Daniel Acosta, Jr.

Prologue

It was March 1974, in Lawrence, Kansas.  I had completed most of my lab experiments at the University of Kansas and I was evaluating the remaining data to complete the writing of my dissertation.  My Ph.D. advisor had demanded that once I had completed one research project of my dissertation, I should submit the work to a scientific journal.  Journal editors required that any paper published in their journals must be reviewed by experts in the subject of the submitted manuscript.  I was fortunate in that I already had four papers published or were in press.  I was working on my last publication.  These publications on my resume gave my potential employers a better idea of my research expertise.   

My wife, Patti, was completing her degree in German and was thinking about her career, possibly in government.  I was applying to several well-known universities for postgraduate work in the pharmacology and toxicology areas.  Patti suggested that I apply for a Fulbright Fellowship; her German professor was the chair of the interview committee for selected KU applicants.  Why not?  I filled out a fairly lengthy application and waited to hear back from the committee.

At about the same time I received an invitation to interview for a Fulbright Fellowship, I got a call from the Associate Dean of Pharmacy at the University of Texas, where I received my B.S. degree:

-Danny, this is Bill.  The College wants you to apply for a new assistant professor position.  You should consider coming back to Texas.

My Fulbright interview was scheduled for the next day.  I told Bill that I had to talk it over with Patti and would get back to him soon.  My interview went well, but the chair, Dr. Burzle, thought my application had a better chance of funding if it were considered by the Swedish Medical Foundation because of my biomedical background.  A few weeks later I received an offer from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm to continue my postdoctoral studies in pharmacology.  Coincidentally, Patti had received an offer to interview for a CIA position.

What should we do?  Should I take the offer from one of leading research institutes in the world, the Karolinska Institute, to continue my postgraduate work for two years in pharmacology and toxicology, or accept an interview offer for a possible permanent position at my alma mater?  Should we stay in the States so Patti could consider a career in government?  A lot of questions to address.

Patti had studied for a year at the University of Bonn as part of her German degree requirements and loved Europe.  Perhaps we were going to Europe for two years!  But reality set in--a permanent position or a two-year fellowship?   We deferred deciding on the Swedish fellowship offer until I had learned more about the Texas position; there was no guarantee I

would be offered the assistant professorship.  If that happened, Europe was not a bad second choice.  I quickly prepared my slides for the interview lecture, bought a new sports jacket, and got my plane tickets to Austin. 

A New Beginning

The next several days were a whirlwind for me.  I remember distinctly my ride from the airport where I was picked up by another assistant professor in his dilapidated Triumph.  As I was getting into his car, he warned me to look out for the rusted-out hole where I would place my feet.  He had taken his position in the department a couple of years earlier and he was from California.  He was funny and easy to talk to.  He joked it was good that it was not raining and thus my shoes would not be wet for my first interview with the chair of the department.  Later on, I realized that he was serious that I should be at my best with my meeting with the chair.  He made me feel at ease immediately.

I had several interviews with older professors, who, for the most part, were congenial and asked probing questions about my research project.  However, there was one white professor who questioned whether my resume was factually correct.

-Dan, I see that you have listed your award of a nationally competitive National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship to study at the University of Kansas after

your graduation from the University of Texas.  That is quite an honor.

            Before I could answer, he quickly said:

-Are you sure that the award was not an Affirmative Action NSF Fellowship for Blacks and Hispanics?  

He evidently had not read that portion of my resume that indicated I had the highest academic record (Summa cum Laude) in my class of 200 pharmacy graduates.  I said that my minority status did not play a role in the attainment of my high grades, but that my academic achievements were critical criteria for the fellowship process.  I also added that my fellowship was received before AA became federal policy and that I had not listed falsely the award as a non-minority one.  Of course, the interviewer was suggesting that non-minority NSF graduate fellowships were more competitive and prestigious to receive than the newly established AA minority fellowships.  

Although that interaction left a bitter taste in my mouth, I returned to Kansas and told Patti that I thought the interview went well.  In fact, one hour after returning to our apartment from the Kansas City airport, I received a call from the dean, offering me the position.  I declined the offer from Sweden, and we decided to start the next phase of our lives in Austin.  By the time I started my position in the fall of 1974, I had forgotten about the whole incident.  But I was naive to believe that the matter of Affirmative Action would go away.

