GESO released a report on diversity at the Yale Graduate School Thursday that says graduate students are “fighting a stratified system” at the University.

People of color and women face unequal working conditions, the six-page Graduate Employees and Students Organization report claims. It contends “almost” every minority and female professor at the University is paid less than his or her white male counterparts.

University spokeswoman Helaine Klasky questioned the report’s validity.

“To make a statement that the University treats women and minorities differently is an unfair and unfounded statement,” Klasky said.

But Mary Reynolds GRD ’07, who is campaigning to succeed Anita Seth GRD ’05 as GESO chairwoman, said the University is building a “less diverse future faculty.”

“[Despite] this fight, Yale has lip-serviced to the importance of a diverse faculty, a diverse student body and a diverse curriculum,” Reynolds said. “The reality of the situation for retaining and promoting faculty of color and students of color is dismal. There’s a real gap between Yale’s stated commitment to diversity and the actual resources it provides.”

GESO’s report calls for a binding contract for graduate students ensuring that women and minorities have “fair and equal working conditions.” It also calls for a “substantial increase” in resources allocated to the Graduate School’s Office of Diversity and Equal Opportunity, or ODEO.

GESO claims only one of Yale’s nearly 800 full professors is a black woman, while about half of the University’s non-ladder instructors are female and one-third are minorities. Of Yale’s tenured faculty, 17.5 percent are women and 9.12 percent are minorities, according to the report.

The study says Yale’s history is one of neglect and calls on the University to promote more minorities and women to senior faculty positions. It calls on the University to immediately adopt several measures to retain and promote women and minorities in the faculty of each of the school’s departments.

“Can this young faculty look forward to being valued, nurtured and promoted? The answer in short is no,” African American Studies professor Hazel Carby, who has tenure, wrote in the report. “All they can expect is Yale’s revolving door.”

The report contends that the School of Medicine’s Office of Multicultural Affairs has two main offices with at least four staff members to serve fewer than 500 students. But the Graduate School ODEO, a similar department, operates only one office with two staff members to serve more than 2,500 students.

Klasky said Yale continues its commitment to diversity, pointing to statistics that show an increase in the University’s minority staff hirings in the last decade.

“Even the greatest skeptic would be impressed [by the statistics],” Klasky said.

The figures, published in the most recent Yale Alumni Magazine, do not measure faculty hirings.

Graduate School Dean Peter Salovey could not be reached for comment Thursday evening.

This study is the group’s fourth in a series of reports this fall focusing on key issues facing graduate students. In October, the group voted to shift its strategy to a new platform that focuses on important issues in the Graduate School.