Pop quiz: Should a university hire the child of a vice dean as a new assistant professor on the tenure track in the vice dean’s school?
That’s not a hypothetical question. It’s a real, recent case at my university and in my professional school. So let’s get the disclaimers out of the way real fast: The candidate was qualified. Making such a hire was not technically a violation of any campus policy. And the vice dean was, by choice and policy, insulated from the hiring process or any involvement in the final decision.
But perception matters as much as policy. The act of hiring an employee’s relative is, as various institutions state in their nepotism policies, “problematic” because such situations can create “a conflict of interest” or “an appearance of favoritism.”
Likewise, the very process of hiring of relatives is also problematic. During this particular search, existing faculty members in our school were asked to comment verbally and in writing about the child of a senior colleague who influences faculty reviews and promotions. Sure, those comments are supposed to be confidential, but that’s a pretty uncomfortable position to put faculty members in, especially junior ones.
Needless to say, many faculty members in my school were concerned about whether we should be recruiting an administrator’s relative. Responding explicitly to those concerns, the head of our campus appointments committee emailed the faculty to point out that those concerns were misplaced. At our university, much to my surprise, the email said, “having a family or other intimate relationship to a current member of the faculty or staff shall not be a bar to equal opportunity in employment or education for anyone.”
The vice dean’s relative was one of the two leading candidates. It’s easy to be suspicious that the administration wanted a particular result, given the strange nature of the ballot. Although the final vote was anonymous, the ballot oddly asked us to vote “Yes” or “No” on whether to give offers to both of the two lead candidates. In short we were never asked to vote in favor of one candidate or the other. And ultimately we made offers to both the vice dean’s child and the other candidate (a clear star who was probably being recruited by multiple universities).
Subsequently, the dean announced that the tenure-track job had been offered to, and accepted by, the vice dean’s child.
Back to the pop quiz. Everyone in leadership seemed to think the answer should be yes, and that the hiring process had been clean and had delivered a trusted outcome. My own answer to the question was: No, we shouldn’t give a tenure-track job to a top administrator’s relative. In talking with faculty colleagues, many of us were concerned about how we would work with a privileged insider, while others were flummoxed that we’d even gotten to this point.
Practically, we’re one of the leading professional schools in our field in the nation. When we hire like this, we open ourselves up to perceptions of favoritism and questionable ethics. To be fair, we’ve hired a talented candidate whose contribution to our intellectual community would be a net positive if not for the fact that this person’s mother is our vice dean.
What are the duties and obligations of the actors in this process? The candidate and the candidate’s advisers have the obligation of complying with their and our institutions’ policies, and again I understand that this recruitment was fully compliant.
But the vice dean has many conflicting duties. As a mother, she is naturally obligated to help her children to the legal extent that she can. As a leader, she must exemplify good leadership and set a high standard for behavior. She should not, perhaps, be seen to be taking advantage of remarkably mild policies on hiring relatives for her child’s benefit. She could even be argued to have the duty to dissuade her child from applying.
Finally the most difficult component: What are the consequences of this hiring? The candidate must now deal with an environment in which many faculty members have serious issues with this person’s hiring. More may wonder about whether this new assistant professor’s future access to resources is a sign of favoritism. Will people feel the need to evaluate the candidate more harshly than other assistant professors, to avoid the perception of weaker standards and nepotism? Similarly her mother could face logistically difficult, repeated recusals, and perceptions of undue influence on her child’s career, regardless of how well she insulates herself from such direct influence.
This ethical framework suggests that while the individual actors in this process may well have had good intentions, the duties of some may have been conflicted, and the consequences could be enduring.
Perhaps our experience may lead others to decide against hiring an administrator’s relatives. Perhaps it’s a bad idea all around. Looking at various campus policies on nepotism, I see Rice’s states that the “employment of relatives in the same department is generally discouraged.” Duke University’s policy says that, apart from exceptional cases, folks “may not hire or supervise their relatives.” The University of Texas at Austin suggests that “the head of the hiring unit may omit the [potential nepotism] applicant from those being considered for the available position.”
How do we go forward at my own institution? Figuring that out is my constructive intent in writing this. Our conduct should not only meet with existing policies, but exceed the reasonable expectations of all our stakeholders. We should therefore use this fraught and complex example to revisit, examine, and strengthen our university policies on the hiring of relatives.
