News-Letter

The results of a study recently released by the Diversity Leadership Council (DLC) indicate that minority and female employees of Johns Hopkins view their workplace experience less positively than white men. It is one of the first-ever comprehensive sets of data for Hopkins employees that report some form of discrimination.

Called the Diversity Climate Survey, it was sent out to 13,000 Hopkins employees in March of 2006, with over 8,000 responding; analysis began last fall. There were four versions, with a specific set of questions each for the University, the School of Medicine, the Johns Hopkins Health System, and the Applied Physics Laboratory.

When asked, "Overall, how satisfied are you with the climate at your school/division," only 35 percent of black employees answered "satisfied" or "very satisfied," compared to 73 percent of whites, 72 percent of Latinos, and 59 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders who replied in agreement.

"The DLC had anticipated via conversations and meetings with various JHU constituent bodies and groups over several years that there were some disparities expressed by minorities and women," James Calvin, chairman of the DLC's Climate Survey Committee and associate professor in the Department of Management at the Carey Business School, said.

"The University's administration is taking the results of the survey seriously. They send a clear message that there is work to be done to improve the Hopkins experience for people of color generally and African Americans particularly," Charlene Moore Hayes, vice president for Human Resources at the University, said.

Academic deans within each school are utilizing data from the Climate Survey to develop plans for doing just that. Hayes herself recently attended a retreat during which representatives from the School of Medicine met with black and Latino faculty and students to address issues raised by the discrepancies in satisfaction along racial lines.

President Brody has appointed a Commission on Equity, Civility and Respect to make recommendations for dealing with the problem of reduced minority workplace satisfaction at Hopkins.

"We suspected that we have significant room for improvement. Some of the actions since then (diversity training, curricular changes, etc.) are meant to help the University improve across the spectrum of Hopkins students, faculty, and staff in all divisions," President Brody said.

"While I don't expect to see policy changes as a result of this work, I do expect that our practices will reflect an ongoing effort to ensure inclusiveness and that the campus experience will be much more positive for our faculty, staff, and students," Hayes said.

"The survey is enabling for individual schools and institutes because leadership can analyze it and make plans and engage their people to address issues," said Calvin.

A female African-American security guard who wished to remain anonymous did not report discrimination based on race or sex while working here. Rather, her complaints centered around the fact that guards do not get convenient lunch hours and cannot gather in one place to eat like food workers.

When presented with the question, "Overall, how satisfied are you with your experience at Johns Hopkins," barely more than half of black University employees responded with "satisfied" or "very satisfied," compared to 85 percent of white employees, 78 percent of Latinos, and 60 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders.

Higher percentages of men selected "very satisfied" or "strongly agree," while a higher portion of women were only "satisfied" or just "agreed" that they are satisfied with some aspect of their employment at the Homewood campus.

A significantly large number of employees do not believe that workplace guidelines are applied consistently at the University. In response to the statement "Workplace policies, practices, and procedures are applied consistently at JHU," only 45 percent of respondents agreed or strongly agreed. 11 percent fewer women agreed with that statement than men.

When presented with the statement, "My colleagues treat me with civility," a significant majority of whites and Latinos responded with "agree" or "strongly agree," whereas only 50 percent of blacks and 58 percent of Asian/Pacific Islanders concurred with that sentiment.

In total, the Diversity Climate Survey indicated that 77 percent of University employees are satisfied to some degree with their experience working here overall.

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