Abstract
A popular input measure of bureaucratic success is whether the demographic characteristics of an organization's personnel reflect those of the community. Does the bureaucracy employ, for example, ethnic minorities and women in roughly the same proportion as their respective percentages of the citizenry? Given several recent court decisions and public referenda limiting the use of race and gender considerations in placements and promotions, some writers now propose that measures of diversity include socioeconomic status (SES). This study shows that the parental SES of teaching faculty at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is far higher than the public's. Based on these findings and related literature, the present discussion offers a rationale for why UIUC, and eventually perhaps many other universities, should use social class considerations in an affirmative action plan to recruit and hire new faculty; suggestions for implementing such a class- based hiring program; and rebuttals for anticipated criticisms of this proposal.
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