Professors allege discrimination
Stanford medical school faculty say harassment flourishes
This summer, Pamela Kunz will box up two decades of work and research at Stanford’s School of Medicine and head east to a new post at Yale.
Kunz, an oncologist, is leaving in part because of what she and other women at the medical school say is an environment that has allowed sexual harassment and discrimination to flourish for years.
From belittling comments to edging her out of research opportunities, male colleagues made some of her time at Stanford uncomfortable, especially in recent years as she moved into leadership roles, said Kunz, whose allegations were first reported by The Stanford Daily.
Kunz said she reported her concerns to medical school leadership, but nothing was done.
“It’s sort of death by a thousand cuts,” she said, “relentless, subtle comments that build up.”
Lloyd Minor, the medical school dean, said in a statement the school takes immediate action when women report harassment or discrimination.
“If any of our faculty, staff or students is experiencing or has experienced harassment or discrimination in our community, we want them to come forward, and not to remain silent,” Minor said. “We have robust policies in place to address these matters. Creating an environment that supports and promotes diversity and inclusion has been a long-standing personal goal of Stanford Medicine leaders.”
In a statement sent on her behalf by a school spokeswoman, Mary Hawn, chair of the surgery department, said she’d had a positive experience at Stanford.
“I have felt very supported by leadership, particularly when I have had challenging issues such as the ones raised in this article to deal with,” Hawn said.
But eight other female professors at the medical school told this news organization that while they’d had some wonderful experiences at the university, they’d also experienced persistent gender discrimination that, when brought to the attention of school leaders, was brushed aside or used against them.
“I feel like it’s weakening Stanford,” said one woman, who like the others requested anonymity for fear of retaliation.
A woman who has since left the university said a male supervisor attempted to pass off a presentation she created as his own and bumped her to second author on a research paper she envisioned and completed. In a separate incident, the woman said when she tried to report verbal abuse to a male physician, he yelled at her for creating a paper trail by emailing the complaint.
Kunz said a former mentor told her he would let her answer a question first so he could “correct” her. When she told him she didn’t appreciate the comment, he accused her of being disrespectful. Despite bringing it up with leadership, she said, an investigation hasn’t resulted in meaningful change.
Kunz hopes speaking up will encourage others to come forward and spark a conversation that will lead to real progress.
A 2018 study by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine found that half of women faculty in those fields said they’d experienced harassment. Male medical faculty are also more likely to ascend to the highest levels of leadership.
Most of the women said they’d like to see more female colleagues elevated to positions of power at Stanford, but that alone is unlikely to spark a real culture shift without buy-in from their male colleagues, and also from female supervisors who don’t want to rock the boat.
Minor, the dean, said that 40% of Stanford Medicine’s department chairs are women, the third highest among U.S. medical schools. The school, he said, “emphasizes gender diversity” in recruiting faculty and in leadership, and has brought in external firms for help making “cultural progress.”
But several women said they were removed from leadership roles with little explanation, despite getting positive reviews.
One learned a man she disciplined during her time in leadership for making inappropriate remarks was spreading damaging, false rumors about her. She brought the comments to the attention of leadership, she said, but does not believe he faced any consequences.
Professors said the hierarchical nature of medicine and pressure to produce research and win grants factored into the discrimination.
One woman said she felt female faculty had less access to opportunities to generate revenue, which was used as justification for paying them less than male peers. But, she said, she had been told by those in leadership roles and wellmeaning female colleagues to keep quiet.
“Basically their advice is keep your head down,” she said.
Stanford professor VJ Periyakoil has studied the gender divide in microaggressions among medical faculty across the country. She found that women said such behavior — from snide remarks about pregnancy to sexual comments — was common at work. Men did not.
“There is a culture that needs to change,” she said. “Men need to be part of the solution. Women need to be part of the solution.”
In a statement, university provost Persis Drell acknowledged that culture change is necessary and expressed confidence that “leaders at the School of Medicine are committed to this change.”
But echoing other female faculty members, a male medical school professor who said he witnessed a culture that tolerated disruptive behavior said leaders have been cautious about confronting the problem.
“If you want people to report,” he said, “you have to convince them that you’re going to do the right thing.”
More than 20 years ago, Frances Conley, a neurosurgeon who said Stanford’s medical school was rife with sexism and full of leaders unwilling to investigate, published her memoir “Walking Out on the Boys.”
Kunz read the book during a recent sabbatical.
“It was the first book I read,” she said. “It could’ve been written today.”