York University has long prided itself on its
commitment to inclusivity, diversity, social justice and equity. This is
regularly affirmed in statements from President Lenton and was most recently
reiterated in the 2015-2020
University Academic Plan. Yet, in York’s most current annual
Employment Equity Survey (2018), only 16 of 1395 of members self-identified as
“Black” – that is barely above 1%! This staggeringly low number, which is well
below national, provincial, and municipal availability statistics for Black
PhDs is all the more shocking because York is one of the most diverse campuses
in Canada and the U.S. It is also situated in an equally diverse city to which
many outstanding Black academics and students are drawn precisely because of
Toronto’s diversity.

In order to address the dearth of Black faculty at
York, YUFA approached the employer in bargaining to consider including a
targeted hires program for Black faculty, a program not unlike the Indigenous
Hires Program that was implemented in the Memorandum of Settlement for the
2015-18 Collective Agreement and that was renewed this round. Unfortunately,
York was not willing to implement YUFA’s proposal to increase Black faculty,
despite York being in the midst of one of the largest waves of faculty hiring
in recent history. The employer would only agree to a joint task force to
examine whether or not there are significant inequities with respect to the
number of Black faculty at York and to make recommendations to increase the
representation of Black faculty should any meaningful inequity be demonstrated.
York’s most recent Employment Equity Survey clearly shows that YUFA’s position
is well-founded—there are very few Black faculty who are YUFA members at York
and thus there are far too few in whom York’s significant Black student
population is able to see itself reflected.

The urgency to have targeted Black hires is not only a
question of representation. It is also a question of refusing knowledge
production that too often reinforces systemic and antiblack racism that Black
people in Canada and the world experience due to the legacy of chattel slavery
and white supremacy. It is a question of centring the research and teaching of
Black scholars across the disciplines so that all disciplines welcome and speak
to Black students. It is a means of undoing the unequal present of Black
students who lack equivalent access to education, housing, resources, health,
the freedom to move on campus and off due to carding policies, and to halting
institutional failures to retain the data that evidences their marginalization,
all of which is a flipside of a university that does not actively seek Black
faculty. 

YUFA
urges the Employer not simply to arrive quickly at meaningful recommendations
with YUFA on the Joint Committee for Employment Equity and Inclusivity (JCEEI),
which is about to begin its work, but to act immediately upon those
recommendations once the committee has completed its work. Students, staff and
faculty expect York, not merely to pride itself on equity, diversity and
inclusion, but to realize the commitment it claims is the basis for that pride!
And that calls for a number of strategies: targeted hires, cluster hires, and searches
that mandate that Black faculty be included on the hiring committees.