1 Typically, a group has been said to be underrepresented in a given job category if that group constitutes a smaller percentage of those employed in that job category than in the population at large. Thus women will, on this view, be said to be underrepresented within a given category if they constitute significantly fewer than 50.6% of those employed in that category. Conversely, women will be overrepresented if they constitute significantly more than 50.6% of those employed in that category. For discussion of representation measured relative to the relevant available labour pool, see §2 below.

2 In fact, this is often how employment equity and affirmative action programs are defined. For example, see Michael Philips, “Preferential Hiring and the Question of Competence,” Journal of Business Ethics, 10 (1991): 161–63.

3 Although many universities and colleges also have in place policies designed to stop discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation and so forth, very few have implemented policies that positively discriminate in favour of candidates because of factors other than gender and citizenship. (One exception is Dalhousie University's Johnson Chair in Black Canadian Studies, which was advertised in 1994 as being open only to black applicants. The advertisement was widely criticized in the media and elsewhere. For example, see Kilian, Crawford, “Why Must a Scholar in Black Studies Be Black?,” The Globe and Mail, October 31,1994, p. A19.)Google Scholar Asa result, the current study considers only the single prominent case of affirmative action favouring women, based, as it is, on alleged discrimination against women.

4 The University of Western Ontario, for example, defended the introduction of its employment equity program on the basis that it helps guarantee that each individual applicant “will have genuine access to employment opportunities that are free from artificial barriers, systemic or otherwise” (University of Western Ontario, “The Employment Equity Program,” Policies and Procedures, No. 3.2, §1, November 24, 1988). Similarly, at Ryerson, employment equity programs were introduced to help “eliminate, when they exist, systemic barriers which may prevent women from maximizing their potential” and to “help women increase their participation in areas of work and study where they are under-represented” (Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, “Employment and Educational Equity: Guiding Principle and Objectives, “Policy-Procedure, 1-090, March 1988). For more general accounts of recent developments see Lord, Judy, “Moves in the Right Direction,” University Affairs, 31, 8 (October 1990): 3f.;Google Scholar and Wolfe, Morris, “Artful Dodgers,” Saturday Night, 105, 10 (December 1990)Google Scholar: 15ff. For some of the more detailed theoretical reasoning behind the introduction of affirmative- action programs within Canadian universities see Sumner, L. W., “Positive Sexism,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 5 (1987): 204–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Groarke, Leo, “Affirmative Action as a Form of Restitution,” Journal of Business Ethics, 9 (1990): 207–13CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Thus, one commonly cited definition of systemic discrimination is that it is “indirect, impersonal and unintentional discrimination that is the result of inappropriate standards which have been built into the employment systems over the years” (see “CAUT's Policy Statement on Positive Action to Improve the Status of Women in Canadian Universities: The Preamble,” CAUT Status of Women Supplement, CAUT Bulletin, 38, 3 [March 1991: 12)Google Scholar. It was in order to combat systemic discrimination against women, visible minorities, native people and the handicapped that Bill C-62, The Employment Equity Act, was proclaimed in 1986 and Bill C-64, An Act Respecting Employment Equity, was proclaimed in 1995.

6 Sumner, , “Positive Sexism,” p. 212Google Scholar.

7 See Dworkin, Ronald, “Reverse Discrimination,” in his Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1978), pp. 223–39Google Scholar, especially §4. Also see Dworkin, Ronald, “Why Bakke Has No Case,” New York Review of Books, 24, 18 (November 10, 1977): 11–15Google Scholar.

8 Dworkin, Ronald, “Reverse Discrimination,” p. 232Google Scholar.

9 Actually, this overstates things slightly. Traditional non-consequentialists may still not be willing to break a rule of justice even in order to prevent other, more numerous, breakings of that same rule. Other non-consequentialists, in contrast, will be willing to do so, not on the ground that doing so will increase utility, but on the ground that doing so will maximize justice in the long run, regardless of whether it maximizes utility.

