This week’s quote-of-the-week post (though it’s only Thursday) takes its inspiration from events that transpired on Daily Nous during the past week. For through a series of comments there, Paul Raymont, “Canadian Post-Doc,” and I made evident to the international readership of Daily Nous that Canadian philosophy departments give preference in hiring to American and Oxbridge Ph.D.s, a discriminatory practice that especially disadvantages disabled Canadian philosophers. The reputation of Canadian philosophy departments was irrevocably tarnished publicly by these events.

The catalyst for these events was a comment that Canadian Post-Doc made on a post about Canadian philosopher (and American Ph.D.) Samantha Brennan’s status as a first-generation philosopher, a comment to which I responded. My comment was intended to correct Canadian Post-Doc who seemed to misunderstand the reasons for their own professional precarity. I wrote:

I agree with Canadian Post-Doc that philosophy is very unfriendly to first-generation/working-class/poor students. I have studied hiring practices in philosophy, especially Canadian philosophy, for close to two decades in order to discern the mechanisms and strategies that facilitate the (continued) exclusion of disabled philosophers, especially the exclusion of Canadian disabled philosophers.

Notwithstanding the agreement that I note in my initial sentence of this comment, however, I think that Canadian Post-Doc is terribly uninformed about how hiring in Canadian philosophy actually ensues and thus why they themselves are in their present predicament. Here are a few things that they might consider:

(1) The most important credential to get short-listed and get a job in a Canadian philosophy department is a degree from an American or Oxbridge university (Don’t believe me? Check some Canadian department faculty rosters, starting with UBC that–last time I checked–has one Canadian PhD on its large faculty);

(2) Following on (1), Canadian Post-Doc’s assertion according to which it is “silly” to deny what Canadian universities “explicitly advertise” is naive: for example, Canadian departments repeatedly and routinely get around the claim in their respective ads that they will give preference to Canadian citizens. (I’ve even seen Canadian philosophers post their job ads on Facebook and “explicitly” advise their colleagues to ignore this clause in their ad!);

(3) DEI in Canada has really only been directed at and benefitted nondisabled white women, though a few Canadian universities have introduced cluster hires to recruit Black and Indigenous faculty and faculty of colour;

(4) Following on (3) and other previous remarks, Canadian philosophy departments continue to reject disabled job applicants regardless of their accomplishments. Indeed, some of these departments seem to breathe a sigh of relief when one of their faculty members comes out as disabled because they seem to think that my widely publicized charges about their exclusionary practices with respect to hiring disabled philosophers are thereby refuted. But who would think that a department has good hiring practices and representation with respect to LGBTQ+ philosophers because one of its faculty members came out as queer months or even years after they were hired while identifying as (and maybe passing as) straight?

If you, dear reader/listener of Daily Nous, are a disabled philosophy student in Canada or a precariously employed disabled philosopher in Canada, I recommend that you read/listen to some of the writing that I have done about how Canadian (and other) disabled philosophers are excluded from permanent employment in philosophy. Much of this work is available (open access) on my PhilPapers/PhilPeople pages.

Of note in this regard: my article, “Introducing Feminist Philosophy of Disability” (2013) Shelley Tremain, Introducing Feminist Philosophy of Disability – PhilPapers; my article, “Field Notes on the Naturalization and Denaturalization of Disability in (Feminist) Philosophy: What They Do and How They Do It” Shelley Lynn Tremain, Field Notes on the Naturalization and Denaturalization of Disability in (Feminist) Philosophy: What They Do and How They Do It – PhilPapers; my monograph, _Foucault and Feminist Philosophy of Disability_ (2017).

Also, consider checking out this recent Dialogues on Disability interview in which Robert Chapman and Mich Ciurria interviewed me and in which I discuss these and other things that you should know about philosophy’s hostile and exclusionary relationship with disabled people in general and disabled philosophers in particular, especially Canadian philosophy’s relationship to us: Dialogues on Disability: Robert Chapman and Mich Ciurria Interview Shelley Tremain (Tenth-anniversary Edition) – BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY

My comment was reinforced by Paul who wrote: “Yes, if you want a job in Canada, don’t attend a Canadian grad program. The attitude for a long time was (and may still be), ‘We need world-class intellects, and anyone who decided to stay in Canada for a doctorate can’t possibly have one.'” Oddly enough, American philosopher Jamie Dreier responded to the comments, unsuccessfully attempting to rescue the moral standing of Canadian philosophy departments by dismissing our critical remarks about Canadian hiring practices with a set of uninformed comments. Perhaps Dreier is a placement officer in their American philosophy department and more concerned with getting jobs for its graduates than eliminating forms of structural injustice in the profession at large.

Regardless, I am somewhat delighted that these events took place. For years, I have argued that Canadian philosophy departments discriminate in hiring against the very Canadian Ph.D.s that they produce, a practice that enables the exclusion of disabled philosophers from Canadian philosophy. In my Dialogues on Disability interview with Robert and Mich, I said:

No one had taken the time to explain the Ph.D. application process to me nor to advise me about departmental rankings. A working-class disabled student, I was not expected to continue my studies, nor expected to succeed at them. Regardless, it would have been very difficult for me to attend university somewhere beyond southern Ontario. A recently disabled student, I needed my support network of family and friends to live and thrive in an ableist society.

When hiring departments in Canada do not consider these circumstances with which many disabled students must contendꟷthat is, when Canadian philosophy departments diminish and discount degrees from Canadian universities (as they uniformly do)ꟷthey actively discriminate against us. Furthermore, when hiring departments expect doctoral degrees to be completed in four years and jobs to be obtained in short order, they actively discriminate against us. Let me underscore that disabled philosophers are almost entirely excluded from employment in Canadian philosophy departments, regardless of our accomplishments. Both (1) the prestige bias according to which hiring departments in Canada venerate degrees taken from American and Oxbridge universities over degrees taken from Canadian universities; and (2) ableist expectations and requirements about time spent as a student and job seeker are (3) instrumental in the reproduction of this exclusion.

Although in one sense I feel redeemed by the events that took place on Daily Nous this week, I also grieve for the years of my life and my career that have been stolen by Canadian philosophy departments such as UBC, Western, McMaster, Guelph, York, Dalhousie, Toronto, Trent, Alberta, and Lethbridge that have repeatedly rejected my job applications, usually hiring nondisabled American Ph.D.s that in various instances were clearly less qualified for the given position than me. All of these Canadian departments pay lip-service to equity in hiring and allege to prioritize Canadian applicants and underrepresented groups in philosophy, including disabled applicants.

If you are a member of one of these departments, I hope that the next time you go to a nice restaurant; go on a vacation; go to the theatre; are invited to give an esteemed lecture; pick up a prescription from the drugstore; receive an award or some other recognition for your university service; calculate your pension; consider buying a new pair of (expensive) shoes; take a paid sick/research leave; or avail yourself of some other benefit/advantage/opportunity that you have denied me and other Canadian Ph.D.s, you will take a moment to think about us and to ask yourself whether you have earned our respect and trust and the respect and trust of your students.

I would like to believe that some changes in the hiring practices of Canadian departments will ensue due to these events. Yet I have my doubts. Canadian departments have long concealed their own misdeeds by treating as authoritative measures and guidelines for good practices that have been established in the US context and promulgated by the American Philosophical Association, that is, measures and guidelines that do not readily fit the Canadian context. That Canadian philosophers, including Canadian feminist philosophers, do not recognize the colonialist and imperialist tendencies of American philosophy and indeed often aid and abet them, enabling them to pass for a sophisticated cosmopolitanism, is both inexplicable and inexcusable.