Equal opportunity versus employment equity

This paper calls for the abolition of employment equity, which is Canada’s equivalent of affirmative action for females. It argues that equal opportunity and meritocrary are necessary and sufficient for social justice, and that preferential treatment only engenders and protracts injustice. To illustrate its claims, the paper presents a case study treating the Canadian Philosophical Association’s notorious 1991 Report by the Committee to Study Hiring Policies Affecting Women. Some debilitating effects of Canada’s radical politicization of sexuality on the general culture are also mentioned. An early version of this paper was presented at The First Annual Laurier Conference on Business and Professional Ethics, at Wilfrid Laurier University in October 1996. I wish to thank Miro Todorovitch for inspiring the paper; Leo Groarke for inviting, discussing, and editing it; Andrew Irvine, Michael Levin, and Judith Wubnig for their helpful discussions; and Grant Brown for providing evidence of explicit quota systems cited in it. I further thank John Furedy and the Directors of the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) for their defense of free and reasoned scholarship, and the referees and editors of Sexuality & Culture for their helpful suggestions in preparing this publication.