Article in the National Journal by Neil Munro:

Advocates for women are rallying behind a House bill that would prod agencies to aid female scientists and would also help extend Title IX gender-bias enforcement from the athletic fields to the nation's top scientific research laboratories and the grant-making decisions of federal agencies.

The pending bill puts the nation's research universities in an awkward position. They support sexual equality but object to intrusive regulation of their sector, in part because their practices produce discoveries such as novel drugs but also because they compete against overseas research centers.

The Gender Bias Elimination Act, H.R. 3514, is sponsored by Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, D-Texas, a member of the House Science and Technology Committee. "It is not lack of talent but unintentional biases and outmoded institutional structures that are hindering the access and advancement of women" in the science field, according to the bill. It directs several federal entities to enforce a variety of sexual-equality laws, collect data on grants given to women, extend the duration of grants held by "caregivers" who have responsibility for children at home, and conduct mandatory educational meetings on discrimination. The bill authorizes $5 million a year for these efforts and targets the Pentagon, the National Science Foundation, the Energy Department, the National Institutes of Health, and NASA. The barriers to women are "sorely underrated," Johnson told National Journal. "We have to break those habits."

The bill has some support on the Democratic side, but it may be narrowed to exclude the Pentagon and NIH, a Hill staff member said. The outside advocates are also backing a provision in the pending education bill that would help establish a group to monitor gender equity in university science departments.

Most senior scientists are men, largely because few women won degrees decades ago. Women received 40 percent of the science and engineering doctorates awarded in 2006. But "the proportion of women getting hired into the most junior positions is roughly 20 percent," said Phoebe Leboy, president of the Association for Women in Science. "It's very difficult to set up laws to prevent this, but what one can have are government programs to have people understand what they're doing." Johnson's bill is backed by many women's groups, including the American Association of University Women and the National Women's Law Center.

Currently, research universities train students for a decade, during which they provide cheap labor for laboratory work that is simultaneously stressful and mundane, such as monitoring cells to gauge their response to a potential drug. This means that scientists typically don't get a federal grant until age 43, on average, when they face pressure to establish themselves in a competitive niche, to earn a decent living, and to support a family. At this point, many often choose a different career. Also, male students from Asia can afford to work long hours because their wives traditionally rear the children, Leboy said, and "it is having a disproportionate impact on women" competing in the field.

"The funding agencies could make [equity] happen by making it clear to [university] department chairs that they won't tolerate a single-sex science in the United States," said Donna Shalala, president of the University of Miami, who has set up a process to aid female students.

But the bill is also intended to provide a foundation for future Title IX lawsuits against the universities, said one advocate who asked to remain anonymous. The suits would be aimed at institutions that give women less financial support, less laboratory space, fewer graduate assistants, or fewer promotions than they give men, the advocate said. In athletics, Title IX lawsuits have increased university funding for women's sports but have also resulted in the downsizing of many men's programs, prompting much controversy and additional suits. The proposed bill "is a similar concept, but the details are not firm," the advocate said.

The universities will probably oppose the bill, at least quietly, because the increased regulation and the potential for lawsuits would threaten their business model.

NIH, the federal government's primary science agency, has already launched an effort to reduce attrition among younger scientists of both sexes, Director Elias Zerhouni told National Journal. Possible remedies include changes to the grant-review process and informal limits on the number of grants that older scientists can hold concurrently, he said. But people will choose careers that match their preferred lifestyle, Zerhouni said. "Quotas are not going to help, [and] I have never seen lawsuits help that much."