Equity statements are not enough – how elite British institutions can improve recruitment experiences for racially minoritised academics

Anonymous author

Increasing demands for greater intellectual diversity have drawn attention to the under representation of racially minoritised groups in UK higher education institutions (HEIs). For example, in the education sector in which I work, the proportion of female British African academic staff increased in recent years to just under 1%.

Recruitment determines who enters the academy.  Therefore, integrating equity and anti-racist practices into recruitment processes and practices is critical to meeting demands for diversity, not just to include different faces and voices, but also to produce diverse scholarship.

In the UK, elite HEIs continue to signal their support for such demands through statements of commitment to equity and diversity in their recruitment, including specific statements which particularly encourage applications from women and Black and minority ethnic candidates. But, like Bhopal and Myers suggest, my recent experience as a female African applicant indicates that much work remains to be done in elite HEIs’ recruitment practices, even where they hire minoritised academic staff.

In this blog, I share my experience as a shortlisted applicant for an Assistant Professorship at an elite British HEI, and outline some recommendations for more equitable and anti-racist practices that move beyond perfunctory equity statements in job advertisements.

The interview process

The job advertisement indicated the interview process – applicant presentations and panel interviews – would occur over two days. The medium was not specified but given my knowledge of the ‘virtual precedent’ set by the same institution for a previous hire and the general trend in the sector, I imagined the process would occur online. Upon being shortlisted, an additional element was included (informal interactions with select academic staff and students) while physical presence was deemed a requirement, with participation costs later reimbursed.

My request for a hybrid process – virtual Day 1 and physical Day 2 – to accommodate my then work commitments was rejected. The panel preferred physical preference for both days, albeit virtual participation (both days) was permissible if ‘absolutely’ necessary. Being a female African scholar on a fixed term contract at the time, with a probation meeting with my manager just weeks after the interview dates, remote participation was the only real option I had. Technologically, the process occurred seamlessly, as observed and remarked by the panel itself. The panel interview was conducted by an all-White cast, including one human resources (HR) staff.

The decision

A week afterwards, I received a brief email from the HR staff. The email noted that although I had impressed with my presentation and interview and was therefore ‘appointable’, the role had been offered to the ‘preferrable’ candidate. No further explanation was provided and my multiple requests for feedback were never answered.

Recommendations

Such was the importance of equity to the hiring department that applicants were required to demonstrate a strong commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI); applicants were required to submit an EDI statement; and the online job advertisement explicitly stated the institution's support to EDI. However, equity work transcends equity statements. It also transcends ‘merely’ hiring racially minoritised academics if their or their minoritised co-applicants’ experiences, beginning with recruitment, continued to be dominated by racism or inequity.

My experience suggests there is significant room for improvement in elite British HEIs’ approaches to equity in the academic recruitment process. Drawing from this experience and the literature, to improve the experiences of shortlisted applicants, particularly those from minoritised backgrounds, elite and other HEIs may wish to:

• Accommodate applicants’ reasonable requests. Hybridity / virtuality should be accommodated in as much as it enables equity, particularly for racially minoritised applicants who may be unemployed or employed on precarious contracts (i.e., with limited ability to spend significant sums upfront on interview expenses) or pre-committed (e.g., family responsibilities) with limited ability to make alternate arrangements for an on-site interview.
• Diversify recruitment / interview panels to increase the possibility that the real concerns of racially minoritised applicants may be integrated into recruitment process and practices.
• Collectively conceive assessment criteria that promote equity while limiting individual panel members’ preferences or definitions of ‘fit’. For example, criteria such as ‘collegiality’, typically assessed in person, have been employed to exclude minoritised applicants who do not demonstrate the desired amount of Whiteness expected by predominantly White recruitment committees. Outside HEIs, ‘fit’ has similarly been used to justify implicit class preferences at prestigious organisations. Considering how certain criteria function to exclude applicants with intersectional characteristics is a critical element of equitable recruitment.
• Ensure criteria can be consistently applied, e.g., using templates and clear examples for each rating or score, by all members of recruitment panel at all stages of the recruitment process. Perhaps more radically, share criteria with shortlisted applicants.
• Manage conflicts of interest to create a truly open recruitment exercise for all applicants. Academic staff with declared / known conflicts of interest should be recused from recruitment panels.
• Automatically provide written feedback to all applicants who are shortlisted but not appointed. This is particularly critical for minoritised applicants for whom such constructive feedback may be invaluable.