Université de Moncton posts positions reserved for women and minorities

It is common for institutions to have inclusion policies to promote the hiring and integration with equal competence of members of underrepresented communities.

For example, the Université de Moncton writes in several of its job postings that it encourages applications from any qualified person, woman or man, including Aboriginal people, persons with disabilities and members of visible minorities.

What is different this time is that these two job postings go further by adding a passage that immediately excludes applications that do not cater to minority communities.

The objective, according to the job posting, is meet the equity and diversity targets required by the Canada Research Chairs Program .

These passages appear in the postings for a position of professor of ecotoxicology and a position of professor in intervention in sexual violence.

It’s to get grants, says the University

Could a white man without a disability get the jobs advertised? Noperesponds Vice-Rector Elizabeth Dawes.

No because the university cannot obtain the Chair [de recherche du Canada] unless you get the targets. It is the constraint that is imposed on us. We have deadlines and we have targets to reachshe explains.

” If we choose not to meet the criteria, we simply won’t get the grants. »

By excluding certain profiles, does the job offer then discriminate? The vice-rector refuses to answer the question directly.

However, she indicates that in several sectors, women and visible minorities are largely under-represented and that a way must be found to include them in the institution.

In our faculty of science, we have less than 15% of professors who are women, while women represent the majority of female students in the faculty.she explains to illustrate the importance of the issue. There is under-representation in some areas

Eight professor positions are posted on the Université de Moncton website. Six are accessible to all.

It’s clumsy according to the Green Party

Kevin Arseneau of the Green Party believes that the two job offers from the Université de Moncton are awkward.

There is a positive intention to ensure greater representation of minorities, however this is the way to achieve it [le problème]he says.

However, he says he wants to remain cautious not to adopt a simple position to a complex issue. According to him, it is regrettable to apply positive discrimination in this way.

” I don’t care if there isn’t another white man picking himself up at the University of Moncton. (…) We have plenty of chances in society. [L’important]that’s the social discussion we’re going to have about that. »

Kevin Arseneau also questions the federal subsidies which require representation targets and which, according to him, encourage universities to post such job offers.

The postings of the Université de Moncton indicate that they want to respect the targets of the Canada Research Chair of the federal government.

Liberals support

The interim leader of the Liberal Party of New Brunswick says he is in favor of the way the job offers have been published.

Roger Melanson indicates that he is commendable that the Université de Moncton is seeking to increase diversity among its staff. (…) we support measures to ensure that university staff reflect this reality.

Provincial Post-Secondary Education Minister Trevor Holder also responded with a statement. It indicates that the university manages its human resources independently.

At the end of March, similar positions open at Laval University in Quebec caused an uproar in the National Assembly. Quebec politicians then unanimously criticized Laval University’s job offer.