open hostility that may even sometimes involve violence, I think,
man, this person has really worked to get as far as she has. And if
what she has done is excellent and there’s promise that it will con-
tinue to be, then I say, that’s a good affirmative action.Panelists practice institutional affirmative action because they be-
lieve that private, elite, and research-focused universities are privi-
leged in the competition process. For instance, an English professor
observes: “When we finally looked at our final ten awards, we were
chagrined that they were almost all to people at major research uni-
versities, or at places where the teaching load was probably relatively
low...Wedidn’t judge ourselves, but I think we had some talk about
that as the proposals went by.” Similarly, a political scientist says
about funded projects in her field:
It didn’t please me so much that three of the four political science
ones went to Berkeley. I have nothing against that. I actually think
Berkeley’s a great place; I went there...Ithink that Berkeley does
train fabulous comparative political scientists...But...you’d
like to see a number of schools succeeding.Top institutions often put an array of resources at the disposal
of applicants—including internal graduate research fellowship com-
petitions, closer mentoring, and more extensive graduate course of-
ferings. One panelist notes, “Occasionally you get a proposal from
someone that is really off the beaten track of these research univer-
sities. Clearly, they are at a big disadvantage both in not having col-
leagues around to help and not having the help to talk about the
proposal, just not being well-informed about the kind of research
method that goes on.” This same person adds:
Once a student enters a second- or third-rate program and works
with someone who’s totally unknown, you know, even though226 / Considering Interdisciplinarity and Diversity