Wives, Physics, and Nepotism in Academia
In 1980, physicist Freda Friedman Salzman was undergoing cancer treatment in Germany. Body wracked with bouts of fever, she tried to muster the strength to hike and walk. She read two letters from home in Boston: one from her daughter, who was conquering her linear algebra class, and one from her husband, George. He talked extensively about the dinner adventures of the night before, corralling three teenage girls. He missed her, he wrote, and wished her to be back home, healthy, so that they could enjoy these adventures together.
The marriage between George and Freda was a loving partnership between two highly accomplished physicists. Together, Freda and George obtained their Ph.D.s from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, completed postgraduate studies, and became independent researchers. During this time, Freda produced critical work on single-particle exchange models, nucleon collisions, and the electromagnetic interactions of vector bosons.
Despite her undeniable skill as a physicist, Freda’s identity as a wife would later obstruct her identity as a scientist. When the opportunity arose for Freda and George to work together at the University of Massachusetts Boston in 1965, they took it. But while George was offered full-time employment with tenure, Freda was sidelined by the university’s nepotism policy, a rule that would significantly affect her career and livelihood for the rest of her life.
Born in 1927 and growing up during the Great Depression, Freda Friedman was intrigued by mathematics and physics from an early age. She enrolled at Brooklyn College as a night student, all while tutoring, baby-sitting, and working to save money. Freda was inspired by Melba Phillips, a well-renowned physicist and educator. Philips encouraged Freda to continue her education and sent her off to the University of Illinois, assuring her that the superb physicists there would provide many learning opportunities. As a result, Freda pursued graduate studies under Geoffrey Chew, the physicist who developed the “bootstrap theory” in particle physics. Prestigious fellowships from the National Science Foundation and European Council for Nuclear Research underscored her intellectual prowess.
During her undergraduate years, Freda met George Salzman, another promising young physicist. Falling in love quickly, the two married and began working together academically. Soon after giving birth to two daughters, Freda began to yearn for the stability of an academic position. The life of the Salzmans had been one of constant uprooting: they had traversed from the U.S. to Switzerland and Rome for Freda’s postdoctoral fellowships. The family finally returned to Massachusetts when the opportunity arose.
After receiving dual offers from the University of Massachusetts Boston, the Salzmans happily settled down with their children. George was offered a position as a professor of physics, while Freda was offered a part-time position as an associate professor; George was recruited with tenure, but Freda wasn’t.
Despite this inequity, the Salzmans began their professorships in 1965 with the agreement that Freda’s position would be a long-lasting one. Specifically, the administrator responsible for hiring the Salzmans reassured Freda that the university’s “nepotism policy” wouldn’t negatively impact Freda’s future rehiring.
Historically, the subtext of the nepotism policy was quite hazy. In the original policy, employing both a husband and wife was prohibited. However, this policy had already run into trouble when two existing faculty members married. Given these problems, the university’s board of trustees proposed a reconsideration of the policy in 1963. The general rule maintained that simultaneous hiring of family members should be avoided; in the case that both family members were highly academically qualified, however, the rule could be overturned. If both family members were in the same department—as was the case with Freda and George—tenure could only be given to one member.
Nepotism policies in academia were intended to curtail family members asserting unfair influence on the department. However, these policies often disproportionately limited the employment of wives as opposed to husbands. In a 1972 interview with the Holyoke Transcript Telegram, Freda mused, “‘No one asked, “Which one of you wants the part-time job?” I was told that I would take it. I know of no case where the husband, rather than the wife, got the part-time job.’”
Freda arrived into her new professorship touting a grant from the National Science Foundation for the study of elementary particles, for which she was principal investigator. As one of the founding members of the school’s physics department, she was a major contributor to its curriculum plan. Freda was seen as not only a superb researcher but also an extremely kind, warm, and democratic person. Held in high regard by her colleagues and noted as a dedicated teacher by her students, she was unequivocally a valued member of the physics department.
It became quickly apparent, however, that the administrative environment of the University was hostile. Freda, who advocated for changes in the undergraduate curriculum to encourage research work and a more holistic education, began to face the ire of the chancellor and dean.
When it came time for Freda’s reappointment in 1967, the nepotism policy reared its head. Citing this policy as the grounds for firing Freda, chancellor John Ryan and acting dean Paul Gagnon terminated Freda’s employment. They maintained that the policy prohibited a husband and his wife to hold concurrent positions in the same department—ignoring the amendment that had been made to the policy in 1963.
The poignant strain this caused to Freda’s livelihood was shared in part by George, who remained part of the physics department during this chaotic time. George forcefully fought to keep his wife in the department, stating, “the only ‘ground’ that was trumped up for terminating Mrs. Salzman’s employment was the fact that she is my wife,” and that “action against Mrs. Salzman combined political motives and personal vengeance.”
Despite a strong recommendation from the physics department, Ryan didn't approve Freda’s reappointment. In 1968, Freda was served papers that officially terminated her professorship the following August.
After receiving this notice, Freda wrote to the chair of the physics department, asking for a sick leave. “I am distraught by the complete abrogation of the commitment made to my husband and myself at the time we were recruited,” she wrote. “[T]o attempt to work under these conditions would be a disservice to the students.”
As the Salzman case began to make its rounds in mass media, the public, colleagues, and the wider academic community saw Freda as an unfair target of discrimination in the academic community. In 1970, the university’s tenure and grievance committee unequivocally supported Freda’s reappointment. Faculty voted to support Freda, and in 1971, they called upon the board of trustees to reconsider her case. The support was not localized to Boston; the National Organization for Women submitted an appeal, and over 190 scientists signed a public petition for Freda’s rehiring.
This outpouring of support eventually brought Freda’s case back to the school’s board of trustees. In December of 1971, the trustees voted to change the nepotism policy so that qualifications would be the only criteria considered for hiring faculty. This change was not applied retroactively on Freda’s behalf, however.
External pressures on the university board continued to mount, and one year later, the university finally relented. Freda was reappointed to her position—without tenure, as an associate professor. It would take another three years before Freda received a full professorship with tenure in 1975.
As the retributions of the nepotism policy began to fade, Freda resumed teaching and research. She published new work on general relativity and re-established her place as a talented theoretical physicist. The next four years were productive and happy years, as Freda traveled and taught.
But her success, after years of struggle, was short-lived. In the spring of 1979, Freda was diagnosed with malignant breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy. Despite frantic efforts by her family to pursue further treatment, including her treatment in Germany, she passed away in 1981.
Currently, most nepotism policies aim to tread the line between family members exerting potential undue influence and hiring discrimination. As such, the policies most commonly prohibit family members from participating in decisions regarding each other within the department rather than banning hiring couples outright. While these policies target key issues of power imbalance and favoritism, they often also emphasize case-by-case flexibility—something that Freda was not accorded.
Freda hoped for a future in which she could freely explore the possibilities within the most elementary of particles in order to develop a deeper understanding of the forces that govern the natural world. “We have every reason to believe that we can create a just, humane, egalitarian society,” she once said. “There is nothing we know, not one scrap of evidence, which can deny that possibility.”
Author’s note: Thanks to the Harvard Schlesinger Library for providing Freda Friedman Salzman’s archive