Equity Committee

The Equity Committee of the CPA was founded in 1990-1, and works to collect data on the situation of Indigenous Peoples, Black and racialized persons, women, persons with disabilities, and people of diverse sexual and gender identities in Canada. The Equity Committee of the CPA aims to identify problems faced by the discipline in advancing inclusion and equitable treatment of historically underrepresented groups at all levels of philosophical pursuit, and share information on best practices to promote equity, diversity and inclusion within the profession. It holds a regular panel as part of the CPA annual meeting to encourage critical reflection on questions of equity. 

At the November 1990 meeting of the Executive, then President of the Canadian Philosophical Association, Louise Marcil-Lacoste, was authorized to form a committee to study the hiring policies of Canadian departments of philosophy with respect to the recruitment of women. The membership of the committee was established in December 1990. 

ACPA Equity Committee 2020-2021

ACPA Equity Committee: Indigenizing Philosophy Committee, 2019-2020

Reports and Findings

The Equity Committee produces regular reports, equity alerts, and survey results. Find them all on our Reports page.

The Canadian Philosophical Association (CPA) Equity Committee hosted a moderated conversation on equity issues in the profession on June 3rd at Congress 2008 in Vancouver. Participation from any and all interested parties was welcomed.

The two questions which opened discussion were:

1. When, and under what conditions, is your research challenged as not really philosophy? Is your research/work never challenged in this way? What might a comparison of these two sets of experiences tell us about some of the subtle ways that authority and equity are linked within the discipline?
2. What is your department's formal policy or informal attitude toward hiring non-Canadians, and how does this seem to be changing the landscape for equity-seeking groups within the discipline, who are Canadians, or who have been trained at Canadian institutions?

Hiring Toolkit

The Canadian Philosophical Association and many departments of philosophy in Canada are committed to increasing the representation of women, visible minorities, persons with disabilities, and aboriginal people among faculty members. Important though it is to affirm this ideal, it is rather more difficult to achieve it in practice. Statistics gathered by the CPA Equity Committee show that while some departments have been successful in increasing the representation of these designated groups on faculty, most departments have at best had mixed success.

While the CPA Equity Committee will continue to encourage departments to strive to increase the representation of designated groups on faculty, we can perhaps help most by showing how member departments have actually taken concrete steps towards this goal. To that end, we initiated a survey of member departments that asked them to share information about the policies and practices employed in hiring; our goal was to assemble a toolkit of 'best hiring practices' to be made available to all members of the CPA, so that Departments that affirmed the ideal of increasing the representation of designated group members on faculty could enact concrete steps to further the ideal in particular hires.

This document represents the outcome of that survey, and our reflections upon it... Download the Hiring Toolkit here: English version / French version

Links

Accessibility:

• "Syracuse U's Guide to Planning Inclusive Events" —http://sudcc.syr.edu/_documents/InclusiveEventsSeminarsGuide.pdf
• "Cornell accessibility checklist": http://www.cornell.edu/disability/docs/accessibility-checklist.pdf
• Disability Services Center, University of California, Irvine http://disability.uci.edu/universal_design/ud_uciinstruction.php

Climate:

• Australian Association of Philosophy considering the place of woman in the profession
• American Philosophical Association Committee on the Status of Women
• BPA/SWIP (UK) Good Practice scheme http://bpa.ac.uk/resources/women-in-philosophy/good-practice
• "Creating a Family Friendly Department: Chairs and Deans Toolkit"http://ucfamilyedge.berkeley.edu/ChairsandDeansToolkitFinal7-07.pdf
• "ISU Policies & Guidelines for Flexible Faculty Careers: Resources for Chairs and Deans" https://www-provost.sws.iastate.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/advance/flexiblefacultycareersresource.pdf
• Syllabi on Underrepresented Areas of Philosophy http://www.apaonline.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=110430&id=380970

Contract faculty:

• "Contract faculty: Best Practices" http://accutecanada.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/accute-contract-faculty-best-practices-checklist.pdf

Existing policies on consensual relationships with students:

• Dartmouth: http://graduate.dartmouth.edu/services/undergradrel.html
• Indiana: http://www.indiana.edu/~affirm/pdf/Policies%20&%20Procedures/consensual%20relationships.pdf
• Northwestern: http://policies.northwestern.edu/docs/Consensual_Relations_011314.pdf
• Duke University: https://web.duke.edu/equity/resources/documents/consensual_relationship_policy.pdf
• UCSC: http://www2.ucsc.edu/title9-sh/relations.htm Columbia: http://eoaa.columbia.edu/consensual-romantic-relationships
• Wisconsin: http://www.secfac.wisc.edu/governance/legislation/Pages300-399.htm#307