Newsletter

September 2007

Glad To See U Of T Recognizes Conflict Between Merit And Equity

John Furedy

The
recent provostial advice for recruiting and retaining faculty (

www.provost.utoronto.ca/link/
administrators/recruitmenttoolkit/ advertising_and_Searching.htm)
cites the university’s official “equity”-based advertising statement and
comments on the statement as follows:

“As
Furedy et al. (1999) note, equity statements are used to ensure equality of
outcome in the recruitment process, not just equality of opportunity. The
[advertising] statement recognises that … evaluation on the basis of ‘merit’ can
unfairly discriminate. It also suggests a commitment by the institution to
equity throughout an employee’s tenure (Powney, 1994).”

The
first two sentences of the above appear to me to contradict the university’s
official position on the equivalence of equity and excellence as formulated
recently, for example, by Professor Angela Hildyard, vice-president (human
resources and equity), when she stated that “we are talking about equity,
diversity and excellence all at the same time, that’s unique to us here at U of
T” (Linking Equity, Excellence, Nov. 28). On the other hand, those two sentences
are consistent with my position that excellence (or merit) and equity are not
the same (Dubious Partnership: Equity and excellence are not equivalent, Jan.
9), a claim that I supported by referring to empirical research on Canadian
tenure-stream advertisements.

It
also occurs to me that the third sentence that advocates applying equity
principles not only to recruitment but also to retention of faculty in groups
designated by sex and race (or ethnicity) is consistent with my view that one
undesired consequence of these “diversity” policies is that individuals in these
designated groups will be subject to the irrefutable suspicions that they were
not only hired, but also promoted, on the basis of their membership in
designated groups, rather than on the basis of their merit or excellence.

In
any case, I am glad to see that the provostial advice has recognized that there
actually is a conflict between merit or excellence and equity.

U of T Bulletin, May 29, 2007.