 Cracks Begin to Show

After a few weeks into the semester, the chair of the department called me into her office and pointedly said:

-I want you to know that the reason that you were selected for the position was because  the University was under pressure to hire more minority faculty and that there were more qualified candidates.

I politely listened to her and said I would do my best to prove that the University had made the right decision to hire me.  It so happened I was the second Hispanic Ph.D. professor hired by the College of Pharmacy since its founding in 1893. 

I sarcastically thought to myself:  I was indeed very fortunate to have been selected for the assistant professor position even though I had graduated first in my college class, had received a coveted national fellowship, and had turned down a prestigious postdoctoral position to study at the renowned Karolinska Institute.  How lucky was I to be an Affirmative Action hire at the University of Texas!

The rest of the department faculty feared her because she made decisions on laboratory space, recommendations for salary raises, and teaching assignments.  One look at her and you knew not to mess with her, which fitted in well with the State of Texas campaign at that time to not litter--Don’t Mess with Texas!  She was petite but gave off an aura of toughness and her no-nonsense demeanor did not allow for any chit-chat type conversations.  She wore stiletto high heels that one heard clickily-clack on the tiled floors as she walked down the halls; the graduate students knew immediately to look busy in the labs.  To top it off, she smoked unfiltered Camels.  Yeah, she was a tough lady.

From that day on she treated me differently in comparison to the other white professors.  Whereas all of those professors were assigned laboratories in the pharmacy building, she offered me a laboratory located several miles away from the University because she claimed that there was no space for my equipment in the current pharmacy building. 

I found an empty laboratory in the attic of the pharmacy building and by way of drawings made to scale I was able to convince her that my lab equipment could be accommodated in that small room.  Proving her wrong did not help my future interactions with her.

Another assistant professor from Indiana was recruited into the department at the same time that I was.  Steve and his wife, Denese, became good friends with Patti and me.  It helped that the two wives were very compatible and loved to talk on the phone when their husbands were working all hours at the College, and especially when they both had their firstborns a few months apart.  

In the beginning, one could say that Steve was the chair’s favorite--he had a nice lab near his office and was reasonably equipped.  Steve and I joked about it, but my professional relationship with the Chair continued to deteriorate and I was becoming more frustrated with the situation.  At about the same time, the chair was making demands on Steve to supervise her one graduate student who was working on his master’s degree.  Steve had his own concerns and responsibilities to set up his own research program and prepare his pharmacology course lectures. 

Finally, it became unbearable for both of us to work with the chair.  We decided that we had to talk with her immediate supervisor, the dean of the College of Pharmacy.  We scheduled an appointment with Jim late one Friday afternoon, and at that meeting we, perhaps unwisely, told him that it was us or her.  If he supported her, we planned to leave the College.  I had a vague strategy to take a postdoctoral position with a professor I barely knew at Johns Hopkins University, but there was no guarantee of a job if I resigned my position at Texas.  Steve was in a similar situation.  To our surprise, Jim said he would talk to her Monday morning, giving him the weekend to think about how he would handle the matter with her.   

Monday came.  Jim met with us and joyfully told us that everything was under control.  We no longer had to have her as our chair.  Apparently, before Jim could arrange a meeting with her, she had already made an appointment with his assistant to meet with him that morning.  She revealed that she had another job offer in California that she could not turn down.  She would be leaving at the end of the academic year.

Jim rationalized that was a perfect solution for him because he did not have to make a hard decision about our legitimate job demands, and he did not have to have to say anything about our unhappiness with her leadership of the department.  Instead, Steve and I had to endure her continuation as chair for another semester.  We also had to hear Jim brag several times that he handled the matter adroitly with the chair.  He was just lucky that he did not have to confront her.  She thought she left Texas with an unblemished record.

Epilogue

I have experienced subtle forms of discrimination (microaggressions) throughout my career of 45 years, rather than the overt racism I saw directed towards my father, who worked as a carpenter under the hot sun of El Paso.  But sometimes words slip out in the heat of an argument.  When I disagreed openly with the dean one time on a specific issue, he told me privately that I should be careful with what I say because I was fortunate to have been hired because of my AA status.  This continued throughout my career at the University of Texas.