https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/62030/archive/files/220dceec91bb47a024124d9169c75fd4.pdf?Expires=1785369600&Signature=F%7EBV4Wv6ugPfbRULTXdaOc-i3X%7EHlkcUbo32PfiEd7yUr1uLUVoA6RMcYDCSKipREsgQPuSARF2CXasTODWygT%7E3HtZJolqKcb4yir8cx8IK76PgXkUqweQayZZjkCfLSJiAFwDcQOsu5PtbCN11O7cM2ADeFmsFbPuLXZEFqz4QuEGOWamGOVCfOR4BgDOCuqfLoaDj5ND5sMPXu-yrJA7THW5KKT8rBstd3tmT2N-T8nKJNN-tQFLwqZ7nxCiIBL-Gj9OUbUdIxdfNJccQv68wxEAlN3d-p0BM4sFCH64LJUDWfEYpW%7ENIz66FQdhVOKp7aVUyXlFxpKAF5e3qog__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 54599680f1651e61d56cebf4f14438b1 PDF Text Text Commentary The McGill Daily • Thursday, March 22, 2007 McGill needs an affirmative action policy No one would deny that McGill could stand to be a lot more diverse. In fact, under federal and provincial law, McGill must come up with an employment equity policy aimed at increasing the presence of underrepresented groups among its employees. But the policy currently being drafted is shockingly unsubstantial: according to Abby Lippman, who sits on the drafting committee, the policy currently on the table seeks merely to publicize a statement about McGill’s commitment to diversity. A statement is not enough; McGill needs a hiring policy that will ensure the University acts on its paper-and-ink commitment to diversity. McGill needs an affirmative action policy. Although publicly stating a commitment to diversity is an important stand for the University to take, simply stating that it is important will do nothing to tangibly promote or protect its ostensible values. A statement won’t change the fact that women, visible minorities, disabled people, and aboriginal people are woefully underrepresented among McGill professors and administrators. For example, all of the current Faculty Deans are men and only one is a visible minority. Moreover, only 30 per cent of new faculty hires over the past three years were women, despite the growing number of women with PhDs. The fact that few traditionally underrepresented groups work at McGill indicates that there is something skewed about its hiring practices. After former Vice-Principal (Academic) Luc Vinet sent a memo to all deans in 2001 endorsing three very mild procedural changes to encourage more female hirings, the percentage of women hired into professorship positions jumped from 25 to 35.5 per cent within 3 years. His memo called on departments to write a plan for attracting female applicants, to interview at least one female candidate for each position, and to write a report when a woman was not hired, explaining why. However, because the procedures were not made policy, the rate of female hires has dropped off since 2003 as the memorandum was forgotten. To bring McGill up to speed with its peer universities, a proactive policy that does more than ensure tokenistic interviews to underrepresented groups must be adopted. MIT’s affirmative action policy, for example, requires that the university strike a search party to actively seek out women and minority candidates for available positions, and that hiring committees file a report when a woman or minority candidate is not hired, justifying its choice. MIT’s effort is admirable because it demands effective rather than rhetorical remedies for a structural problem. McGill could stand to learn from this model. But McGill should look past its minimal legal duties and promote diversity as a public good. A truly comprehensive affirmative action policy will seek to incorporate members of groups not mentioned by the government’s criteria. It will also provide infrastructural support to communities not well represented in its staff, by funding daycares, accessibility programs, and diverse cultural initiatives. Having a diverse academic staff that reflects the surrounding community will help counter society-wide stereotypes and discrimination, but it will also bring new and vital perspectives to what should be a hub of diverse intellectual thought. You’ve really let yourself go 9 BY DUNCAN LINKS ��������� Letters, continued... Awesome voting party Re: “Itzkowitz: McGill’s George W. ?” | Commentary | Mar. 19, 2006 Drawing a comparison of real politics to student society politics is absolutely ridiculous. The biggest joke here is the ovs.ssmu.mcgill.ca voting system that, while convenient for all, opens ways for massive voter irregularities. If REAL DEMOCRACY is desired, you need to have manned (or womanned, equal opportunity now) private ballot stations that are located in a sterile environment where the two candidates have no influence. If I really felt strongly about either candidate I could have got some strippers, a two four of Labatt 50, and a couple of laptops, and had a really kicking voting party at home. Facebook, emails, SMS texts, and MSN messenger also don’t make it any easier when it is just a few clicks to vote. On a more realist note, democ- racy does not exist at McGill. As the organizer of major campus events such as OAP and OAP lite for three years running, I can tell you first hand that McGill is a dictatorship. Kathy, if I may call you that, consider this a rough introduction into the way things work here at the big red and white. Basically, just as long as Jake doesn’t wage a war of liberation on Concordians, I’m okay with him. For the record, I spoiled my ballot. JP Venturi U3 Mechanical Engineering Send letters to letters@mcgilldaily. com from your McGill email account. Please include your name, year, and program. Please keep all letters