New York:
For more than 35 years, the City University of New York, one of the nation's most diverse higher education systems, has quietly struggled with a minority group that says it has been passed over for jobs. In June, members of the group issued a blistering report the size of a phone book. In July, one employee filed a federal discrimination lawsuit, and some state lawmakers are pushing for hearings this fall into what they see as blatant ethnic bias.
If the fierceness of the battle is not unusual -- fights over affirmative action are a staple on campuses -- what is surprising is the group waging it: Italian-Americans.
Of all the universities and colleges that offer protections for minorities, CUNY appears to be the only one that has declared Italian-Americans an official affirmative action category in employment, promising special efforts to recruit, hire and promote them, according to national higher-education groups.
The declaration, made in 1976 and reaffirmed in later years, came after pressure from Italian-American legislators in Albany responding to complaints of bias from the faculty and staff. The lawmakers also created a research institute at the university to counsel students of Italian heritage and study "the Italian-American experience."
Yet ever since, a group of Italian-American professors and staff members at the institute and at CUNY have been making the case that the university has failed them.
They have produced a mountain of manifestos, research studies and lawsuits, and exposed a deep vein of grievance in an ethnic group that has risen to prominence in fields like politics, law and medicine. Some of the dissidents have lamented that Italian-Americans are still stereotyped in popular culture as mobsters or muscle-bound buffoons; others have described an unsympathetic Italian-American administrator as an "Uncle Tony" -- the equivalent of an Uncle Tom.
Though CUNY vigorously denies the allegations, the critics have met with some success: Outside arbiters have largely upheld claims that Italian-Americans are underrepresented in university jobs. In a written opinion, the civil rights lawyer and federal judge Constance Baker Motley, who oversaw a settlement in 1994, called the group's lack of progress "unconscionable given the existence of an affirmative action commitment."
Still, for some who work in higher education, the notion of protections for Italian-Americans -- at a university where 70 percent of the 262,000 full-time students are black, Latino or Asian -- has prompted some head-scratching.
"In the diversity of the community that is New York City, it seems particularly unusual that Italian-Americans would be considered disadvantaged," said Ada Meloy, general counsel of the American Council on Education. "After all, in New York we had an Italian-American governor, and we may have another one coming up."
Joseph V. Scelsa, who was one of the institute's first directors and led the legal fight that resulted in the settlement, said Italian-Americans seemed to be well represented on the staffs of other New York-area colleges, but had long been mistreated at CUNY.
"There have been so many cases of discrimination that I personally know of -- from not getting hired to not getting promoted to not getting tenure," said Dr Scelsa, who is now president of the Italian American Museum in Manhattan. "It's so clear that there's been no serious attempt to increase our numbers."
The latest skirmish centers on a lawsuit filed in July in United States District Court by Vincenzo Milione, a researcher at the institute, now known as the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, in memory of the state senator who first held hearings on Italian-Americans at CUNY.
The suit says CUNY and the institute's current director, Anthony J. Tamburri, retaliated against Dr. Milione, cutting his staff and rescinding a prestigious job title, after Dr Milione, in 2006, made a presentation to Italian-American state lawmakers. In the presentation, Dr Milione argued that Italian-American representation on the faculty and the staff had remained flat -- between 5 percent and 6 percent -- over three decades, while that of groups like blacks, Latinos and Asians had climbed.
"Did affirmative action work at CUNY?" he asked in a recent interview. "Yes. But it did not work for Italian-Americans." The New York office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that his suit had merit.
CUNY officials said that Dr Tamburri would not comment, but they defended the university's record. As of last fall, they said, Italian-Americans represented about 7 percent of the full-time instructional staff of 11,000, up from 5.8 percent in 1981. While the increase was modest, it occurred while the proportion of white employees fell sharply, to 54 percent from 74 percent, as the university strove to hire blacks and Latinos.
"Were CUNY not proactively engaging in affirmative action for Italian-Americans, one would expect to see Italian-American representation in CUNY fall at the same rate as that of whites," Jennifer S. Rubain, university dean for recruitment and diversity, said in a statement. "That has not happened."
Like other research universities that receive federal money, CUNY must extend affirmative action hiring protections to a variety of government-designated groups, including blacks and Latinos. University officials say the Department of Labor reviews its progress periodically, but not its efforts for Italian-Americans, because those are voluntary.