10 At the time of writing, this is the latest year for which complete statistics are available.

11 Discipline groupings used in this study are those provided by Statistics Canada.

12 Of course nothing in this initial process of comparison will indicate whether previous (individual or systemic) discrimination has led to a skewing of the applicant pool. For discussion of this possibility and its relevance to the current debate, see §4 below. Nevertheless, as even Sumner accepts, it is at least a reasonable assumption, when establishing quotas, to have the quota for any given category reflect “the percentage of women in the national pool of qualified candidates for the position in question” (Sumner, , “Positive Sexism,” p. 209)Google Scholar. Similar comparisons have also regularly been used as a basis for defining the very notion of systemic discrimination. For example, see Abella, Rosalie, Royal Commission Report on Employment Equity (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1984), pp. 2, 3, 193Google Scholar. In other words, comparing percentages of qualified applicants with percentages of job recipients is commonly agreed, by both the advocate and the opponent of affirmative action, to be a reasonable, if not infallible, first test for discrimination at the point of hiring.

13 Strictly speaking, of course, even this process of comparison may not be sufficient. A fully adequate evaluation of claims of alleged discrimination will ultimately require comparisons between applicant pools and job offers (rather than comparisons between applicant pools and job recipients). After all, a non-discriminating employer who makes exactly the same percentage of job offers to women as appears in the applicant pool may still end up hiring a lower percentage of women than expected. Such a scenario is not as unlikely as it may at first appear, since it will likely occur whenever women are more highly sought after within a given market than their representation within the applicant pool demands. In other words, such a scenario is likely to occur whenever widespread, effective affirmative action programs are in place. In such cases it becomes likely that individual women candidates will receive more offers, and hence reject more offers, than will their male counterparts. However, since such situations clearly discriminate in favour of, rather than against, women, they may be ignored within the present context.

14 The procedure used in this comparison has been suggested by previous studies done by both Groarke, Leo, in “Beyond Affirmative Action,” Atlantis, 9 (1983):13–24Google Scholar, and Byers, Ted, in “Don't Shut Out Current (Male) PhDs,” University of Toronto Bulletin (May 29, 1989), p. 12Google Scholar. The results of this section bring up to date and extend significantly such previous studies.

15 Unfortunately, Statistics Canada has not published sufficiently detailed statistics concerning the ages of graduates over the years in question to allow for anything other than this type of estimate. Nevertheless, this estimate is consistent with those statistics which are available. For example, see Statistics Canada, Postgraduation Plans of 1981 Ph.D. Graduates: 1981 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1982), p. 39Google Scholar, which indicates that 71.3% of all 1981 doctoral graduates were between the ages of 25 and 34 at the time they received their degrees. Statistics concerning the ages of graduate students (rather than graduate degree recipients) can be misleading, of course, if used to predict graduation ages because of the high attrition rate (for both men and women alike, sometimes as high as 40%) within many disciplines. Nevertheless, it is worth noting that Statistics Canada recently gave the national median ages of graduate students of both sexes as being identical (Statistics Canada, Universities: Enrollment and Degrees [Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services, 1987], p. 57)Google Scholar.

It is also worth mentioning that the profile used is slightly generous to women, since many job candidates (of both sexes) spend one or more years either in postdoctoral work or in industry prior to applying for university positions. In other words, since the percentage of women graduates has been steadily increasing over the years under consideration, this means that actual applicant pools will typically have slightly lower percentages of women than will our estimated applicant profiles. Thus, although individual cases will of course vary, this scenario should be sufficient for current purposes. It is also worth noting that it is unlikely that differences in age of only a year or two will have any significant effect on our overall statistical profiles. See note 21 below.

16 Faculty numbers given for the academic year 1990-1991 represent hiring data up to the autumn of 1990.

17 In order to avoid single-year anomalies, these percentages have been calculated on the basis of three-year periods. Extending these periods does not appear to alter the relevant percentages significantly.

18 If it also turns out that women have been unfairly discriminated against during promotion, this differential would no doubt be smaller, since this means that more women were in fact hired during the mid-1960s than are represented by today's full professors. The same point will also hold if attrition rates (which could be expected to reflect some forms of systemic discrimination) turn out to be significantly higher for women than for men. In either case, the difference between these figures represents a reasonable upper bound on discrimination. Despite all this, the statistical evidence that is available indicates that significant discrimination against women during promotion appears unlikely.

