The 1996 CAUT Status of Women Committee conference on "Doing Equity" took place in Halifax on Oct. 24-27. Activities included a workshop entitled "Coping with Loss and Betrayal in the Workplace," a networking session for feminist researchers, and the Sarah Shorten Award dinner in honour of the 1996 recipient, Elizabeth Fox Percival (University of Prince Edward Island).

The keynote address, "Doing Equity: For Show or for Sure?" was given by Esmeralda Thornhill (James Robinson Johnston Chair in Black Canadian Studies, Dalhousie) who noted there are glaring contradictions between our theoretical commitment to ending inequity and its current implementation.

Opponents of changes designed to achieve fairness transform themselves into victims of special interest groups and boomerang blame onto victims of discrimination in the court of public opinion, she said.

Racial discrimination needs closer scrutiny inside and outside the academy. Minority faculty are embattled for professional and personal survival.

Racism is not invented by individual perpetrators; it is embedded in white-centered society. White people are taught to see their own lives as normal, and to perceive the focus of equity work as making "them" more like "us."

When racism is mentioned the response is anger, and instinctive repression and denial. Black people, by contrast, recognize from an early age that the equation of black skin colour with inferiority continues. Black Canadians still have to prove our humanity over and over to the world, the courts, our employers, and our unions, said Professor Thornhill.

Universities must credentialize and make room for the authentic voices of those who have previously been excluded on the basis of race. Faculty associations and university administrations should acknowledge that collective agreements and other legal enforcement mechanisms have not met expectations for change, and seek the legal and factual expertise that will truly make equity a reality on our campuses, she said.

Systemic Discrimination Stream

Three lawyers (Maureen Webb, CAUT; Jonathan Alger, AAUP; and Cynthia Wilkey, a Toronto labour lawyer) explored legal issues faculty associations face in employment discrimination cases, including evaluation of legal merits and litigation strategies.

Discrimination cases are complex, but with a sound grasp of legal principles faculty associations can provide sound guidance to complainants, educate their university administration and win at arbitration.

Labour legislation imposes a duty not to act in a manner that is arbitrary, capricious, discriminatory or otherwise wrongful to members. Faculty associations that refuse to handle discrimination cases could be subject to a "fair representation" complaint.

Human Rights legislation could apply to a faculty association if it directly participates in conduct that has a discriminatory impact. Advocates who are not members of the relevant equity-seeking group should recognize that they are not well-equipped to understand discrimination that lies outside their personal experience. They should listen carefully and respectfully to complainants.

CAUT's lawyers see many cases involving allegations of discrimination arising as appeals from denial of tenure, promotion, or sabbaticals, under sexual harassment policies, or as grievances under non-discrimination, fairness, salary equity, pension, or academic freedom clauses in collective agreements.

Such controversies may also fall within federal or provincial human rights codes, the Federal Contractors Program, pay equity, employment standards, occupational health and safety legislation, or civil tort law.

Group characteristics (e.g. gender, race, disability, sexual orientation) and grounds (e.g. a hostile working environment such as discrimination in terms and conditions of employment) for discrimination claims were discussed.

Proof of discriminatory intent is not a prerequisite for a successful discrimination claim. Remedies are available for direct, adverse effect and systemic discrimination.

Legal requirements and direct, circumstantial or statistical evidence needed to establish each kind of discrimination were explored. Choice of forum issues (e.g. time limits, exhaustion of remedies, costs, efficiency), disclosure of documents, academic freedom, legal strategies to address retaliation against complainants and their allies, settlements and remedies were also analyzed.

Presentations by three CAUT officers then served as the catalyst for a brain-storming session on political strategies for handling equity disputes.

CAUT President Bill Bruneau noted it is essential that terms of reference for investigations be crystal clear and investigations not be held in secret. Curriculum reform should take place through university Senates.

Formal and informal power relations with the university require close scrutiny, the CAUT president said. We must be courageous in addressing equity problems, and face up to the fact that they are not going to go away.

Joyce Lorimer, past-president of CAUT, described a case where an equity dispute was successfully mediated through active, early, cooperation of the faculty association and senior administrators. Dr. Lorimer recommended the development of an "early warning network" of people within departments who would alert faculty associations when an equity controversy arises. It is also helpful to have observers to exchanges between participants in an equity conflict, in order to maintain civility.

