Affirmative Action Case Study

Affirmative Action at the University of
Selkirk and the Portrait of a Canadian Advisor

#1) Perceptual Biases
The business department was biased towards the AAC’s work because the department was comprised of 85% of males. The majority of AAC members, on the other hand, consisted only of women faculty members and librarians who believed that academic facilities were dominated by men and that there were an implicit set of values that effectively excluded women. Since the majority of the members are women, this caused the AAC to be biased towards male faculty members and the university, since there were no male opinions in the group. The proposal that AAC formulated was very biased towards males, for example, it stated that women candidates
The business department rejected the AAC’s plan in 1990 and did not re-negotiate with the AAC because the majority of the faculty did not support the AAC’s work and openly expressed their dislike for the AAC. This caused the AAC to demonstrate the halo effect, which is “is the tendency for a group’s overall impression to bias his or her assessment of another on specific dimensions.” To be more specific, the AAC formed a negative overall impression of the business department which biased the AAC’s assessment of the business department’s recommendation for hiring a female faculty
A stereotype is the belief that “all members of specific groups share similar traits and behaviours.” In this case, the stereotype of the typical Canadian advisor is male, between 40 to 50 years old and speaks English or French. Since our advisor was hired because he fit this description, we can say that his employment was due to external factors of the fundamental attribution error. Our advisor then complies with the Pygmalion Effect because he is expected to do well since he fit the stereotype, and judging by his answers in the interview, he believe that he is doing