By her own account, Fisher is the unlikeliest of political crusaders. ““I’ve always been a scientist and just wanted to work in my lab and teach in the classroom,’’ she says. ““Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have dreamed of myself in this position. But my husband and I are both Quakers, and there reaches a point at which you can’t sit back and take it anymore.’’ That ““point’’ was many years in the making – an experience familiar to other women teachers who’ve had trouble making it in the hard sciences. As a younger woman, Fisher got her Ph.D. in zoology from Rutgers University and did postdoctorate work there at the medical school. When she was 33, after a long period of trying unsuccessfully to have their own child, she and her husband adopted an infant daughter, then another. One almost died from a severe illness. Fisher herself contracted hepatitis, then suffered a slipped disc. ““There was no way I was going back to work in this period,’’ Fisher says. ““I was taking care of my family.’’ Her husband was and still is a statistics professor at nearby Union College. (He handled all the statistical evidence for his wife’s case.)
In 1973, when she was 41, Fisher took a part-time job teaching biology at Marist College in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. ““This was my introduction to discrimination,’’ she says. ““I asked for a dishwasher in the lab so I wouldn’t have to clean up after 100 students. They deducted the $400 from my $2,000 pay. I was told, “You don’t need a salary. Your husband has one’.’’ Four years later she went off to Vassar as a visiting professor. Fisher says she was shocked at the experience of another biology teacher, who had an abortion to try to protect her tenure prospects. (That woman, who was referred to in last week’s court decision, was not promoted and left academia.) ““I didn’t want to get involved in the politics,’’ Fisher says. ““I was good at my job, and I figured they would be fools to get rid of me.''
She went on to receive two prestigious grants from the National Science Foundation, favorable reviews of her published scholarship and positive evaluations from students. Nonetheless, in 1985, she was denied tenure – in large part because the biology department believed her eight years away from the field left her behind in knowledge. The chairman admitted as much on the witness stand during the trial.
In a 102-page opinion last week, U.S. district Judge Constance Baker Motley found a clear pattern of unlawful bias. ““The persistent fixation of the biology department’s senior faculty on a married woman’s pre-Vassar family choices reflects the acceptance of a stereotype and bias – that a woman with an active and ongoing family life cannot be a productive scientist,’’ Motley wrote. In the 30 years prior to Fisher’s review, the judge found that no married woman at Vassar had been awarded tenure in the ““hard sciences,’’ whereas many married men had. (One married woman was promoted in 1983 in the psychology department.) Motley ruled that Fisher was entitled to a tenured position, along with double pay for the past nine years (close to $1 million).
Critics of Motley’s decision say it tramples on the academic freedom of colleges and universities, insinuating courts into the realm of hiring and promotion. That kind of judicial second-guessing has become commonplace in the corporate universe in the last decade, and discrimination claims – lost and won – have largely become a cost of doing business. But courts have traditionally deferred to the academy, and that is why Motley’s ruling has schools worried. ““Fisher isn’t qualified to get tenure, and this decision doesn’t change that,’’ says John Donoghue, one of Vassar’s lawyers.
After she left Vassar, Fisher says, she was blacklisted in the scientific community. Because she liked working with people, she went on to get a master’s degree in social work, which led to her current position. Vassar says it will vigorously pursue an appeal, a process that could take years. Fisher insists she won’t settle for anything less than her old job back. ““I’ve loved biology since I was a child visiting the wilds of Canada,’’ she says. ““I want to go back to my research and teaching.’’ Even if she’s well into her 60s at that point. ““Vassar may discriminate,’’ Fisher says with a smile, ““but at least they don’t have early retirement anymore.''
