Where are the black female faculty? : employment equity policy failures and the overrepresentation of whiteness

Abstract

This thesis assesses the ineffectiveness of employment equity and diversity practices at two Atlantic Canadian universities. Intersectionality and critical race feminism are the theoretical frameworks used to interrogate employment equity discourse and practices. The research employs critical race feminist discourse analysis to examine organizational documents and texts. I also analyse data collected from interviews with Black women scholars to capture their respective experiences and expertise on the topic and research questions. My analyses expose the ways university institutions neglect to address systemic racism and sexism and its intersections as root sources of exclusion for Indigenous, Black and other women of colour scholars. I discuss how the institutionalization of liberal feminist equity policy approaches and diversity discourses contribute to Black women's physical, intellectual, political and social exclusion within the academy; and I explain the ways patriarchal white hegemony functions to sustain institutional practices of racialized gendered omission, erasure and misrepresentation.