Page 130 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

128 CHAPTER 5
by the faculty HR officer that he had violated HR policy. This case shows that in William’s group the faculty policy had not yet become commonplace. In an e-mail to all committee members, William proposed not to add a woman member to the committee at this last minute stage for the following reason:
There is no [woman in the discipline] at assistant professor level in the faculty. Also nobody with somewhat comparable expertise, and moreover: inviting another woman at this point in time – well, I think that such person would know why she would be asked, as token n*gger [sic], and that she would not be happy with that.
The first part of this excerpt shows that William supports his policy violation and decision not to include a woman in the committee by practicing gender, as he makes women responsible by using the often-mentioned argument that there are no suitable women available. In the second part, he adds another argument, in which he ostensibly sympathises with potential women committee members for the “token n*gger” status they would get attributed when (just) being invited to a committee for their sex. Here, he does not only reduce a potential additional member to a woman body, he also makes a derogatory referral to another social group related to race. In his e-mail, he compares a woman researcher who would be invited to the committee at the last moment to a person of colour with a token status. William’s notation implies that he is aware of the politicized meaning, as he writes an asterisk at the place of the ‘i’. Interestingly, William acknowledged at the start of his e-mail his awareness of me observing the procedure. Yet, his concern regarded the violation of the faculty policy and – seemingly - not his inappropriate remarks about women and people of colour.
William ended his e-mail message stating that if other members wanted to “expand” the committee they would look for a “new member”. Yet, William’s e-mail text implies that he did not see much value in adding a woman member in the committee, besides abiding by the faculty policy. William’s strong statements in his e-mail might not have left much room for other committee members to change the committee composition. None of the committee members went against William’s proposition. By sending this e-mail to other committee members, William might have influenced the other members in support of his own interests (Davey, 2008), and he got away with it.
In the STEM department, committee chairs invited women professors from other universities within or outside the Netherlands to join the selection committee. Therefore, they complied with university policy, yet, as a consequence of being an external committee member, women members – particularly those from abroad – did not attend all committee meetings. External committee members travelled to