The debate often centers on whether these disparities are real or imagined.
When it comes to faculty salaries at UNC, officials say the truth might lie somewhere in between.
The Office of Institutional Research began a formal study earlier this semester of possible faculty salary gaps between whites and non-whites and between women and men at UNC. This office has never before conducted such a study.
The study was prompted by an N.C. State University study released last fall that found that white male faculty earn, on average, $2,000 more than minority faculty members at N.C. State.
The UNC study is still in the process of organizing the data, but Williford said she hopes it will be completed by the end of the semester.
Factors that determine faculty salary include years teaching at UNC, tenure, additional administrative duties and the department or school in which a professor teaches, Williford said.
Williford explained that the study will look at salary discrepancies within departments and will not immediately examine professors' individual achievements or contributions that could affect salary figures.
"If we did find that there are differences, we would probably find what units have the greatest discrepancies and do analysis at a more individual level," Williford said.
But salary might not be the main factor in determining equity in faculty compensation.
"The issue is not just salary," said Joseph Jordan, director of the Sonja H. Stone Black Cultural Center. "What really allows you to situate yourself in the University is rewards."
Jordan said rewards include research money, allocation of assistants and sabbatical leave. He also said some faculty would take a lower salary if they could get more rewards.
Jordan said less tangible issues also are important to minority faculty and might affect a university's minority retention rate or satisfaction level.
Issues that commonly hinder minority faculty retention include being the only person of color in a department or having to deal with a hostile campus environment.
"Salary can soften some of those things," Jordan said. "But there are other issues."
Williford said similar issues influence faculty retention in general.
"Both how you're treated, the respect that you get from your peers and the support that you feel from your department are also important factors in retaining faculty," she said.
Williford said looking for, and possibly finding, disparities in pay for white and non-white faculty is important to the University's well-being.
"Our campus very much values diversity and also values the community spirit," she said. Discrepancies in pay due to discrimination "would be harmful to the morale of the academic community if some members were being disadvantaged because of pay."
Harold Woodard, chairman of the UNC Black Faculty-Staff Caucus, said faculty salary discrepancies "have never come up as a caucus issue."
Journalism Professor Chuck Stone also said he was not familiar with any specific complaints about pay from faculty of color.
But Woodard said the absence of formal complaints does not mean concern among individual faculty members about possible pay inequities does not exist.
"It might be that each individual faculty member prefers to handle it within their own department," Woodard said. "I think it's just the culture of this campus that if you have a salary issue, that's something you handle one-on-one."
Archie Ervin, director of the Office of Minority Affairs, said he does not think any possible pay discrepancies between minority and white faculty members would be the result of racial bias.
"Any sort of blatant discrimination would have been revealed," Ervin said. "If there were red flags, then those issues would have been dealt with."
In addition to officials feeling certain that measures are in place to prevent deliberate racial discrimination against faculty members, administrators also say similar measures are in place to avoid bias against students.
According to data from the Office of Scholarships and Student Aid, 54 percent of UNC undergraduates received financial aid in 2001. Need-based aid accounts for 95 percent of the aid given to students.
Shirley Ort, the office's director, said race is not a factor in awarding financial aid. "We know based on our distribution of aid that that is impossible," she said. "We don't even pick up race as an identifier."
While the office does not award financial aid on the basis of race, financial aid records are organized demographically. "Minority students are more responsive to offers of grants and scholarships rather than loans and work study," Ort said.
For example, 69 percent of the aid received by Native American students and 68 percent of aid received by Asian students are grants, compared to 57 percent of aid received by white students.
Ort said one reason for minority students' apparent preference for grants might be that students of color, especially those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, think loans can be problematic.
But of students who receive financial aid or scholarships, Ort said students of color are more likely to receive need-based than merit-based aid -- a trend she said can partly be explained by a disparity in the quality of collegiate preparation.
Ort said North Carolina's demographics indicate that students of color are overrepresented in low-income and disadvantaged groups. Studies have indicated that disadvantaged backgrounds often depress SAT scores, which are a primary criterion in awarding merit-based aid.
"One way to help everybody is to make sure that preparation is equal," Ort said.
It also appears that minority students receive more need-based than merit-based aid compared to white students because merit scholarships received by financially needy students appear in the school's records as need-based, Ort said.
But Ort said the bottom line is that early application, financial need, estimated family contribution and academic achievement are the main factors in determining awards.
Many students at UNC said they are not concerned about who receives what kind of financial aid.
"How people pay for school is not as big an issue as people think it is," said Patrice High, a junior journalism major. "Students don't really talk about it."
Robert Summerous, a sophomore clinical lab sciences major, said, "I really don't think people are worried about other people's aid."
While students and faculty are not overtly concerned about the possibility of financial disparities between races, the financial aid office and the institutional research office are working to ensure that all members of the University community have equal access to pay and aid.
Ervin said perceptions of discrimination or inequality probably result from past issues of inequity. But he said looking for discrepancies is still important.
"It is always wise to maintain vigilance when it comes to equity."
The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.
