CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Issue proposal for CAUT Journal “Shaping Equity as Labour Justice: successes, stumbles and setbacks”

This special issue is focused on how academic staff associations are dealing with this new culture of EDI, including confronting its myriad challenges. The diversification of the academic workforce is the fundamental measure of EDI success: without staff diversity, inclusion and equity fail, and so it is crucial for us to reflect upon our place within an infrastructure and cultural transformation that has, for the most part, been led by managements and federal agencies outside academic staff control, often with the guidance of the new class of management consultants now focused on equity. The issue of faculty diversification also raises difficult questions about confronting systemic biases within our existing workforce who often control hiring, thereby creating divisions amongst academic staff about the need for and value of EDI transformations. Finally, while the current polarized political climate tends to pit academic freedom against EDI initiatives, clearly it is our most vulnerable members researching and teaching politically progressive ideas who most require the protections of academic freedom. In light of these challenges and recent attempts to address them, we are interested in contributions that discuss whether and how unions can influence the emergence of EDI infrastructure and policies to align with labour justice priorities and principles, either through case study examples or through more theoretically informed discussions. 

We welcome contributions in the broad areas below:

• Bargaining for equity hires to diversify the workplace
• Bargaining for equity policies to achieve full inclusion in the workplace
• Building awareness and understanding of equity as a labour justice issue rather than a branding exercise for management
• Working through the perceived tensions between academic freedom and EDI
• Engaging in governance structures to achieve equity outcomes
• Investigating the links between class position, precariousness employment, and EDI
• Dealing with divisions amongst faculty around EDI and academic freedom
• Translating intersectional realities into EDI policies and practices
• Confronting systemic biases in a white and male dominated profession
• The Ghettoizing of EDI within particular departments or programs
• De-prioritization of EDI in bargaining and resource allocation
• Differences in pursuing EDI in differing contexts of geography, size, discipline
• The benefits and problems with EDI training regimes

Please submit abstracts of 150-250 words by January 29^th, 2024, to CAUT Journal. Decisions on acceptance will be made by February 1^st, 2024, with a request for full papers of 8000 words due for review by September 1^st, 2024. 

Revised papers will be due by December 1^st 2024, for publication in January 2025.