The government does not allow hiring quotas for the groups it designates. But as a benchmark, employers must develop estimates of the groups' availability in the labor pool.
Yet even agreeing on how many Italian-Americans are in that pool has proved hard for the university and its critics. Indeed, the 1994 settlement called for the appointment of an expert panel to help sort out the matter. One thorny issue was whether to include people who report Italian ancestry secondarily on the long form of the census -- for example, a woman who lists herself first as Irish, then Italian.
The expert panel finally determined in 2006 that half of them should be counted. Today, CUNY says, Italian-Americans make up 8.4 percent of the qualified candidates in the available labor pool; Dr Milione has called that estimate low.
John Calandra, the son of the state senator for whom the institute was named, defended the current administration, led by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. "I'm acutely aware of the history of discrimination against Italian-Americans, which I do believe existed," said Mr Calandra, 44, a lawyer who was a CUNY trustee from 1996 to 2006. "But Chancellor Goldstein does not have a discriminatory bone in his body against Italian-Americans or any ethnic or racial group."
University officials point to two of its college presidents who are Italian-American: Regina S. Peruggi at Kingsborough Community College, and Lisa Staiano-Coico, the new chief of City College, the university's flagship.
"I started off here way down on the totem pole, so I'm an example of someone who was given opportunities, and not just because of my ethnic heritage, but because of my work," said Dr. Peruggi who found the criticism "puzzling."
Still, some lawmakers are skeptical of CUNY. State Senator Diane J. Savino of Staten Island, a Democrat and the president of the Conference of Italian-American Legislators in Albany, said she was pressing for joint hearings into the university's compliance with the 1994 settlement.
"Italian-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the state of New York, and people don't see us in the traditional sense of being an affirmative action category -- I get that," she said. "But we've seen systematic discrimination with respect to Italian educators by CUNY."
Others see the tortured history of Italian-Americans at the university as a case study in an old bit of wisdom: No good deed goes unpunished.
"The best of intentions are quickly mired in the potential for litigation and additional charges of discrimination," said Andy Brantley, president of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. "And that doesn't necessarily mean that the employer isn't trying to do the right thing."
If the fierceness of the battle is not unusual -- fights over affirmative action are a staple on campuses -- what is surprising is the group waging it: Italian-Americans.
Of all the universities and colleges that offer protections for minorities, CUNY appears to be the only one that has declared Italian-Americans an official affirmative action category in employment, promising special efforts to recruit, hire and promote them, according to national higher-education groups.
The declaration, made in 1976 and reaffirmed in later years, came after pressure from Italian-American legislators in Albany responding to complaints of bias from the faculty and staff. The lawmakers also created a research institute at the university to counsel students of Italian heritage and study "the Italian-American experience."
Yet ever since, a group of Italian-American professors and staff members at the institute and at CUNY have been making the case that the university has failed them.
They have produced a mountain of manifestos, research studies and lawsuits, and exposed a deep vein of grievance in an ethnic group that has risen to prominence in fields like politics, law and medicine. Some of the dissidents have lamented that Italian-Americans are still stereotyped in popular culture as mobsters or muscle-bound buffoons; others have described an unsympathetic Italian-American administrator as an "Uncle Tony" -- the equivalent of an Uncle Tom.
Though CUNY vigorously denies the allegations, the critics have met with some success: Outside arbiters have largely upheld claims that Italian-Americans are underrepresented in university jobs. In a written opinion, the civil rights lawyer and federal judge Constance Baker Motley, who oversaw a settlement in 1994, called the group's lack of progress "unconscionable given the existence of an affirmative action commitment."
Still, for some who work in higher education, the notion of protections for Italian-Americans -- at a university where 70 percent of the 262,000 full-time students are black, Latino or Asian -- has prompted some head-scratching.
"In the diversity of the community that is New York City, it seems particularly unusual that Italian-Americans would be considered disadvantaged," said Ada Meloy, general counsel of the American Council on Education. "After all, in New York we had an Italian-American governor, and we may have another one coming up."
