Many who read Sandra Bruneau’s review (CAUT Bulletin — Status of Women Supplement, April 1997) of Andrew Irvine’s "Jack and Jill and Employment Equity" will not have read Irvine’s paper, entombed as it is in the decent obscurity of a learned journal (Dialogue XXXV, 1996, 255-91). Nor will her review encourage them to seek it out. This is a pity since Irvine addresses a genuine problem and, at least in my opinion, deals with it scrupulously and fairly. In a nutshell the problem is this: if, in making academic appointments, we depart from the policy of choosing simply on the basis of academic merit in order to favour the members of some sub-group of applicants —call it group A — this is unjust to more meritorious applicants, if any, who do not belong to group A, who are passed over in favour of As. And it will also entail that those appointed will be less well qualified than would have been the case had merit been the only criterion.

Can we justify a policy of "affirmative action" in favour of members of group A? Well, it could be argued that, considerations of relative merit aside, there are other appropriate reasons for wanting a larger proportion of As in the departmental mix. Or it could be argued that positive discrimination in favour of As is needed to counteract an ingrained tendency to discriminate against As.

Irvine does not ignore the first of these rationales, but his emphasis is upon the second. Has there been persistent discrimination against women applicants? From a detailed examination of evidence provided by Statistics Canada which indicates that, over the past 25 years, the proportion of qualified female applicants who have received university appointments is larger than that of male applicants, he concludes that "statistically significant, widespread discrimination against women during hiring is not now likely to be taking place, nor is it likely to have existed for at least 25 years." (p. 268) It could be argued that the appointment of a larger proportion of women reflects higher qualifications in female applicants, but the burden of proof would be on the proponents of this claim. However, if this is not the case and if there has been positive discrimination in favour of women, then there has been discrimination against men; more meritorious applicants will have been passed over in favour of less meritorious ones. This is a simple and obvious point, but Bruneau inexplicably chooses to interpret it as evidence that Irvine believes that men are more meritorious than women "because they are men and for no other materially significant reason."

What of the other possible rationale for positive discrimination in favour of women? Bruneau suggests that there are many ways in which a larger proportion of women within a department could contribute more fruitfully than men to educating "for new social circumstances" and to "making sense of a world where women play their full parts in public life and business." Irvine’s approach, with its tendency to equate "standards" with "page counts of published articles" and the "percentage of doctoral graduates hired in lower ranks," "lead(s) to conclusions so embarrassing that he must keep such complicating factors out of his discussion." Irvine, in fact, says nothing about page-counting or numbers of publications. He does note that in recent years a significantly smaller proportion of women than men have had doctorates at the Assistant Professor level, but he adds that "one should not read too much into these figures." (p. 270) And he does not ignore the sorts of consideration to which Bruneau refers: given that Jack and Jill are of equal merit as measured by the standard criteria, "does this mean that a university might have no reason for preferring Jill to Jack? Not at all... a hiring committee might expand its evaluative procedures...ask leading candidates to give sample undergraduate lectures...allow for telephone interviews with referees, long ranges estimates concerning administrative as well as academic needs...a hiring committee may have reason to believe that, for whatever reasons, having more women on faculty will improve the university’s ability to carry out its research and teaching." (pp. 279f.)

Bruneau predicts that, without a continued program of affirmative action in favour of women the "numbers of men in every rank would continue to far outweigh the numbers of women." However Irvine’s figures do not support this prediction. He quotes figures showing that, whereas in the mid-60s women constituted only 18 per cent of those receiving graduate degrees, by 1990 they constituted 45 per cent. Assuming, as Irvine does, that on average women are just as meritorious as men, if appointments are made simply on the basis of merit and if the same proportion of qualified women as of men apply, then approximately as many women as men will receive appointments.

Bruneau remarks that "There are still relatively few women applicants for vacant posts..." Irvine suggests a number of remedies: "...why not implement policies that rectify the situation at its cause? Such policies may include increased or universal daycare, increased educational opportunities for women at the graduate level by means of private scholarships and fellowships, increased encouragement within the school system for young women to consider academic careers, and so on." (p. 273)

Peter Remnant
Philosophy, University of British Columbia