Page 142 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

140 CHAPTER 5
[Later in the deliberation]
Steven: If that woman is ranked first and she would win a grant, then [candidate Ed] could do something [in our teaching programme]. If she doesn’t lie.
Here, Steven doubts if Dora was still eligible for applying for a grant, given her academic age and her number of children. He implies that Dora might not have given truthful information in her application. Leo defends her by saying Dora “would never lie about such thing”. Yet, Steven is not convinced and proposes to “check the formal data”. Later in the deliberation, Steven brings up once more that Dora could possibly have lied about her grant application. This suggests that Steven is not entirely willing to ascribe good intentions to Dora’s words. He practices gender by accusing Dora of possible lying and by doing so he disqualifies her as a truthful candidate.
In two other cases, committee members questioned the truthfulness of women candidates and speculated about possible incidents in their (previous) work places.
Jacob: I thought the reason to leave [city in the Netherlands] was vague. Is [Delia] really an assistant professor?
[Later in the deliberation]
Jacob: I believe there are things going on in [city in the Netherlands]. I don’t trust it. Hornets’ nest.
In this example from the SSH case, Jacob first questions the motivation of candidate Delia to apply for the position and then disputes if she actually holds the position that she suggests. He openly expressed doubts about the honesty of Delia, which can discredit her as a candidate. Later in the deliberation, Jacob brings up his feelings of mistrust as a reason to put Delia lower in ranking than the two (remaining) men candidates. He assumes that Delia applied for the position in Jacob’s group because there are problems or difficulties in her current group. It remained unclear what these assumptions were based on. Jacob did not further explicate if he had information about Delia’s work environment and colleagues.
I found a similar example in STEM1 where committee members expected that the woman candidate was not truthful. The following exchange that took place in the STEM1 committee illustrates that committee members questioned candidate Angela’s truthfulness and reason to change jobs.
I still have questions about her collaboration with others. I am afraid that she