Joseph V. Scelsa, who was one of the institute's first directors and led the legal fight that resulted in the settlement, said Italian-Americans seemed to be well represented on the staffs of other New York-area colleges, but had long been mistreated at CUNY.
"There have been so many cases of discrimination that I personally know of -- from not getting hired to not getting promoted to not getting tenure," said Dr Scelsa, who is now president of the Italian American Museum in Manhattan. "It's so clear that there's been no serious attempt to increase our numbers."
The latest skirmish centers on a lawsuit filed in July in United States District Court by Vincenzo Milione, a researcher at the institute, now known as the John D. Calandra Italian American Institute, in memory of the state senator who first held hearings on Italian-Americans at CUNY.
The suit says CUNY and the institute's current director, Anthony J. Tamburri, retaliated against Dr. Milione, cutting his staff and rescinding a prestigious job title, after Dr Milione, in 2006, made a presentation to Italian-American state lawmakers. In the presentation, Dr Milione argued that Italian-American representation on the faculty and the staff had remained flat -- between 5 percent and 6 percent -- over three decades, while that of groups like blacks, Latinos and Asians had climbed.
"Did affirmative action work at CUNY?" he asked in a recent interview. "Yes. But it did not work for Italian-Americans." The New York office of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled that his suit had merit.
CUNY officials said that Dr Tamburri would not comment, but they defended the university's record. As of last fall, they said, Italian-Americans represented about 7 percent of the full-time instructional staff of 11,000, up from 5.8 percent in 1981. While the increase was modest, it occurred while the proportion of white employees fell sharply, to 54 percent from 74 percent, as the university strove to hire blacks and Latinos.
"Were CUNY not proactively engaging in affirmative action for Italian-Americans, one would expect to see Italian-American representation in CUNY fall at the same rate as that of whites," Jennifer S. Rubain, university dean for recruitment and diversity, said in a statement. "That has not happened."
Like other research universities that receive federal money, CUNY must extend affirmative action hiring protections to a variety of government-designated groups, including blacks and Latinos. University officials say the Department of Labor reviews its progress periodically, but not its efforts for Italian-Americans, because those are voluntary.
The government does not allow hiring quotas for the groups it designates. But as a benchmark, employers must develop estimates of the groups' availability in the labor pool.
Yet even agreeing on how many Italian-Americans are in that pool has proved hard for the university and its critics. Indeed, the 1994 settlement called for the appointment of an expert panel to help sort out the matter. One thorny issue was whether to include people who report Italian ancestry secondarily on the long form of the census -- for example, a woman who lists herself first as Irish, then Italian.
The expert panel finally determined in 2006 that half of them should be counted. Today, CUNY says, Italian-Americans make up 8.4 percent of the qualified candidates in the available labor pool; Dr Milione has called that estimate low.
John Calandra, the son of the state senator for whom the institute was named, defended the current administration, led by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein. "I'm acutely aware of the history of discrimination against Italian-Americans, which I do believe existed," said Mr Calandra, 44, a lawyer who was a CUNY trustee from 1996 to 2006. "But Chancellor Goldstein does not have a discriminatory bone in his body against Italian-Americans or any ethnic or racial group."
University officials point to two of its college presidents who are Italian-American: Regina S. Peruggi at Kingsborough Community College, and Lisa Staiano-Coico, the new chief of City College, the university's flagship.
"I started off here way down on the totem pole, so I'm an example of someone who was given opportunities, and not just because of my ethnic heritage, but because of my work," said Dr. Peruggi who found the criticism "puzzling."
Still, some lawmakers are skeptical of CUNY. State Senator Diane J. Savino of Staten Island, a Democrat and the president of the Conference of Italian-American Legislators in Albany, said she was pressing for joint hearings into the university's compliance with the 1994 settlement.
"Italian-Americans are the largest ethnic group in the state of New York, and people don't see us in the traditional sense of being an affirmative action category -- I get that," she said. "But we've seen systematic discrimination with respect to Italian educators by CUNY."
Others see the tortured history of Italian-Americans at the university as a case study in an old bit of wisdom: No good deed goes unpunished.
"The best of intentions are quickly mired in the potential for litigation and additional charges of discrimination," said Andy Brantley, president of the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources. "And that doesn't necessarily mean that the employer isn't trying to do the right thing."
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