I queried philosopher Lionel McPherson (Tufts)--whose earlier remarks prompted a lively and often revealing discussion--about some of his experiences being solicited to apply for jobs as part of putative "diversity" and "outreach" efforts by leading philosophy departments. He gave me permission to share this correspondence, from which he has removed the departmental names. Professor McPherson sent the following e-mail in response to an e-mail soliciting his application for a position in the department:
Dear [Member of top 10 dept.],
In response to your email, I am suggesting my name, though I would not formally apply without further information. Please let me explain.
I have grown skeptical in general about affirmative action/equal opportunity notices from leading philosophy departments, at least regarding minority candidates. In short, I believe that such notices stigmatize minority candidates, mislead non-minorities about the prevalence of minority hires and hiring attempts, and provide false cover against the charge of lack of faculty diversity--while rarely making an ultimate difference to actual hiring practices.
I can cite examples from my own experience. [ ] put out a similar notice a few years ago. Although I was aware of [ ]'s JFP ad for an ethics job, I did not have a special interest in the department and did not originally apply. Only after [ ] advised me that [ ] was actively soliciting minority candidates did I apply, after which I heard nothing at all. I made my displeasure known through a third party who had contact with the acting chair, which led to an exchange that revealed: 1) the notice wasn't really an affirmative action call but merely an attempt at outreach; 2) I was immediately disqualified from consideration since I do not work on ethics exclusively but also have substantial research interests in political philosophy; 3) the department already had an excellent candidate in mind (a white woman); 4) the department persisted in considering the notice a success since candidates such as me would not have applied otherwise. I had different but related experiences with [ ] and [ ]. (In a letter I found online, [ ]’s then-chair wrote to the administration of the department's considerable but failed efforts to recruit minority faculty. The explanation: a lack of available, qualified minority candidates. My application to [ ] did not yield an interview or any other response.)
The widespread perception among whites that affirmative action is alive and unfairly effective doubly stigmatizes underrepresented minorities in philosophy. First, there is the standard view that if blacks were qualified/as qualified, affirmative action would not be necessary. Second, and more perniciously, this standard view is seemingly confirmed by the paucity of black philosophers, especially in leading departments--after all, if we cannot get hired and tenured despite affirmative action, we really must not be qualified.
A mere outreach effort (see [ ]) is insulting. It suggests that minority candidates might lack the common knowledge that would lead them to look at JFP, for instance. If outreach almost never factors into the hiring practices of leading philosophy departments, it has no point for minorities--though I understand that departments want to appease themselves and their administrations that the paucity of minority faculty is beyond their immediate control. Of course, if leading departments continue to construe philosophy or positions with the typical bias against value areas or in some other, narrow way, there will indeed be a paucity of excellent minority candidates.
I trust that you know I am not criticizing you personally. Yet I would like to make a recommendation: affirmative action or outreach for minorities could be done, especially at leading departments, only through casual, below-the-radar queries to members of other leading departments. (Maybe you are doing this.) After all, departments such as [ ], [ ], [ ], and even [ ] are unlikely to hire junior candidates from programs outside the top 25; there are very few minority candidates and those interested are likely to apply, anyway. So the affirmative action/equal opportunity boilerplate in ads and active soliciting of minority candidates seems unnecessary and unnecessarily stigmatizing--except perhaps in those rare cases where a department is committed both to encouraging minorities to apply and actually to hiring (and tenuring) well-qualified candidates.
All of that said, let me reiterate my interest in the [ ] job. I realize that there are no guarantees and do not expect any, for myself or any other minority. Nor, though, do I want to become a perpetual applicant, let alone one who naively answers calls for minority applicants.
Professor McPherson adds: "[A] post mortem about [this] letter might be helpful. For months, I received no response. Only after indirectly querying a different, prominent faculty member of that department did I receive a reply from the search committee chairperson I had written. The response: such outreach 'strategies' designed 'to attract women and minority candidates' were 'standard' and 'customary,' and were necessary so that the university's 'Equal Opportunity Committee' did not 'block' the department from hiring whomever it wanted. [emphasis added by BL]. (When I wrote back that I was 'dismayed and surprised' by this response, the reply was to wonder whether it was 'your intention to offend' since it 'sounds like you are insulting me.' I replied that my intention was certainly not to offend.)"
In another case, Professor McPherson discovered that another "top 30" department had posted on the Internet a report naming him as the "unworthy" candidate they had considered as part of a "diversity" initiative. Professor McPherson wrote:
I am writing to request that the [ ] Philosophy Department remove, or at least remove my name, from its "Philosophy Department Diversity Plan Progress Report." This report can currently be found on the Internet, via a search using my name.
As written by [ ], the report claims that a committee "was created to research promising African-American political philosophers we might be able to approach for our open position in political philosophy. (Note: this committee did result in our bringing to campus Prof. Lionel McPherson for an interview this winter, though the Department ultimately voted to make an offer to a different candidate.)" The report goes on to claim, "The chief obstacles we face to increasing diversity in our department is that philosophy has traditionally been a discipline that...produces relatively few faculty of color. We have appreciated being offered 'special opportunity' funds to try to recruit such faculty."
Thus the report leaves the impression that despite the Department's earnest "diversity initiatives," which included a special search and special funding, it could find no (qualified) minority candidate--including the one candidate that it did interview, namely, me. This impression could be further substantiated, in the minds of observers of the profession, by the fact that the Department hired a white male who has published almost exclusively in ethics, not political philosophy.
In short, the report is offensive in a way that is typical of philosophy departments, as I have learned from both observation and experience. The [ ] Department's report, however, sets a new low in identifying me as the rejected candidate.
I do not expect that most members of your department will be sympathetic to my complaint. So let me conclude by stating simply that I do not appreciate being a poster boy, let alone a public one, for any department's "diversity initiatives" that must be deemed a failure.
There is a lot for philosophers and departments to reflect on in these incidents, and I thank Professor McPherson for being willing to share his experiences, which are no doubt eye-opening for most readers.
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