to 300 words or less. The Daily edits for style and brevity. We will not print letters that are sexist racist, homophobic, libelous, or otherwise hateful. The Daily has received more letters than can be printed here. These letters will appear in an upcoming issue. Stereotypically speaking A LEON MWOTIA fter missing my morning lectures yesterday, in the tradition of all procrastinators worth their salt, I figured it made good sense to waste the rest of the day. This I did by attending a talk by a Professor William Helmreich of the City University of New York in Leacock 232. His posters promised “a provocative analysis of the prevalence of racial and ethnic stereotypes in contemporary North American culture, social interaction, and language.” They were right about one thing – the provocative part. As a speaker, Helmreich clings to the audience’s attention with an oddly plastic, over-rehearsed charisma that fails to dazzle. The subject matter is so tantalizing that any audience would be fascinated even if the proceedings were conducted by Mr. Potatohead. But Helmreich struts about the stage with the awkward, ill fitting self-confidence of those professors who claim to love students that disagree with them in class, but clearly despise them. You know the kind; they claim very seriously that their class is a democracy until some ignorant vagabond challenges one of their closely held beliefs. And then it’s bombs away. Errata While virulently attacking the PC crowd – a noble cause in my estimation – Helmreich suffers from their greatest malaise: not being able to cut the bullshit. If he really does believe what he would later argue, then his performance was especially dismal. After about thirty tiresome minutes of ethnic jokes, mainly about Jews (he’s Jewish), I began to wonder if there weren’t better ways to waste my time – studying, for example. These jokes, he claimed, showed not why people used stereotypes but how stereotypes took root. I didn’t believe him. I think he just liked the sound of guilty laughter. An Asian gentleman in front of me was chortling so hard I thought he might be having a fit. Helmreich then proceeded to browbeat some idealistic audience member into submission on the question of how much we can change society’s penchant for autopiloting by relying on stereotypes. The question and answer period was a tug-of-war for the bully pulpit, and his theories, when they got through, were mildly disquieting. The whole thing was a mess. Which is a pity, because when he actually stopped being rancorous and got to his point, he had interesting, if controversial, things to say. The thrust of his argument was this: stereotypes don’t come from nowhere, they do have a function in society as a safety valve for pent-up frustrations with other groups. Though a great deal of them are false, there is at least some truth to a lot of them. He argued that one must examine a group’s personal history and the history of that group’s interactions At the end of her Hyde Park, “Itzkowitz: McGill’s George W. ?” The Daily mistakenly wrote that Kathleen Burdo was recently a candidate for AUS VP Events. She was, in fact, a candidate for Arts Representative to SSMU. The Daily apologizes for the error. with other groups to understand why particular stereotypes stick, how two disparate groups can be tarred by the same brush, and how two contradictory stereotypes can be ascribed to the same group. He took the Jewish example and argued that because throughout Jewish history money had quite literally offered salvation (from medieval times to the Holocaust), the stereotype of Jews being cheap stuck. He then dealt with the stereotype of Jews being business savvy and argued that their history – being excluded from a variety of other fields of endeavor – had uniquely placed them to flourish as businesspeople. I couldn’t help but notice that he did not address less savory stereotypes of other groups. There were heroic attempts by the audience to glean some hope from the clinically pessimistic affair. One girl pleaded, “So from what I understand there’s nothing we can do. I like to think I was more sophisticated about race but now I don’t know. Couldn’t you end your talk on a good note?” She was rebuffed by the functionalist Helmreich, who rather coldly stated that he was not a performer and was not ending his talk on any other note than that he chose. Uncharacteristically, I made a statement by walking out before it was all done, muttering to myself: “Move along folks, nothing to see here.” Got a stereotype or two for Leon? Tell him what it is at the.armchair. potato@gmail.com. Party for Commentary and Compendium contributors! TONIGHT @ Benelux, 8 p.m. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Coverage from The McGill Daily Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Original Format The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data PDF Volume 96 Issue 43 Page Number(s) 9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource McGill needs an affirmative action policy Description An account of the resource An editorial calling for an affirmative action policy at McGill. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource McGill Daily Editorial Board Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The McGill Daily Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007/03/22 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource PDF Language A language of the resource English Affirmative Action racism sexism