Faculty and staff at California public colleges and universities are growing more diverse, though experts say there’s still more work to be done.
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The workforce in California’s public colleges and universities is growing and becoming more racially and ethnically diverse, according to a recent brief published by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The brief, part of a research series on higher ed trends, found that the number of faculty and staff members employed by the University of California and California State University systems grew at average annual rates of 1.7 percent and 2 percent respectively since 2013, while the California Community College system’s workforce grew by 0.7 percent. And all three sectors have higher shares of workers from minority backgrounds than they did a decade ago.
Nationally, public four-year universities have also seen recent workforce growth—up 2.5 percent between 2020 and 2022—after recovering from pandemic losses, while community colleges’ employee numbers continued to shrink, according to 2022 data from the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
In California, the “main story is one of workforce growth over the past decade,” the brief reads. “The numbers of faculty, staff, and administrators were all higher in 2023 than 2013—in some cases, notably higher. Over this time, faculty generally have become more diverse, with higher shares of Latinos, Asians, and women, and a declining share of older faculty.”
The Legislative Analyst’s Office found that white employees made up less than half of the workforce at the UC, CSU and CCC systems in 2023. All three saw increases in their shares of Latino and Asian workers over the prior decade, with particular growth among Latino employees, who now make up at least a fifth of their workforces. Shares of Black workers dipped slightly within the UC and CSU systems and rose modestly at California community colleges.
California higher ed institutions’ “DEI efforts have been commendable,” said Shaun Harper, Provost Professor of Education, Business and Public Policy and the Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in Urban Leadership at the University of Southern California and an opinion contributor to Inside Higher Ed. “On the other hand, they have been not sufficiently focused on increasing Black representation.”
The percentage of tenured or tenure-track faculty members who are Black, Latino or Native American increased across all three California systems over the decade, with the highest percentage at community colleges and the lowest in the UC system. The findings show the UC system has a significantly smaller share of women holding tenure or tenure-track positions—less than 40 percent in 2023—compared to the other two systems, where the percentage is nearly at or above half.
Newer faculty members hired between 2011 and 2020 tended to be more diverse than the faculty members already in place. But the share of faculty over all in tenured or tenure-track positions at the UC and CSU systems has simultaneously fallen over the course of a decade. (Research nationally has shown that while the number of people of color on track for tenure has grown, these scholars still disproportionately face barriers.)
Meanwhile, the gap between the demographics of new tenure-track faculty members and their students in the community college system has shrunk—although it remains wide. About 60 percent of first-time California community college students were Black, Latino, Native American, Filipino or Pacific Islander in 2022, for example, while those groups made up closer to 30 percent of new faculty hires.
The brief “showcases some important and I think really noteworthy diversity gains,” Harper said. But while “someone could misread those gains as mission accomplished,” he said, “we’re far from done.”
Harper, who founded USC’s Race and Equity Center, believes the workforce diversity increases are partly due to intentional and successful initiatives by college leaders in the state. The center has worked with about 80 community colleges and CSU campuses to offer tools and strategies to address racial equity issues. Harper’s seen creative approaches to diversifying faculty, such as Compton College’s Faculty Prep Academy, which seeks to help train graduate students of color who came out of the community college system to become community college professors.
Albert A. Liddicoat, interim vice chancellor for human resources at the CSU system, agreed in a statement that the brief’s findings are the result of an intentional commitment to workforce diversity. It “reflects the purposeful strides the CSU has made over the past decade to diversify our workforce,” he wrote.
Harper hopes efforts to diversify faculty and staff continue both in California and nationwide, though he worries that higher ed institutions in other states may be slower to achieve the same increases his state did amid flurries of anti-DEI legislation and in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision against affirmative action. Some higher ed leaders, he said, may shy away from legal efforts to diversify faculty out of fear they’ll attract negative attention from, or be penalized by, state lawmakers.
“Gains that we’re seeing in California are indeed achievable all across the United States,” Harper said. But “racial inequities are not going to be remediated through raceless remedies or through efforts that are intended to be just sort of colorblind,” he said. There are “legally permissible ways to continue the work and to improve the work where there are chronic gaps.”