19 Or rank next below assistant professor.

20 Unfortunately, Statistics Canada does not make a distinction between those lower-rank positions that are tenure-track and those that are not. Thus, it might be argued that even if women are overrepresented at the rank of assistant professor generally, women still tend to be underrepresented when it comes to tenure-track assistant professors. If so, this may be evidence of systemic discrimination against women, at least at the rank of assistant, if not associate, professor. Nevertheless, recent figures released by the Canadian Association of Univeristy Teachers (CAUT) appear to discredit such a hypothesis, since CAUT has reported that, of the tenured and leading-to-tenure appointments at the rank of assistant professor in Canada (excluding Quebec) in 1989-1990, 33.6% were women. Yet during 1989, only 30.4% of earned doctorates went to women. See the tables entitled “Proportion of Tenured and Leading to Tenure Appointments Held by Women by Province and Rank, 1989-90” and “Proportion of Women Granted Doctorate Degrees by Field (Canada), 1989,” in “CAUT's Policy Statement on Positive Action to Improve the Status of Women in Canadian Universities: The Preamble,” CAUT Status of Women Supplement, CAUT Bulletin, 38, 3 (March 1991): 13Google Scholar.

21 At this point it is worth noting why differences of only a few years in the age of graduates are unlikely to affect this overall picture. The reason is that the discrepancy between female percentages of appointments and female percentages of estimated applicant pools is high enough to outrun such differences. For example, in the case of associate professors, we see that the percentage of women in the estimated applicant pool does not reach the 1972-1974 level of appointments (19.6%) until 1978-1980, a full six years later. In the case of assistant professors, the percentage of women in the estimated applicant pool has still hot reached the 1982-1984 level of appointments (33.4%) by 1989- 1991, seven years later.

22 Another possibility is that over this period there may have existed a lack of correlation between disciplines in which job openings have occurred and disciplines in which women have tended to train. During the early 1980s, for example, new academic positions favoured those disciplines in which women accounted for less than the national average (viz., agriculture and the biological sciences, engineering and the applied sciences, mathematics and the physical sciences, and the social sciences). In contrast, during the late 1980s, new positions have favoured those disciplines in which women accounted for more than the national average (viz., education, the fine and applied arts, the health sciences and the humanities). As a result, this factor does not appear to be significant over the long run. For example, see Statistics Canada, Teachers in Universities: 1986-87, Catalogue No. 81-241 (Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1990), p. 12, and Statistics Canada, Teachers in Universities: 1990-91, Catalogue No. 81-241 (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Science and Technology, 1993), p. 13Google Scholar.

It is also worth noting that since the statistics cited extend back many years, these figures predate most official employment equity programs within Canadian universities. The University of Western Ontario, for example, first introduced its Employment Equity Program in 1988. Ryerson's controversial program (which designated a minimum of 80% of its positions over a 10-year period as being for women only) and the University of Windsor's Positive Action Plan were also not approved until that same year. Other programs followed.

23 The unimportance of earned doctorates in this family of disciplines is also reflected by the low numbers of doctoral degrees granted over the years. In some cases these numbers are so low as to make statistical comparisons in this area insignificant.

24 Institutions that have explicitly based their employment-equity policies upon such comparisons include both the University of Western Ontario and Ryerson Polytechnical. In the case of the former, see the University of Western Ontario, “The Employment Equity Program,” §1; in the case of the latter, see Ryerson Polytechnical Institute, “Statement of Direction: Employment Equity/Faculty Tenure Stream Staffing” (November 1988), §2.

25 See the University of Western Ontario, “The Employment Equity Program,” §1, emphasis added.

26 Here the only significant exception concerns the rank of Lecturer. For a detailed discussion of this case, see the end of §3 below.

27 That is, 1,047 (i.e., today's full professors) + 1,091 + 626 + 312 + 438 (i.e., the apparent “surplus” at other ranks) = 3,514. In other words, some 3,514 women would have had to have been hired in order to account for the apparent surplus of women at other ranks, despite the fact that one might realistically have expected only 1,182 women to have been hired in a non-discriminatory environment during this period.

28 The other main factor in determining a candidate's qualifications for a given academic position, namely publication record, is unlikely to be a major source of bias. This is because the blind refereeing of most academic manuscripts makes it relatively unlikely that women will be adversely discriminated against at this point in their career development. See Blank, Rebecca M., “The Effects of Double-Blind versus Single-Blind Reviewing: Experimental Evidence from The American Economic Review” American Economic Review, 81 (1991): 1041–67Google Scholar. In fact, as some journals, such as Queen's Quarterly, adopt a 50/50 policy of manuscript acceptance, women may even have an advantage in this respect, provided, once again, that the quotas involved continue to exceed the availability of women scholars. On Queen's Quarterly editorial policy, see Bailey, Martha J., “The Editor's Column: Alternative Visions,” Queen's Quarterly, 96 (Spring, 1989): 219Google Scholar.

