Page 151 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg

The excerpt shows that Stephen is not in favour of solely hiring Laura. Anticipating a possible decision of the dean (namely appointing Laura), he wanted to change the ranking. Stephen’s expectation that the dean might prefer hiring Laura most likely stemmed from the organisational context in which they operated. The department had very few women staff members and some (men) committee members had argued that they were looking for a woman candidate in order to increase the number of women in the department. At a faculty level, some action had been taken to increase the number of women staff, such as a number of tenure-track positions reserved for women only.
Stephen’s e-mail shows that he clearly did not want to be at risk of having Laura appointed and not one of the men candidates. He argued in favour of appointing Laura only when a man candidate would also be appointed. He wants the faculty to “create an additional position” for “a female candidate” and thus does not want Laura to be hired on the “single position” they have vacant. I had noticed earlier on in the process that the committee members tend to talk about hiring women candidates only when there is money from the faculty specifically reserved for the appointment of women. I wrote the following in my field notes: “It sounded like a way out for them: shifting the responsibility to the faculty and hiring a woman, but not on the department’s funds” (field notes, September 3, 2015).
Stephen attributed the change in ranking to the deliberation process, and the focus they had on appointing a ‘package deal’ instead of one candidate. His message also reveals that he had discussed the case with “a majority of the committee” who approved of ranking Brian ahead of Laura. Seemingly, the men committee members had gathered together with each other informally. They built an alliance with men in the committee who were all colleagues of the same department, trying to pursue their own agenda after the committee had parted, leaving the women members isolated.
Men committee members gave their approval of the draft of the report, and thus the re-ranking, through e-mail. Jessie and Anna did not approve of the change in ranking. Jessie wrote the following response to express her disapproval:
Stephen’s email proposed a different ranking that is being presented as if it was agreed upon by the entire committee. This is not the case, indeed, everything written after “The selection committee finally agreed on the following ranking:” on page 4 does not in any way reflect the content and outcome of our discussion as I remember it.
To be honest, I have been uncomfortable with the tone and procedure of the hiring
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