REPORT ON CAUT’S 1ST EQUITY FORUM: RECASTING EQUITY
OTTAWA, FEBRUARY 6-8, 2009
The 1st CAUT Equity
Forum focused on the theme of Recasting
Equity. I attended as a member of the AUFA Women’s Committee.
As stated by Jim Turk (Executive
Director of CAUT), the goal was to “challenge traditional notions about
equity and develop new approaches to achieving equity in the academy.” He also
acknowledged in his opening comments that CAUT did not have a lot to be proud
of with respect to its historical record of work on equity issues.
Penni Stewart , CAUT President, noted that the conference was occurring on the 25th anniversary of the tabling of Abella Commission report on “Equality in Employment” and she urged us all to continue the work of moving beyond quotas and essentialist takes on identity. Stewart also wanted conference participants to take a hard look at the tensions between “excellence” and “equity” that exist in academic workplaces.
The conference opened with a theatrical performance titled “Equity in Your Face” created and performed by Christine Nutting and Cortney Lohnes of Edmonton, Alberta and directed by Piet Defraeye of the University of Alberta. The performance drew upon relevant and topical equity issues (starting with a Margaret Wente character introducing speaker Ann Coulter) and put in all our faces many of the common inequitable practices being played out on Canadian campuses. My personal favourite was the “internal audit interview” where an accomplished middle-class white woman was being eagerly wooed by a university search committee as their new expert on “Indigenous Studies” – if only she could just make visible a few more of her differences. This concern was taken care of through the use of a chain saw and a grisly demonstration of how completely twisted our notions of equity have become. After the performance, we discussed the violent hierarchies of equity being maintained on university campuses as well as the “equity industry” that has developed.
There were three plenary sessions. The first, titled Recasting Equity, took up the origins of equity and discussed the meaning of diversity. The panelists were Audrey Kobayashi (Queens), Richard Alteo (Manitoba), Piet Defraeye (Alberta), and Yasmin Jiwani (Concordia).
The panelists provided some historical information regarding the intentions behind the beginnings of employment equity and made the point that the CAUT Equity Committee (all panelists being members) were much more interested in how equity can be considered as a way of knowing, not just about defining diversity. Kobayashi stated that equity is about recognition and action. Defraeye related the story of the closure of the Human Rights Office at the U of Alberta (later reopened as the Internal Audit Office) as an example of how the struggle for equity gets entangled with the business and administration of it. Equity on university campuses has in many ways become merely another administrative problem. Jiwani spoke to the equitable distribution of resources and how elite racism sets the tone for ambient racism. Alteo spoke about a successful First Nations Studies program at Malsapina University that destroyed the “myth of aboriginality.” Alteo called on us all to take responsibility for doing the equity work by refusing the expert model agenda or equity as a special-interest-group job. The panelists mentioned the hugely problematic divide between understandings of equity work and diversity work, with the category of equity applying to women and gender, and the category of diversity being applied to “others.”
The second plenary session was Tensions and Complements. The panelists provided commentary on the relationship between academic freedom and equity. The panelists were Enakshi Dua (York), Mark Neufeld (Trent), Rinaldo Walcott ( OISE, Toronto) and Bonita Lawrence ( York).
Neufeld described the discrimination he experienced at Trent within his department because of his colleagues’ and some administrators’ refusal to recognize his disability as “authentic.” Lawrence provided insight on the context of the CAUT censure of First Nations University and commented on how that act of censure cannot be removed from the larger colonial framework of the institutions of Canada. Walcott put forward a call for “Another University Now” and stated that Canadian universities are some of the most racist institutions where visible minority faculty are often hired and not tenured. Panelists stressed that equity work must do more than look at numbers and representation and go deeper into workplace environment and climate. Dua reported some initial results from her study that examined the equity policies of 33 Canadian universities. She has documented an attitude of denial among many senior administrators about the existence of racism within universities. We appear to be fluent in the language of equity in Canadian universities but lacking in substantive action. The question was asked: Can we have racism without racists?
The third plenary session was Strategies and Tactics. The discussion centred on moving beyond counting. There was commentary on affirmative action, promotion and tenure, and on creating commitment in faculty associations. The panelists were Ruthann Dyer ( York), Rosanna Carreon (Ottawa), Malinda Smith (Alberta), David Newhouse (Trent) and Doreen Fumia (Ryerson).
Smith asked: “Can we transform the academy if we cannot transform ourselves?” She also commented on how there has been too much focus on sexual difference that has narrowed to gender equity and the concerns of white women. Smith recommended strongly that we unite women/gender equity/diversity to interrogate the culture of whiteness and develop sound anti-racist strategies. Fumia related the successes of a grassroots movement at Ryerson that formed an Anti-racism Strategy and Taskforce. Newhouse educated us about Knowledge Equity (advancement and legitimation of indigenous knowledge) vs Presence Equity) and how the construction of aboriginal peoples as a burden still very much exists on university campuses. Newhouse also made the point that commitments to equity can assist in improving the quality of academic life for all. Dyer discussed the idea of working around and with institutional policies and documents in order to accomplish the same end. She shared one particular story where a faculty member received appropriate workplace accommodations through policies related to academic freedom rather than an employer’s duty to accommodate. Subversion or denial?
Each of the plenary sessions was followed by break out group meetings, addressing one of the following topics:
1. Equity within associations;
2. Collective bargaining and contract language, and pursuing equity through grievances;
3. Recruitment, promotion, retention;
4. Transformation of research and teaching.
I participated in the “Transformation of Research and Teaching” group over the span of the 2 day conference. It was facilitated by Audrey Kobayashi (Queen’s) and Carl James (Toronto). There was plenty of insightful discussion and some of the points raised were:
· What counts as research? How are certain kinds of research recognized? i.e. work around equity issues is often given much less status in the academy
· Who has authentic access to research results/publications?
· How can we consider the role of confrontation/opposition, discomfort, relationship and unearned privilege in our teaching/research?
· What role does equity have in our knowledge mobilization, research ethics, curriculum reform and teaching relationships?
· How do you teach difficult subjects/topics?
· How do we talk about difference in classes/faculty meetings etc.?
· How can we better interrogate the “good intentions” with respect to equity issues on campuses?
· How can we form strong allegiances and team with well-informed allies?
· How can one be an activist academic?
A large list of recommendations for CAUT, local associations and individuals were drafted arising from all four group discussions. Hopefully the final version of these will be available to all soon. I would encourage all AUFA members to support keeping equity issues and action front and centre on our upcoming collective bargaining negotiation agenda. Perhaps more importantly, I think each department needs to think about how to make substantive changes to improve the inclusivity of our workplace.
Submitted with not even one hint of objectivity,
By M. Lynn Aylward (School of Education)