29 It is worth noting here that one alternative explanation might be that women, more than men, tend to specialize in disciplines that do not require earned doctorates. Yet, if this is so, we should also expect to see similar degree variations at the level of full professor. In fact, the variation that does occur at this level does not appear consistent with this hypothesis. For more on this hypothesis, see note 35 below.

30 Statistics Canada, Teachers in Universities: 1986-87, p. 13Google Scholar, and Statistics Canada, Teachers in Universities: 1990–91, p. 14Google Scholar.

31 See Groarke, , “Beyond Affirmative Action,” p. 16Google Scholar.

32 The figure is for 1990. See Statistics Canada, Education in Canada: A Statistical Review for 1990-91, Catalogue No. 81-229 (Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Science and Technology, 1992), p. 189Google Scholar.

33 In this context it is helpful to note that the claim that increased numbers of women professors are necessary for increases in the number of women graduate students is in large measure unsupported by the available statistical evidence. For example, in the decade from 1960-1961 to 1970-1971 the percentage of female university faculty in Canada was comparatively stable, moving from 11.4% to only 12.8% (Statistics Canada, Teachers in Universities: 1986-1987, p. 11)Google Scholar. Yet over the same period, the percentage of female graduate students in Canada rose quite dramatically from 15.1% to 22.3% (Statistics Canada, Education in Canada: A Statistical Review for the Period 1960-61 to 1970-71 [Ottawa: Minister of Industry, Trade and Commerce, 1973], p. 151Google Scholar). So, at the very least, female role models do not appear to be necessary for increased female enrolment.

34 Of course, in any individual case, this statistical parallel may fail to obtain. Nevertheless, such parallels become increasingly valuable as the sample size increases. In the case currently under consideration (viz., that of all university hirings over the course of several decades), the statistical evidence becomes overwhelming.

It should also be mentioned that it does not follow from what has been said here that every program of affirmative action necessarily lowers the general level of employee competence from what would otherwise have been the case. Michael Philips, for example, has argued that within certain contexts, the revising of appointment procedures (rather than appointment criteria) to the advantage of certain groups may have no negative effects. In certain cases the general level of competence of job recipients may remain constant or even improve. Thus, “[t]o achieve the goals of Affirmative Action, one might abandon the first-come-first-served procedure in favour of one that holds positions open until they are filled by members of targeted groups who satisfy the fair and accepted criteria … Suppose one has twenty-five openings. Thus, instead of hiring the first twenty-five qualified people who apply, one might take additional applications with the intent of hiring additional (fully qualified) members of targeted groups” (Michael Philips, “Preferential Hiring and the Question of Competence,” p. 161).

Nevertheless, it is clear that such observations are unlikely to be relevant within the current context. This follows, since it is essential to the success of Philips’ example that the appointment criteria in question not include an imperative to hire the best qualified applicant, a criterion which is clearly relevant given any university hiring in which excellence, rather than simple competence, is believed to be an essential factor for determining ideal job recipients. At the same time, since the comparisons made earlier (between applicant pools and actual appointments) have also been designed to take account of many potential systemic biases, they (unlike those in Philips’ example) will remain neutral with respect to all such appointment procedures.

It is also worth noting that some advocates of affirmative action simply deny the assumption that within the group of best qualified (potential) applicants, women and men (in all likelihood) will appear in numbers representative of their proportions within the total pool. On this view, women (typically) will be believed to be better qualified than men simply because they are members of a minority group. For advocates of such a view, statistical evidence of the kind given here will be judged to be largely irrelevant to issues relating to affirmative action. See note 39 below.

35 For example, it might turn out that a large proportion of women who have been hired without Ph.D.s are concentrated in professional faculties where professional degrees (rather than doctoral degrees) are the norm for faculty appointments. However, in order for such a hypothesis to obtain, higher percentages of women would have to appear in the “professional” row of Table 9 than do in fact appear. Hence, even without a more detailed disciplineby- discipline statistical breakdown, such a hypothesis appears unlikely. See also note 29 above.

