SCHENECTADY, N.Y. -- A decision by Union College to restrict its next four faculty hires to minority candidates and loosen the purse strings to pay them has angered some professors and prompted a debate over affirmative action on campus.

Frustrated from years of losing qualified minority professors to other schools, the Union faculty voted last March to exclude candidates who were not black or Hispanic from the searches.

The latest faculty member to be hired under the policy, Daniel Mosquera, was named last week as assistant professor of Spanish.

Called "targeted hiring," the policy was approved by a two-thirds vote of the faculty, but a vocal minority warned of unseen political and legal ramifications.

"I find it objectionable because a targeted search excludes people solely because of their racial background," said Terry Weiner, chairman of the political science department. "You automatically cut off 90 percent of your talent pool. I think it casts a shadow over the moral legitimacy of the hiring practices of the college."

Roger Hull, the president of the college, said the move was necessary because Union "hadn't produced results the other way."

Due to their limited number, many African-American and Hispanic professors enjoy a status equivalent to free agents in baseball. Universities engage in bidding wars and professors change jobs and advance at a rapid clip.

Competition is difficult for smaller schools like Union, an independent college of 2,300 students and about 190 faculty members.

Until last spring's vote, Union administrators were not allowed to pay new hires above a scale based on experience. As a result, minority candidates often were lost to colleges like Oberlin in Ohio and Swarthmore in Pennsylvania. Hull remembers one finalist who went to Amherst College in Massachusetts, attracted by a salary five times what Union offered.

Union is among only a handful of institutions in the country to use targeted hiring to increase diversity.

"My congratulations to Union College," said Robert Atwell, president of the American Council on Education from 1984 until 1996 and now a educational consultant living in California. "It's quite unusual. I think it's a bold and courageous thing to do."

It is even more remarkable at a time when states like California, Texas and Washington have ended hiring preferences in public higher education.

Supporters say the need for minority faculty justifies the policy.

"If we are going to educate students to have a proper view of the constituency of this country and redress the effects of racism, we have to do this," said Christina Sorum, the dean of arts and sciences at Union. "It is very important for white students to have minority faculty they can respect."

Some professors wanted to place an advertisement emphasizing equal opportunity even though the search was limited to minorities, according to Brad Lewis, associate dean for undergraduate education. But Lewis said it was important for the school to admit the search was not open to all.

"I didn't want to see a phony search that looked like equal opportunity," he said. "If you're not looking at all quality candidates, and are only looking at qualified minority candidates, you shouldn't fudge it."

Among the opponents to targeted searches were several Jewish professors, who were painfully aware that until the 1960s, many schools -- Union included -- had quotas for Jewish faculty and students.

This historical outlook made them "sensitive to a radical interpretation of affirmative action," said Weiner, who is Jewish.

Weiner said he supports diversifying the faculty but fears that targeted hiring could lead to "all kinds of silly distinctions."

Pub Date: 03/05/99