Jennifer Bankier, chair of CAUT's Status of Women Committee, discussed strategies for persuading senior administrators to co-operate.

With "honourable conservatives" it may be necessary to define issues using familiar concepts such as academic freedom and fairness, she said.

With careerist administrators, resistance may reflect fear of adverse publicity or a belief that members of equity-seeking groups do not have financial, social or political power. Such administrators must be convinced that adverse publicity ultimately resulting from a refusal to acknowledge inequity (e.g. an arbitration award or human rights decision explicitly finding discrimination by their administration, media press releases by equity groups, a complaint to the Federal Contractors Program that adversely affects university funding) is more harmful than mere acknowledgment that inequity exists and must be fixed.

Part-timers Stream

Part-timers gave a consistent picture of their working conditions -- and their future. What was true in Nova Scotia was also true in Ontario and Saskatchewan and British Columbia. Across the country, administrations have for decades used the category of "part-timer" to solve their budgetary and planning difficulties.

A part-timer is "cheap," will often accept teaching loads much heavier than those of tenured colleagues, will accept salaries at one-half or even one-third the going rate, will teach in classrooms separated by large distances, and work without any hope of secure employment.

They teach and they work well...and yet they are easily discarded. They provide what administrators like to call "flexibility" -- but flexibility based upon unfairness and inequity.

The unfairness is obvious -- part-timers who do essentially the same jobs as full-time faculty over many years deserve to be treated in the same way as their full-time counterparts. The inequity is even more obvious -- by far the majority of part-timers are women.

At the conference, the idea of "doing equity" was at centre stage, and it was very much at the centre of part-timers and full-timers who came to Halifax. For one thing, it became clear at the sessions on part-time employment that equity, if it is to mean much, has to be lived, felt and acted on in the legal and the political senses.

The problems of part-timers are the problems of all Canadian academics. If due process is failing part-timers, then due process may not be available for anyone in the future. If equity-seeking groups are over-represented among part-timers (as they are), then universities have a double problem.

Participants agreed unanimously that this is a problem that can't wait to be solved in the indefinite future. It needs attention now, as governments and administrators are turning to sessional and part-time contracts as a way out of a commitment to fairness and true quality in higher education.

The part-timers' discussions included statistical, legal, and historical descriptions of sessional employment in English Canada since the Second World War.

Each discussion ended with concrete recommendations for change: a proper seniority system; tests for equitable treatment in working conditions and salaries; proposals for faculty associations to take to their bargaining tables; and a set of ways that would change the climate and the expectations of departments who do not often "see" the part-timers among them.

It is time that part-timers be seen as teaching researchers, properly paid, and humanely treated -- not seen as "go-fers" or as answers to temporary administrative problems.

Teaching Stream

"Doing equity" with respect to the theory and action of university teaching presents a landscape of adventure and challenge. The language of inclusivity sets up contradictions with which we struggle both in our classrooms and with one another. These struggles were evident in the scope of the workshops and panel, and in the debates that ensued within each session.

The teaching workshops addressed issues from various locations -- from teaching as a political and moral act to strategies within the classroom, toward a mechanism to present what we do in the classroom in a way that is understood by others who may be in a position to judge our activities.

Panelists also approached equity in the classroom from the locations of class relations, access to university education by persons with disabilities, and how equity is to be achieved in university and classroom situations attended primarily by women.

The workshops included opportunities to sort through approaches to teaching that ranged from the use of music as a metaphor for teaching and learning to what music might teach us about the nuances and contradictions of voice, sound and presence in the class.

Discussions also provided an opportunity to examine classroom interventions that can move volatile situations to realistic and less-explosive interactions. Strategies were also developed regarding how to learn more effective teaching and how to present that teaching within a lecture-based tradition.

Collaborating with peers and students about theoretical and practical ways to keep teaching central in our work was discussed while remembering that teaching can be a political act.

Teaching was considered in the context of the university itself where education is associated with the allocation of privilege and power through relations of class, race, gender and sexuality. While strategies and concrete suggestions emerged in each session, participants clearly indicated the desire that issues of teaching and our roles as teachers and learners continue on the CAUT conference agenda.

Report prepared by Jennifer Bankier, Chair, CAUT Status of Women Committee; Bill Bruneau, CUAT President; Barbara Herringer, CAUT Status of Women Committee.