.
Letter from PSA Presidential Officers
May 9, 2010
Rev. Robert A. Wild, S.J.
Office of the President
Zilber Hall 441
Marquette University
Milwaukee, WI 53201
Dear President Wild:
We are writing to you to express our concern over your decision to rescind your university’s offer to hire Dr. Jodi O’Brien as dean.
We three are currently serving as past-president, president, and president-elect of the Pacific Sociological Association. We write to you not as representatives of the PSA membership, but as individuals who have been inspired by Dr. O’Brien’s leadership as a past president of this organization.
In our experience, Jodi O’Brien is a respected scholar and a brilliant and inspiring leader. When we learned some weeks ago that Marquette University had hired Dr. O’Brien as dean, we were impressed with the university’s smart and forward-looking decision. Now, as you have rescinded the hire, we can only wonder if you have buckled to voices of fear and exclusion.
We urge you listen to your colleagues who saw the same things in Jodi O’Brien that we see in her, and reverse your position on this matter.
Sincerely,
Michael A. Messner
Professor of Sociology and Chair of Gender Studies
University of Southern California
Immediate past president, Pacific Sociological Association
Sharon Araji
Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology
University of Colorado Denver,
President, Pacific Sociological Association
Beth Schneider
Professor of Sociology and Chair, Academic Senate Committee
on Diversity and Equity
University of California, Santa Barbara
President-elect Pacific Sociological Association
American Sociological Association
1430 K Street NW, Suite 600 (202) 383-9005 executive.office@asanet.org
Washington, DC 20005 (202) 638-0882 fax www.asanet.org
(202) 638-0981 tdd
May 12, 2010
Reverend Robert Wild, S.J., President
Dr. John Pauly, Provost
Marquette University
Zilber Hall
PO Box 1881
Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881
By Fax: 414-228-3161
414-288-7664
Dear President Wild and Provost Pauly:
As President of the American Sociological Association (ASA), I am
profoundly concerned about your decision to rescind your offer to
sociologist Dr. Jodi O’Brien to become Dean of the College of Arts and
Sciences at Marquette University.
The ASA is the national scholarly society for American sociologists with
a national and international membership of over 14,000 most of whom
are employed in the academy. The ASA has a long-standing record of
rejecting any policies or actions in the academy that disqualify
candidates who are pursuing scholarly inquiry that is recognized as
legitimate within their disciplines. The Code of Ethics of the American
Sociological Association and the explicit policies of our Association also
reject any exclusion on the basis age; gender; race; ethnicity; national
origin; religion; sexual orientation; disability; health conditions;
marital, domestic, or parental status. We regard these standards to
reflect the fundamental principles of academic freedom and the core
mission of higher education in both scholarship and teaching.
We condemn the action of Marquette University’s senior officials in
rescinding its offer to Dr. O’Brien. By doing so, Marquette University
appears to have violated its own non-discrimination policy as well as
the principles of free inquiry that govern all great universities.
As a scientific discipline, sociology seeks to develop theoretical and
empirical understanding of complex social structures and social
processes through research and scholarship. This often means that
sociologists’ legitimate lines of inquiry take them into areas that can be
fraught with cultural and social conflict. The scholarship of sociology,
however, cannot abandon these areas; indeed, in its search to
contribute to learning and social well-being, sociology explicitly
promotes the vitality and diversity of research within our discipline. The
ASA has 50 special interest sections as part of our organizational
structure that reflect this diversity. From sections on Peace, War, and
Social Conflict and the Sociology of Education, to a section-in-formation
on Altruism and Social Solidarity and the Section on the Sociology of
Religion, to the long-standing Section on Sex and Gender and the
Section on Sexualities, these intellectual communities reflect areas of
active sociological scholarship. As the publisher of nine major scholarly
journals in sociology, the ASA includes high-quality, peer-reviewed
research in all these areas of scientific inquiry.
As a major institution of higher education, Marquette University should
acknowledge the professional and personal harm it has done to Dr.
O’Brien by rescinding its offer to her. Similarly, the university should
recognize that, by its action, Marquette has broken the principles of
academic freedom and professional collegiality and damaged the
university’s own stature as an institution of higher education.
As President of the American Sociological Association, I request that
Marquette University affirm its dedication to non-discrimination and
principles of academic freedom by extending an invitation to Dr. Jodi
O’Brien to be Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences that includes a
statement that the University desires her leadership. We are hopeful
that Marquette may still have the privilege of having this outstanding
sociologist within its community of scholars and leaders.
Sincerely yours,
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, PhD
President, American Sociological Association
Director, Center for Race and Gender, and
Professor, Gender and Women’s Studies and Ethnic Studies
University of California, Berkeley