36 I owe this point to Grant Brown.

37 It is worth noting that, in fact, the historical differences between applicants and appointments are likely to be even greater than the numbers here indicate. The reason is that successful applicants who have completed only a master's degree will likely be slightly younger than successful applicants who have completed both a master's degree and a doctorate. Hence, they will have entered the job market somewhat earlier than the years given in Table 11 indicate, at a time when the percentage of female applicants will have been slightly lower.

38 Of course, such a claim remains consistent with the fact that there may exist individual cases of discrimination against women in both hiring and promotion. Nevertheless, the available evidence indicates that such discrimination does not occur in significant amounts on the basis of sex. In other words, when discrimination does occur, a candidate's sex is no more of a handicap for women than it is for men. In fact, possibly the reverse is true.

39 In addition to these three groups, there will also be a fourth group worth mentioning, namely, that group of affirmative-action advocates who believe that affirmative action should be practised not for reasons of justice but, rather, for reasons associated with merit itself. On this view, minority applicants are (typically) deemed to be better qualified than others on the ground that they bring to a discipline perspectives that would otherwise not be present. Given the only tangential connection between this defence of employment equity and the argument from total justice, detailed consideration of this view is beyond the scope of the current paper.

40 For an example of this type of argument, see Sowell, Thomas, Preferential Policies (New York: William Morrow, 1990), chap. 5Google Scholar.

41 For example, Brown, Grant concludes that “the most significant net effect of preferential hiring for women will be that relatively privileged women bump relatively under-privileged men from university jobs” (” ‘Fixing’ What Ain't Broken,” Policy Options [March 1993], p. 11)Google Scholar. See also Carr, C. R., “Unfair Sacrifice: Reply to Pluhar's ‘Preferential Hiring and Unjust Sacrifice’,” Philosophical Forum, 14 (1982): 94–97;Google ScholarGoldman, Alan H., Justice and Reverse Discrimination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1979), chap. 3;Google ScholarGroarke, Leo, “Affirmative Action as a Form of Restitution”; Janet Radcliffe Richards, The Sceptical Feminist (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1982), chap. 4;Google Scholar Robert Simon, “Preferential Hiring: A Reply to Judith Jarvis Thomson,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 3 (1974): 312-20; and Celia Wolf-Devine, “An Inequality in Affirmative Action,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 5 (1988): 107-8. It is to Groarke's original example concerning Jack and Jill and restitution that I owe the suggestion for the title of this paper. It should also be noted that this type of objection will never be conclusive for the consequentialist, since sufficiently attractive consequences may always, in principle, outweigh issues of restitution. Nevertheless, such considerations will likely have some weight, even for the consequentialist. (I am grateful to an anonymous referee for drawing my attention to this point.)

42 Although, see Sumner, , “Positive Sexism,” pp. 217 ffGoogle Scholar, together with the more detailed account given in Sumner, L. W., The Moral Foundation of Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar, for a general consequentialist argument against this type of consideration. Within the current context, the details of the argument can be safely passed over since, even if successful, Sumner's argument shows only that affirmative action is an acceptable method of addressing discrimination, not that it is the best or most efficient method.

43 For example, such a claim appears to run counter to the results of many “chilly climate” reports, ranging from the 1988 University of Western Ontario Backhouse Report to the 1995 University of British Columbia McEwen Report (see The Chilly Collective, eds., Breaking Anonymity: The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty [Waterloo, ON: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995]Google Scholar, and McEwen, Joan I., Report in Respect of the Political Science Department of the University of British Columbia [Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, 1995])Google Scholar. Nevertheless, the limitations of reports such as these, based as they are, typically, on uncontrolled anecdotal evidence, should be obvious. For example, in any environment in which critics of affirmative action programs are regularly branded as reactionary, misogynist and lacking in compassion, it is likely that men as well as women will be able to recount a large number of “chilling” incidents. Thus the need for comparisons and controls is not as arbitrary as some would have us believe.

44 For anyone concerned that the enrolment figures given here might not accurately reflect the specific enrolments of the individual graduating classes in question, it can be pointed out that since part-time students often take significantly longer to complete their degrees, and since part-time figures significantly raise enrolment percentages for women, these figures represent an appropriately generous upper bound on enrolments for any given graduation year. In other words, the percentage of women actually enrolled will likely be slightly lower than the figures in Table 12 and Table 13 indicate.

