The Association for Faculty Women is no ordinary networking group. It is arguably one of the most consequential organizations in Washington State University history—with the records to prove it.
Among them: evidence of how AFW members have helped increase the numbers of women faculty at WSU, established a commission on women, and supported a gender equity lawsuit that transformed women’s athletics in the entire state, with impacts across the country.
The AFW showcased some of those records at an “Archive Unboxing” of historical documents last fall at WSU Libraries’ Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections in Pullman. It was part of a series of events throughout this academic year to celebrate AFW’s fiftieth anniversary.
“AFW came about for the purpose of camaraderie and advocacy. Rather than faculty women being isolated, by coming together, WSU women could support each other and advocate as a group with the administration,” says Katie Forsythe, AFW president and a WSU human development assistant professor. “There’s room for improvement, but there have been some very important wins for AFW.”
As part of its founding in 1975, the association set out to increase the numbers of women faculty and remove barriers to the recruitment and retention of faculty, including a nepotism rule that prevented academic women married to other academics from working in the same department.
Alice Schroeder recalls that even after that rule was lifted many women were relegated to stereotyped roles. “There were just so few of us—except for in women’s physical education, the libraries, and home economics. That’s where a lot of my fellow scientists were because that’s where they could get jobs, even though they were actually chemists,” says Schroeder, an emerita professor of genetics.
WSU took some steps backward before going forward. In 1979, according to newspaper reports, there were 19 women faculty members to 265 men faculty members. That dropped to 15 women to 274 men in 1985. Only one of nine top administrators was a woman.
Today, much has changed. According to the Office of Institutional Research, women represented 55 percent of WSU’s tenured faculty in 2023, as well as 44 percent of deans and central administrators.
These gains did not happen without a lot of persistence, perhaps no better exemplified than the Blair vs. Washington State University civil suit that sought to equalize athletic opportunities between women and men. AFW supported the lawsuit, which was filed by women athletes and coaches of women’s sports.
Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools, was passed in 1972, the same year the state of Washington passed an Equal Rights Amendment. But inequities continued, and WSU women and coaches brought the suit in 1979. It was ultimately decided in their favor in 1987, bringing changes to educational institutions across the state.
“We’d been through all the committees, and we’d done all these other things. But it was the administrators in ‘Fort French,’ they made the final decisions—except the courts can force them to do otherwise. So we didn’t have any other choice,” says Sue Durrant, a former AFW president and women’s volleyball coach who was a driving force behind the lawsuit.
While the case was about athletics, it led to more progress. The state then required the university to evaluate a host of gender equity issues ranging from the numbers of women in various departments to resources in residential halls.
The work is not over, says Erica Austin, a WSU communication professor and former AFW president. “We still see continuing issues, such as childcare and salary equity, that we saw from the start in 1975,” says Austin, who has also served as dean, vice provost, and interim co-provost. “But we also have seen a lot of improvement over the years, and we certainly see a lot more engagement in the issues since AFW got its start at WSU.”
The association is open to all faculty, staff, and graduate students—and members do not have to be women. They just have to have a commitment to advancing women at the university.
Equity has progressed unevenly, Austin notes, with some departments having very few women in them. AFW can provide support and mentoring for individuals to advance their careers and improve equity at the university.
“A continued, sustained advocacy is required,” Austin says. “It’s not like AFW could go away tomorrow, and everything would be fine.”
Former AFW president Sue Durrant, a driving force behind the gender equity lawsuit that changed education across the state, holds up an archival newspaper article about the passage of the state’s Equal Rights Amendment. (Courtesy WSU News)
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AFW members tell their stories about gender equity at WSU