In September of 2020, McGill released an Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism. The following are measures that the Department of Philosophy is currently taking to promote anti-racist practices in our teaching and our governance:
Teaching Initiatives
- Faculty and Course Lecturers have been urged to enroll in workshops offered by Equity at McGill, including the “Anti-racism and Teaching Practice”.
- An equity facilitator provided a workshop on Anti-Racist Pedagogy for Teaching Assistants leading conference sessions in Fall 2020. This workshop will be repeated regularly.
- All first- and second-year graduate students will participate in an Equity Education workshop as part of their mandatory training.
- The department has secured funding through McGill’s Action Plan to Address Anti-Black Racism for inviting Black scholars to be guest speakers in philosophy courses.
- In May 2021, the Equity and Climate Committee hosted a panel discussion, “Teaching Philosophy Through an Anti-Racist Lens”.
Governance Initiatives
- We aim to include BIPOC philosophers in our colloquium series every year, as part of an ongoing effort to promote equity and diversity in the profession. We also support students who want to organize such events themselves through MAP (Minorities and Philosophy) or the ECC.
- All members of departmental hiring committees are required to complete McGill’s equity training.
- The Equity and Climate Committee (ECC) has two graduate and two undergraduate student representatives. One graduate representative and one undergraduate representative will be nominated by student philosophy associations in consultation with McGill’s MAP chapter, the Black Students’ Network, or Black Students’ Law Association of McGill.
- We have an Equity Liaison Officer who is available to any student who might want to raise equity or climate concerns that arise in class to a faculty member other than or in addition to their instructor.