45 After reviewing census and other data, Guppy, Balson and Vellutini defend the conclusion that “women have historically received & greater percentage of undergraduate degrees than their proportion of enrollments would seem to warrant” (Guppy, Neil, Balson, Doug and Vellutini, Susan, “Women and Higher Education in Canadian Society,” in Women and Education, edited by Gaskell, Jane S. and McLaren, Arlene T. [Calgary, AB: Detselig, 1987], chap. 7, p. 177;Google Scholar emphasis added).

Is it possible that women tend to graduate in ratios equal to (or better than) those of men, despite significant discrimination, because, unlike men, only the very best qualified women tend to enter Canadian degree programs? Such a hypothesis may once have been plausible, but is unlikely today, given that enrolments of women have increased from less than half of those of men 70 years ago to virtual parity now.

46 Conceivably it might be claimed that despite the fact that women consistently graduate in numbers equal to those which would be expected in the absence of discrimination, women are subject to grading discrimination, and it is this which discourages their advancement into graduate school and beyond. Despite the plausibility of such an argument it, too, is unsupported by the available data. For example, statistics compiled by WISEST (“Women in Scholarship, Engineering, Science and Technology,” a women's group at the University of Alberta, whose goal is to promote women in engineering and science) show that, if anything, women tend to do better than men in their gradepoint averages, even in male-dominated disciplines. The fact that this trend was constant across disciplines and during a period in which women's enrolment increased dramatically also shows that it is unlikely that women achieved higher grades as a result of some overt or covert selection process. The statistics covered selected academic years from 1970-1971 to 1980-1981 at the University of Alberta, and appeared in Gateway, March 7, 1991. They are reprinted in Brown, Grant, The Employment Equity Empress Has No Clothes (Edmonton, AB: Gender Issues Education Foundation, 1992), pp. 16fGoogle Scholar.

47 The evidence that there is pervasive discrimination against women within the educational system, and in society at large, remains largely inconclusive. In the case of the educational system, some studies appear to support the view that women are discriminated against. Yet others do not. For a survey of the relevant literature, see Brown, The Employment Equity Empress Has No Clothes.

Much the same is true of studies that examine the question of evaluative discrimination against women in general. For a survey of this literature, see Veronica Nieva, F. and Gutek, Barbara A., “Sex Effects on Evaluation,” Academy of Management Review, 5 (1980): 267–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar. After reviewing and evaluating the available research on the prejudicial evaluation of women, their qualifications and performances, Nieva and Gutek conclude that evaluation bias is most common in cases where evaluators are given little or no evidence other than gender on which to base their conclusions. In other words, the greater the need for extrapolation, the greater the risk of bias (ibid., p. 270). Such a conclusion dramatically lessens the chance of there being significant bias, either in the university classroom or at the point of hiring.

48 Such choices are of course not to be confused with which career opportunities are open to women

49 In order to make this point more explicit, it is helpful to consider the distinction made recently by Christina Sommers between “naive” and “critical” feminism. Naive feminism, in Sommers’ words, “understands women's interests uncritically as manifested by what most women say they want, or what they believe would make them happy” (Sommers, Christina, “Should the Academy Support Academic Feminism?,” Public Affairs Quarterly, 2 [1988]: 99)Google Scholar. It does not discount the desire that many women have for a traditional family, but neither does it discount the expressed preferences of many women for a greater role within the workplace. Naive feminism is liberal in the traditional sense of being based upon individual preferences and freedoms. In contrast, critical feminism is “unimpressed by what many women say they want since the average woman is in the thrall of a patriarchal society where it is difficult or impossible for her to be aware of her true interests” (ibid., p. 99). Because of this, critical feminism purports “to represent women's interests in a way that frankly acknowledges that the objective interests of women cannot be ascertained by asking the average woman what she wants. Since, in the nature of the case, a poll of what women want is not a trustworthy guide to their true interests, the critical feminists have formulated objectives that serve the true interest of women–what women would reject or want once they become fully aware of their predicament” (ibid., p. 99). Critical feminism is radical rather than liberal.

One by-product of critical feminism is that it turns out, on this view, not to be sufficient simply to place women in a suitably large number of positions. The women appointed must also be of the right political views. In fact, in many cases, it may even turn out to be preferable to hire a man with the “correct” political views, rather than a woman who will fail to advance the cause of radical feminism. As Sommers points out, because of its primarily political goals, critical feminism turns out to be a movement that can “easily come into conflict with scholarly objectivity,” and a “sincerely anti-intellectual movement that has a principled contempt for the standards of academic excellence” (ibid., pp. 113f.).

