MIT

``Barriers to Equality in Academia: Women in Computer Science at MIT'' [MIT 1983], published in 1983 and describing some of the problems faced by women at MIT was distributed widely. Unfortunately, some people incorrectly inferred that MIT was a worse place for female computer scientists than other schools. There is no reason, however, to think that it was any worse than other CS departments. In fact, it was probably better, since there were enough women at MIT to write such a report and the administration was supportive enough to encourage it. I want to take this opportunity to defend MIT's reputation.

Specifically, MIT's CS department is more supportive of women than other schools' in the following ways:

• There is support for reports such as ``Barriers to Equality'' and this one.
• The sensitivity of the department has been increased by these reports. This may be the reason I do not see pictures here of nude women on walls or computer screens, still common in other places.
• There is an unusually strict policy against romance between faculty and students. Professors are not even permitted to date students in other departments.
• There are no sexist or harassing professors that female graduate students warn each other about.
• There are four female professors, three of them tenured, all of whom have expressed support of female students in one way or another. As of 1989, only 9 departments nationwide (5.6%) have this many women [Gries et al 1991].
• MIT has an outstanding ombudsperson, Prof. Mary Rowe, who deals with bias complaints effectively and tactfully. She is a pioneer in the study of subconscious bias [Rowe 1990,Rowe 1981,Rowe 1985].