PETITION FOR SENATE ACTION REGARDING BIAS, ON THE PART OF
STUDENTS, AGAINST FACULTY ON THE BASIS OF RACE, ETHNICITY,
AND FOREIGN ACCENT IN STUDENT-BASED COURSE EVALUATIONS
WHEREAS, in keeping with the student-centered philosophy of Saint Mary’s College,
student-based course evaluation of faculty is instrumental in the rank-and-tenure process;
WHEREAS, the Academic Senate has recently entrusted to a task-force the responsibility of
examining the student-based course evaluation process, including corresponding questions
and forms with the aim of making recommendations it deems necessary or desirable in order
to ameliorate the faculty evaluation process, including corresponding questions and forms;
WHEREAS, there is research evincing that student-based course evaluation questions,
processes, and forms result in race-biased evaluations of faculty of color, whether the latter
be male or female1;
WHEREAS, there is research evincing that student-based course evaluation questions,
processes, and forms result in ethnicity-biased evaluations of ethnic faculty, whether the
latter be male or female2;
1 See for example Landon D. Reid, “The Role of Perceived Race and Gender in the Evaluation of College
Teaching on RateMyProfessor.com,” Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, 2010, 3 (No.3): 137-52.
According to the author, the lot of Black faculty is nonpareil, predictably:
Racial minority faculty struggle to be seen as intellectually competent and credible in the
classroom (Nast, 1999; Williams, 2007). Hendrix (1997, 1998) found that students of all
races apply more stringent criteria for credentialing Black faculty as intellectually competent
than they do White faculty. Similarly, Harlow (2003) found that students rarely challenged
the academic credibility of White faculty in the classroom. Conversely, Black faculty, even
those who believed that their race had no effect on how students treated them, reported
having students regularly challenge their intellectual authority and academic competence in
the classroom. A recent study by Ho, Thomsen, and Sidanius (2009) found that students’
perceptions of intellectual competence were a bigger factor in the SETS of Black compared
to White faculty. This was true for both Black and White students and high and low
prejudice students (138).
2 See for example Therese A. Huston, “Race and Gender Bias in Higher Education: Could Faculty Course
Evaluations Impede Progress Toward Parity?” Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Volume 4, Issue 2, Article 34,
5-1-2006. The author has the following to say with respect to race and ethnicity:
Although there are many benefits to using faculty course evaluations, research indicated
that this evaluation practice tends to leave faculty of color at a disadvantage. Several studies
report a main effect on race such that faculty of color received lower course evaluations than
their white peers . . ./ On the issue of racial discrimination, DiPietro and Faye found
WHEREAS, there is research evincing that student-based course evaluation questions,
processes, and forms result in foreign-accent-biased evaluations of faculty who are not native
speakers of English, whether the latter be male or female3;
WHEREAS, in the name of fairness and parity, preventing, minimizing, and /or remedying
bias exercised against faculty of different races (i.e. non-Caucasian), ethnicities (i.e. Asian,
Indian, Latino, Middle-Eastern, etcetera) and native languages must needs be a specific focus
of any revision of questions, processes, and forms pertaining to student-based course
evaluations4;
NOW THEREFORE, the undersigned request that the Academic Senate charge the
aforementioned task-force to examine the issue of bias against Black, Asian, Latino, MiddleEastern, and Native American faculty, among others, as well as bias against foreign-accented
faculty in Saint Mary’s College’s evaluation process, including questions, and forms; and to
make recommendations conducive to preventing, minimizing, and/or remedying such bias.
1. Claude-Rhéal Malary
2. Lino Rivera
that Latina/o faculty received the lowest course evaluations ratings, followed by Asian
American faculty, and white faculty received the highest scores” (598-9).
See also Marilyn Gilroy, “Bias in Student Evaluations of Faculty?” The Hispanic Outlook in Higher
Education 17.19 (Jul 2, 2007): 26-7.
3 In Huston’s words: “On the issue of ethnic discrimination, Hamermesh and Parker reported that students
gave lower ratings for courses taught by non-native English speakers” (598).
4 See for example Dana A. Williams, “Examining the Relation between Race and Student Evaluations of
Faculty Members: A Literature Review,” Professions, MLA (2007) 168-73. The author points out the implicit
complicity of certain institutions regarding the sort of race bias that occasions negative evaluations: “/. . . ./
the problem of racially motivated negative evaluations does not end with racist students; it is an institutional
problem, as colleagues and administrators are often unequipped and unwilling to recognize and to deal with
racism. Nast speculates that the fear of negative evaluations and the lack of institutional support to combat
racism lead faculty members to assume defensive postures with regard to evaluations” (169).
3. Alvaro Ramírez
4. David Quijada
5. Ravi Bhandari
6. Jerry Brunetti
7. Hisham Ahmed
8. Keith Ogawa
9. Tomás Gomez Arias
10. Jeannine King
11. Deepak Sawhney
12. Barbara McGraw
13. Vidya Chandrasekaran