Department STEM at a medium-sized university has 10 faculty: eight men and two women. The department was recently provided a new tenure-track assistant professor position, and it conducted a national search to fill it. Following a careful review of more than 50 applications, the search committee members, in consultation with the other department faculty, identified three candidates for interview. Each of the three had two years of post-doctoral experience and good scholarly records.

Following on-campus interviews, one of the two male candidates was clearly unacceptable to a majority of the faculty, while the other male candidate and the female candidate were both viewed as acceptable.

Discussions about the two remaining candidates – involving all current faculty and the department head – failed to identify any features that clearly distinguished one candidate over the other. In light of the discussion, a junior female faculty member said, “Given that all things are pretty much equal, I would recommend that we bring in the woman. We need more women in the department.” In response to her comment, several of the faculty gave her looks indicating their disapproval, and another faculty member remarked, “We don’t need to bring gender into this discussion – we are trying to identify the best candidate, period.”

As a member of the department and ally of gender equity, what perspectives or contributions can you offer to this department discussion?