The Trouble with Equal Opportunities: The case of women academics

Women's position in the academic labour market remains a largely marginal one, despite equality legislation in the 1970s and subsequent initiatives at national and local level. This paper examines the development of equal opportunities at just one university, Bristol (UK), in the context of contemporary gender divisions in higher education and more general experience with equal opportunity policies in other sectors of employment. In discussing the possibilities but also limitations of equal opportunities, it raises a number of key questions about both the way in which issues of gender equality are often handled, and the terms on which women's place in the academic profession is understood. We argue for more rigorous empirical data on promotion chances, for tighter arguments on discrimination, and for full recognition of the complex cultural and other institutional barriers to equality.     

A DEFENSE OF "RATIONAL" PERSONNEL SELECTION, AND TWO NEW METHODS

This paper presents two new techniques for use in personnel selection. One is a simple graphical technique which non-technical personnel can use to help in deciding how many minority applicants to admit to an institution. The other is a large-scale computer technique which an institution can use to increase personnel diversity on many variables (including culture) simultaneously. Both techniques appear to have major advantages over the particular technique this author advocated previously (1971). However, the new techniques are based on the same general view the author has expressed earlier (1971, 1973): that personnel selection questions concerning culture must be handled rationally—that is, by human judgment—rather than by mechanical formulas. Early sections of the paper summarize and defend that view.