Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
2 2 December - January 2017
T
HIS NOVEMBER marks the second anniversary
of my successful gender equality case at the
Equality Tribunal against NUI Galway for its
failure to appoint me to the post of Senior Lec-
turer. It was hailed as a landmark case and
should have been a call to arms, not just for NUI Galway,
but for all third-level institutions. However, the awaken
-
ing is slow and I doubt that much has changed on the
ground – or in attitudes amongst university
management.
Currently, many staff in NUI Galway are disillusioned
and afraid. Few staff feel able to challenge the authori
-
ties. Many are in precarious posts or worried they won’t
be promoted. Some staff, I gather, have been repri-
manded for speaking out. Fear has filtered through to
the students. Recently a society was told it could not
display images of Jim Browne, the NUI Galway President
in its ‘Mr Browne’s Boys’ cartoon T-shirts at a table sup
-
porting five women lecturers pursuing similar litigation.
Last April a cartoon exhibition to raise funds and aware-
ness about the five women was booked on campus by
the Students Union, but was taken down by Security in
the middle of the night.
My case was a landmark case partly because, despite
being in the public service, universities have a lot of
autonomy, as they should. However, this has led to a lack
of transparency in processes such as
the promotion and appointment of
academics. This has in turn led to an
abuse, or perceived abuse, of power.
The universities have been getting
away with this for a long time now.
However, change comes slowly
because university management is
not answerable to any board of trus-
tees or shareholders. The governing
bodies seem powerless or unwilling
to effect change. Ireland has an
appalling international record for
gender equality in academia. It has been ranked second
worst in Europe after Malta for its Glass Ceiling Index in
academia. Irish third-level institutions have a lot of
catching up to do.
The facts were stark in NUI Galway when I took my
case in 2009. The proportion of successful applicants
was stunningly different for men and women. 50% of
male candidates were successful compared to the 6.7%
of female candidates who were successful (see Table 1).
Summing up twelve points in my favour, the Equality Tri-
bunal ruling highlighted that “perhaps the most
significant frailty in the respondent’s [NUI Galway’s]
rebuttal” was that in all four recent rounds of promotion
to Senior Lecturer combined, men had a one in two and
women less than a one in three chance of being pro-
moted. One successful man had not even been eligible
to apply.
I donated my €70,000 award to five other women who,
despite being fully deserving of promotion, had been
unsuccessful. Their course of action is far more difficult,
with only the High Court as an option because the Equal-
ity Tribunal deadline was long past. What I find
extraordinary is that the university, instead of conceding
errors were made, has chosen to spend large sums of
taxpayers’ money fighting these women in the courts
through an on-going, protracted and emotionally drain-
ing, to say nothing of financially stressful, legal
wrangle.
The Equality Tribunal ruling specified that NUI Galway
should send a report to what is now the Irish Human
Rights and Equality Commission within 12 months of the
ruling. I recently got hold of this and am stunned at what
took them 13 months to deliver. It comprises two parts,
the larger part being an appendix. The first part, three
pages long, sets the tone in stating that “a review had
already been underway” but fails to specify that this
‘review’ was actually completed in 2011, three years
before the Equality Tribunal ruling and is in fact referred
to in the ruling.
The first part goes on to repeat the recommendations
from that report and devotes one page to the recommen-
dations for the 2013/14 round of promotions, initiated a
year before the ruling. No reference is made to the fact
that 20 of the candidates deemed suitable but not pro
-
moted in that round appealed and that only 18% of
female candidates were promoted compared to 35% of
male candidates. The consultant’s report commissioned
on the back of these appeals is not available even under
Freedom of Information (FOI).
There was a burst of outrage in the university on foot
of my successful case and the action taken by the five
other women. The injustice to the five women was imme-
diately raised at the NUI Galway Údarás (Governing
Body). I understand the discussion was heated. How-
ever, the minutes of that elevated body are only available
under FOI where, as part of the process, any useful infor-
mation has been redacted. Several heated meetings of
the NUI Galway Academic Council, that comprises pro
-
fessors, deans and heads of school, and so is
overwhelmingly male, resulted in nothing. It was told it
was powerless to change matters.
Large numbers of students joined the campaign to
support the five women, horrified to learn that they had
Genderisory
Not much has changed in NUIG
on gender equality, 2 years after
successful EAT case
by Micheline Sheehy
Skeffington
The new €106,000 Vice
President for Equality
and Diversity is focusing
not on results but on the
inaccurate message that
“NUI Galway is no worse
than any other university"
NEWS
December - January 2017 2 3
not been promoted. “I am joining the campaign because
[name of one of the five women] is the best lecturer I’ve
ever had” was a common refrain. The Students Union
and both staff unions gave their full support and 26 stu-
dent societies signed up in solidarity to the campaign.
This support continues.
What has happened since? A task force was estab-
lished with much public fanfare and it delivered its final
report in May 2016. This was hard-hitting, if limited,
since it did not address the position of the five women
or focus on non-academic staff, where matters are even
worse.
The recommendations of the task force are not faring
particularly well. It recommended that 50% of the “major
influential” committees should be chaired by women by
2018. However, College Deans (all men) chair such com
-
mittees and three of them were recently replaced by
three more men. The task force suggested a cascade
system of promotion. This is being watered down.
Although 52% of lecturers are women, only 40% and not
52% of those promoted are required to be women,
according to Equality Manager Aoife Cooke.
A new Vice President for Equality and Diversity has
been appointed with a starting salary of €106,000 per
annum. She may bring about some change, but I have
always queried the necessity for this new post that costs
more than it would to promote the five women. Sadly, the
new Vice President appears to be focusing not on results
but on the message that “NUI Galway is no worse than
any other university”. This sums up the university’s con-
cern. Image supersedes staff welfare. They are even
planning to apply for an Athena Swan award, that recog-
nises advancement of gender equality in universities,
while continuing to fight the five women in the Courts.
NUI Galway is actually worse, much worse, than others,
as HEA figures show.
The Higher Education Authority set up an expert group
on gender issues and its report, published last June,
includes gendered statistics for Higher Education Insti-
tutions. This year’s rankings show NUI Galway, with 21%
female senior staff (Professors and Senior Lecturers) to
be a clear 6% lower than the next in line, UCC with 27%.
These rankings, however, are never referred to and other
rankings don’t include gender balance in their metrics.
One can only hope there will be competition to avoid
being bottom of the list in the rankings, thus bringing
about at least some real improvements for female aca-
demics.
NUI Galway, with 21% female
senior staff is a clear 6% lower
than the next in line, UCC with
27%. These rankings, however,
are never referred to.
Students and staff protesting outside an NUI Galway Academic Council meeting, February 2015.
Table 1: Promotion to Senior Lecturer 2008/09
Applicants
Shortlisted
Promoted
% applicants promoted
M F TOTAL
32 15 47
% FEMALE
31.9
23 7 30 23.3
16 1 17
50.0 6.7 36.2
5.9
Details of the 2008/09
round of promotion to
Senior Lecturer in NUI
Galway. Candidates were
from all disciplines and all
30 shortlisted were deemed
suitable and would have been
promoted, had there been no
‘nancial constraints’.
