Gallaudet has achieved gender pay parity for most faculty ranks

Several years ago, the Gallaudet Faculty Senate asked the administration for data regarding pay parity between different groups at Gallaudet. The Gallaudet AAUP has conducted an analysis using recent, publicly-available IPEDS data, comparing the pay parity by binary gender at Gallaudet with that of peer institutions. Our analysis shows that Gallaudet has achieved better pay parity between genders than our peer institutions, that is, there is no significant representation or pay gap between women and men, for the ranks of Professor, Assoc. Professor, Assist. Professor, and for all faculty ranks combined. However, the data show significant gender pay disparity for the Instructor rank at 86 cents to the dollar. We ask that the administration revisit individual Instructor salaries to ensure that they are equitable. We would have liked to also analyze pay by nonbinary gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and hearing/deaf status. Unfortunately, these data are not collected by IPEDS. Finally, the data again show that despite having mostly achieved gender pay parity, overall Gallaudet faculty salaries are lower than faculty salaries at comparator institutions.

In the following analysis, we used the same groups of comparator institutions as we did for our April 27, 2022 faculty salary analysis. Data were obtained from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), maintained by the U.S. Department of Education. Institutions which participate in Title IV federal student financial aid programs are required to report data to IPEDS annually.

Table 1. Pay Parity, by Binary (W/M) Gender, of Gallaudet and Comparator Institutions. Figures represent the medians for the institutions in that comparator group. Nine-month salaries were adjusted geographically by RPP values as described in our April 27, 2022 faculty salary analysis and rounded to the nearest $100. Parity was calculated as cents on the dollar for women’s average pay compared to men’s average pay. Representation (% women) less than 45% and parities less than $0.98 are highlighted in red.

Rank: Professor	men	women	% women	salary (m)	gap	parity
Washington, DC Metro Area Institutions	226	119	34%	$170,200	-$7,700	$0.96
Carnegie R2 Institutions	114	54	33%	$142,500	-$12,800	$0.91
Carnegie D/PU Institutions	52	39	42%	$123,400	-$6,500	$0.95
Gallaudet University	24	41	63%	$120,400	$1,300	$0.99

Rank: Assoc. Professor	men	women	% women	salary (m)	gap	parity
Washington, DC Metro Area Institutions	114	102	48%	$110,400	-$5,400	$0.96
Carnegie R2 Institutions	92	82	47%	$106,300	-$5,200	$0.95
Carnegie D/PU Institutions	46	58	53%	$92,300	-$3,200	$0.97
Gallaudet University	16	22	57%	$85,100	$7,100	$1.08

Rank: Asst. Professor	men	women	% women	salary (m)	gap	parity
Washington, DC Metro Area Institutions	66	82	54%	$98,800	-$7,700	$0.93
Carnegie R2 Institutions	62	73	53%	$94,600	-$8,100	$0.92
Carnegie D/PU Institutions	30	54	61%	$84,900	-$2,200	$0.97
Gallaudet University	18	26	60%	$79,100	$1,400	$1.02

Rank: Instructor	men	women	% women	salary (m)	gap	parity
Washington, DC Metro Area Institutions	18	27	60%	$80,200	-$6,900	$0.91
Carnegie R2 Institutions	6	12	58%	$72,800	-$2,500	$0.97
Carnegie D/PU Institutions	2	6	62%	$68,100	-$1,200	$0.98
Gallaudet University	8	6	43%	$75,000	-$10,400	$0.86

All Ranks	men	women	% women	salary (m)	gap	parity
Washington, DC Metro Area Institutions	600	510	46%	$117,800	-$24,300	$0.83
Carnegie R2 Institutions	333	285	48%	$111,200	-$15,900	$0.86
Carnegie D/PU Institutions	143	174	55%	$94,700	-$10,000	$0.91
Gallaudet University	76	112	60%	$91,400	$3,500	$1.04

Gallaudet has achieved pay parity by gender for the ranks of Professor, Associate Professor, Assistant Professor, and for all faculty ranks combined. However, the data show significant gender pay disparity for the Instructor rank at 86 cents to the dollar. The populations being compared in this row are small (N = 8 and 6) so we recognize a possibility this may have occurred by chance alone. Nevertheless, we ask that the administration revisit individual Instructor salaries to ensure that they are equitable.

One way that women have been paid less is through denying or delaying promotion. This would be detected in the tables above as a higher representation of women at lower ranks than at higher ranks. We see this phenomenon at our comparator institutions, but not at Gallaudet.

We wish that we could analyze salaries by other critically important demographic variables: non-binary gender, race and ethnicity, sexual orientation, and hearing/deaf status. Unfortunately, these data are not reported to the federal IPEDS database and are therefore not accessible to us. We hope that the Gallaudet administration will perform a similar analysis and transparently share these data with our faculty.

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If you are faculty and haven’t already, we hope you will consider joining the Gallaudet AAUP today. Our collective voice grows stronger with numbers and solidarity. As of today, 30% of Gallaudet faculty are dues-paying AAUP members. Faculty are invited to also follow us on MyGU, Facebook, and Twitter, and join our monthly AAUP meetings. 

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has over 44,000 members and 500 local chapters. It has championed academic freedom, advanced shared governance, and organized to promote economic security for all academic professionals since 1915. In 2022, the AAUP merged with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), the second-largest education union in the United States, with 1.7 million members.

This letter was revised on October 11 to reflect that Gallaudet has only achieved gender pay parity for most faculty ranks. Parities are now shown as cents to the dollar, a commonly used measure.