Whiteness, Power and the Politics of Demographics in the Governance of the Canadian Academy

Abstract

The predominance of Whiteness, and the corresponding lack of representation of people who are both racialized and minoritized, in the governance of universities is a political issue. We present the results from an intersectional diversity audit of central and senior academic administrators at five Canadian universities: Simon Fraser University, University of British Columbia, University of Toronto, University of Victoria and York University. Our findings indicate that racialized men and women are hitting ceilings in the middle administrative ranks. Conversely, we find a notable overrepresentation of White men and women in the senior administrative ranks. Our analysis suggests that White women, unlike racialized women and men, no longer face serious barriers to representation within these senior ranks. These findings raise concerns about processes of racialization that may impede career progress for some but accelerate it for others. They raise concerns about the politics of who lifts whom into the echelons of academic decision making, which in turn has implications for justice, knowledge and social meanings of competency.

The Gender Gap Tracker: Using Natural Language Processing to measure gender bias in media

“…For men, number 1 is politicians (103,378) and number 2 is sports figures (10,723). For women, politicians are also at the top (29,007), with health professionals second to politicians (9,217). (Note that the rows are sorted by frequency of quotes for people identified as men).…”

“…The underrepresentation of women is pervasive in most areas of society, from elected representatives [ 2 – 5 ] and executives [ 3 , 6 , 7 ] to presidents and faculty in universities [ 5 , 8 , 9 ]. Women are also underrepresented in political discussion groups [ 10 ].…”

Visualizing the COVID-19 pandemic response in Canadian higher education: an extended photo essay

“…While statistics for fall 2020 postsecondary enrolments are yet to be released, if there is a decline in international student enrolments, the economic impact will likely be unevenly felt across the sector, with variations by field of study and region (Usher 2020). The negative effects of the pandemic on individual Canadian academics may endure for some time, potentially increasing inequality within a sector already beleaguered by gender disparities and racialization (Johnson and Howsam 2020;Oleschuk 2020).…”

Acknowledging and Supplanting White Supremacy Culture in Science Communication and STEM: The Role of Science Communication Trainers

“…They persist when cultural dynamics designed to center a White norm (Lee, 2020;McGee, 2020) interact with cognitive biases in hiring and advancement (Linos and Reinhard, 2015); they create a sleight of hand that the dominant culture has branded "merit" (Markovits, 2019). WSC invisibly ensures White majority scientists who protect the status quo continue to hold most decision-making and power-holding roles in STEM (Johnson and Howsam, 2020;McGee, 2020;Gee and Hicken, 2021). Such practices permeate institutional design; they benefit few and harm many.…”