50 Lest one believe that this is an overstatement, one need look no further than the Recommendations (§4) of the 1990 “Report of the University of Western Ontario's President's Standing Committee for Employment Equity.” Recommendation 10 states (in part) that all short-listed candidates should be “interviewed regarding evidence of their understanding of, and commitment to, employment equity” (“Abridged Version of the First Annual Report of the President's Standing Committee for Employment Equity,” Western News Supplement, January 31, 1991, p. S6; emphasis added.)

In this context it is also worth noting Sheila Mclntyre's claim that antifeminism is not simply a political view but also a form of sexual harassment and that, as such, it should not be allowed under ordinary principles of freedom of speech (Mclntyre, Sheila, “Reflections from Sheila McIntyre,” C4C/7’ Status of Women Supplement, CAUT Bulletin, 36, 3 [March 1989]: 3)Google Scholar. Such blatantly partisan political agendas will be inconsistent with even the most modest of liberal principles.

51 Sumner, , “Positive Sexism,” p. 213Google Scholar. It remains to be seen into which of Sumner's two categories various academic employment equity policies will fall.

52 Sumner, , “Positive Sexism,” p. 211Google Scholar.

53 Lord, Judy, “Moves in the Right Direction,” University Affairs, 31, 8 (October 1990): 3;Google Scholar emphasis added. Cf. also Dean, Misao, “Shock Troops on Campus,” Canadian Forum (July-August 1995), p. 19Google Scholar.

54 Briskin, Linda, “Beyond Individual Victimization and toward a Transformed Academy,” CAUTStatus of Women Supplement, CAUT'Bulletin, 36, 3 (March 1989): 10; emphasis addedGoogle Scholar.

55 “CAUT's Policy Statement on Positive Action to Improve the Status of Women in Canadian Universities: The Preamble”; emphasis added.

Other examples abound. By reporting the introduction of preferential policies at the Ontario College of Art under the banner “Fighting Sex Discrimination,” Maclean's magazine implicitly makes a claim to the effect that such policies have been introduced in response to the (apparently uncontroversial) fact of discrimination (Wickens, Barbara, “Fighting Sex Discrimination,” Macleans, 103, 36 [September 3, 1990], p. 38)Google Scholar.

56 It is also interesting to note that Dworkin himself is on record as advocating the view that what constitutes merit depends upon the social context in which work is to be done. In his words, “there is no combination of abilities and skills and traits that constitutes ‘merit’ in the abstract … If a black skin will, as a matter of regrettable fact, enable [a] doctor to do a … medical job better, then that black skin is by the same token ‘merit’ as well” (Dworkin, “Why Bakke Has No Case,” p. 14). However, such an argument appears to depend crucially upon a desire to satisfy agents’ external (rather than personal) preferences, something which Dworkin is noted for criticizing elsewhere (Dworkin, , “Reverse Discrimination,” pp. 234 ff)Google Scholar.

57 An early version of this paper originally appeared, with the same title, as Working Paper No. 1 in the UBC Centre for Applied Ethics Working Paper Series (Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia, 1991). An abbreviated version of the paper was also read at the Canadian Philosophical Association's 1991 Annual Congress at Queen's University in Kingston, on May 27, 1991. Work on this project began at the University of British Columbia and was completed at Stanford University. Support during this time came from both UBC's Killam Memorial Fellowship fund and Stanford's Center for the Study of Language and Information (CSLI). I would like to extend my warmest thanks to both CSLI and the Killam Trust for their respective generosities. I would also like to thank the referees at Dialogue, James Archer, Samantha Brennan, Alison Buchan, Sam Coval, Jim Dybikowski, Pamela Courtenay Hall, Graeme Hunter, Joan Irvine, Howard Jackson, Sharon Kahn, Peter Loptson, Louis Marinoff, Judith Myers, Jan Narveson, Kathleen Okruhlik, Robert Schutz, Mike Philips, Mike Rostad, John Russell, Paul Russell, Wayne Sumner, Gary Wedeking, Susan Wendell and especially Grant Brown and Leo Groarke for their many helpful comments on various drafts of this paper.