Records of the Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard, 1975-2014

Meeting at their respective reunions, alumnae of the Radcliffe Classes of 1953 and 1958 recalled the discrimination they experienced as students and resolved to advance women's equality at Harvard. First, members of the Radcliffe Class of 1953 formed an Ad Hoc Committee to analyze the status of women at Harvard (1988) and in 1993, joined by members of the Class of 1958, they incorporated as the Committee for Equality of Women at Harvard (CEWH), with the goals of increasing the number of women tenured faculty and working for equity of all women at the university. Included among the board members were Gabriella P. Schlesinger '58, Alice (Acey) Carbonaro Welch '53 , Elizabeth Hatfield '58, Cornelia Dimmitt '58, Margaretta (Peggy) B. Schmertzler '53, Ann R. Shapiro '58, Eleanor W. Williams '58, Sunny Yando, Jane Marx '41, Nancy Tobin '49, Lilli Hornig, Ph.D '50, Millie Marnin '58, Jane O'Reilly '58, Deborah Socolar '75, and Phoebe Telser '58. Peggy Schmertzler served as chair from 1993-1998, and in 1998, Acey Welch '53 and Ann Shapiro '58 became co-chairs. Gabriella Schlesinger '58 took over for Shapiro as co-chair in 2002. Their organization came to have 2000 Harvard and Radcliffe alumni friends and supporters.

The Committee members issued annual reports charting the status of women at Harvard and other major research universities and publishing comparative data on numbers of senior women faculty, salary levels of women, supply of women PhDs, and proportion of Harvard women undergraduates. They entered into dialogue with the administration, and lobbied women faculty, nominees for the Harvard Board of Overseers, Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates, and alumni, and succeeded in gaining broad media coverage for their findings. They instituted the Harvard Woman Junior Fellowship at the Bunting Institute (1993) to help advance the careers of women junior faculty and established an escrow account, the Harvard Women's Faculty Fund (1995), as a means for donors to protest gender inequity while giving to the Harvard campaign.

They sponsored several student/faculty panels, developed a newsletter, brochures, and publicity material. In 1998 they convened the first national conference that addressed the issues of institutional change required for the full integration of women scholars and students into major research universities. It was sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Sloan Foundation, with additional support from Albert Gordon '59. In 1999 and 2000 they petitioned for, but failed to obtain, a self-study similar to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's study of gender inequity in the sciences, and in 2001 they sponsored their own survey of women faculty at Harvard University.

In June 2000 they released the money in their escrow account to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (the successor to Radcliffe College) and, with Ellen LaFollette '54 who had raised money from alumnae groups in California, launched a campaign for a joint professorship at the Radcliffe Institute and Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Committee member Ann Shapiro '58 and Ellen LaFollette '54 co-chaired the effort, with Mary Maples Dunn and Carol K. Pforzheimer '31 serving as honorary co-chairs. With a matching grant from Harvard, and the assistance of the Radcliffe Institute development office, they endowed the professorship (2002) and helped endow a new junior faculty fellowship.

The appointment of Drew Gilpin Faust as Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study (2001) and installation of a new administration at Harvard (2002) led to more cordial relations with both administrations. During the administration of Harvard President Lawrence Summers, the Committee supported changes in sexual assault policy (2002) and advocated for the incorporation of women's studies into the curriculum (2003). The Committee continued to advocate for a self-study and, in 2004, protested the decrease in offers of tenure to women. In 2005, President Summers made controversial comments regarding the reasons why few women possessed tenured positions in science and engineering. Later that year, the Committee supported a panel on "Women and Tenure at Harvard" and responded to the reports of the Harvard's Task Forces on Women Faculty and on Women in Science and Engineering. In 2006, they applauded the establishment of the Harvard Women's Center with Susan Marine as its first director.

In 2007, Drew Gilpin Faust was inaugurated as President of Harvard University, and in 2008 Evelynn Hammonds was named dean of Harvard College. Also in 2008, the Radcliffe Institute announced that the Radcliffe Alumnae Fellowship was fully endowed, and the Committee gave $75,000 to establish the Pre-Tenure Ladder Faculty Mentoring Initiative with the Office of Faculty Development and Diversity. Buoyed by these appointments and accomplishments, the 2008 Committee newsletter explained that the committee would now be "stepping to the sidelines and mindfully watching. Make no mistake: we are not shuttering our operations. We intend to remain abreast of women's issues and to react if circumstances warrant." The group continued to meet and respond to developments at Harvard, such as monitoring the fulfillment of the Radcliffe Alumnae Professorship and Fellowship, writing letters to advocate for a continued focus on women and gender at the Radcliffe Institute, particularly in relation to the Institute's search for a new dean, and supporting the Harvard College Women's Center. In planning for the dissolution of the Committee, members applied to the Harvard Alumni Association to form a new Shared Interest Group. In 2013 the Alumnae-i Network for Harvard Women was formed to advance the interests of Harvard women. The Committee formally dissolved in 2014 and donated its remaining funds to the Harvard College Women's Center.