Meritocracy’s Mirage: Why Fairness Needs Affirmative Action

Universities often describe themselves as meritocracies – places that reward scholars for their accomplishments irrespective of their gender and cultural identity. Yet persistent underrepresentation of women and racial minorities among professors begs an uncomfortable question: If academia truly rewards merit alone, why does the professoriate still look so white and so male?

In most Western countries today, the lack of minority group representation in academia is not caused by formal exclusion–rules which prohibit women or people of colour from certain jobs–but by institutional and social factors that persist despite formal equality of opportunity. In the United Kingdom, 88% of professors are white, only 32% of them are women and only 1% of them are Black.

Germany and France exhibit a similar gender imbalance. Women hold roughly 30% of professorial positions, despite representing a much larger share of university graduates and early-career researchers. Data on the racial or ethnic composition of professors is largely unavailable, however, as such statistics are generally not collected in official datasets.

What explains the lack of diversity among our professors? Research consistently shows that women and minorities encounter subtle but pervasive disadvantages in academia. Studies have found that identical job applications are rated more favourably when they bear male names, that research authored by women is cited less frequently and that students often evaluate female professors as less competent despite performing no better in courses taught by men.

Recognising the persistent underrepresentation of minorities in academia, some higher education institutions have introduced affirmative action to increase minority representation in their faculties.

Affirmative action, broadly conceived, is a policy that favours candidates belonging to one group over candidates belonging to another. Weak forms of affirmative action include tie-breaking policies which prescribe that if a man and a woman are equally qualified for a position, the woman should be given the job. This also applies when one candidate is a member of a racial minority group and the other is a member of the racial majority.

More robust forms of affirmative action include gender or racial quotas that correspond to a minority group’s share of the population.

Critics argue that affirmative action undermines meritocratic principles. Supporters of this position cite that it has become increasingly difficult for white men to secure jobs due to diversity initiatives, framing affirmative action as discrimination rather than as a policy aimed at addressing historical and structural inequalities.

It is therefore important for proponents of affirmative action to get their argument straight.

Debates about affirmative action typically centre on two popular justifications: the role model rationale and the diversity rationale.

The role model rationale is grounded in the idea that hiring minority professors encourages members of the same group to pursue academic careers by demonstrating that success for people ‘like them’ is possible. While plausible, this argument has limitations.

Because the role model rationale implies that universities should only hire minorities they believe would make good role models, the logic disadvantages minorities who do not meet this criteria. For example, in 1990, a white professor in New York wrote to his university’s affirmative action office to note that the role model justification did not justify the appointment of a fair-skinned black professor because he was not ‘black enough’. The role model rationale risks discriminating against the very people it aims to benefit.

The diversity rationale, on the other hand, holds that universities benefit intellectually from having scholars with varied perspectives and backgrounds. Diverse opinions foster robust discussion conducive to good academic work. Hence, we should support affirmative action because it increases the diversity of opinions in academic circles.

While this argument is likely true, it is a weak rationale for introducing affirmative action that favours minorities. If universities wanted to increase the diversity of opinion amongst professors, affirmative action would not be the most effective approach – universities could instead assess professorial candidates on their opinion on a given matter and then curate a team of professors with the most novel and diverse views.

This process could result in a board of racially and sexually diverse professors. It is not inconceivable, however, that this selection method would produce a board of white men.

The stronger case for affirmative action, I argue, lies in what I call the corrective rationale: a view that treats affirmative action not as a tool for symbolism or diversity, but as a mechanism for correcting the systemic biases that cause universities to undervalue the work of minorities. The fact that these biases make it harder for minorities to advance their academic careers mean that in the absence of affirmative action, members of the majority have an unfair advantage in attaining professorial jobs.

Even well-intentioned hiring committees may unknowingly undervalue the achievements of minority scholars. Philosopher Miranda Fricker describes this phenomenon as a ‘testimonial injustice’, a form of epistemic injustice which occurs when a speaker’s testimony is given less credibility than it deserves because of prejudice about their social identity.

Within the framework of the corrective rationale, affirmative action functions less as preferential treatment and more as a corrective adjustment. Providing an advantage to underrepresented candidates can counterbalance the disadvantages they are likely to face in the evaluation process. Of course, this is not an exact science – but assessments of merit never are.

Some opponents of affirmative action argue that the solution to institutional biases within universities are colour- or gender-blind hiring practices. In theory, removing information about race or gender could prevent prejudice from influencing hiring decisions. In practice, however, biases emerge long before scholars reach the professorial stage.

As discussed above, student evaluations, citation counts and letters of recommendation – all common metrics used to evaluate candidates in academic hiring – may already reflect biased assessments. Ignoring these indicators would make it difficult for universities to measure fundamental aspects of a candidate’s performance.

The corrective rationale encourages us to see that affirmative action is not a reward, but a correction. Unlike the role model argument, the corrective approach does not require minority scholars to serve as symbolic representatives for their communities. Nor does it depend on the claim that every discipline benefits from demographic diversity. Instead, it focuses on a much simpler principle that many of us already uphold: fairness.