Arantza Asali, who is currently pursuing the master’s program in gender studies led by dr. Kerr, found, said she “could never have imagined that St. Andrews would obtain this degree, receive the praise and tuition he had earned, and then do so.”
“The neglect shown by our education and the well-being of the staff is unacceptable,” she wrote on Twitter.
Broader concerns have been raised many times in the past about the under-representation of women in the field of philosophy worldwide. And those who drew attention to the university’s decision not to sign Ms. Kerr to renew does not indicate the broader issues in the philosophy department.
According to their petition: As of this month, of the 35 members of the academic and research staff in the department, only 12 are women; of the twelve women, only five have a permanent position (one of which is part-time), two visiting scholars, three professors who are not primarily employed at the university, and two have temporary contracts, including Drs. Kerr.
The 19 full-time staff members of the department include only four women, and no woman has a permanent junior position. From the department’s 57 Ph.D. students, only 13 are women.
Academics around the world have expressed their support for Dr. Kerr expressed on social media.
“Absolutely shameful, and part of a long list of dismissals of women and BAME scholars in recent years,” Dr. Camilla Mork Rostvik, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, posted on Twitter and uses an acronym that is common in Britain for blacks, Asians and ‘minority ethnicities’.
“This is a profound injustice as well as an incredible mistake,” wrote Jonathan Ichikawa, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of British Columbia. “Her work is exemplary, and there is no one with the necessary expertise who can replace her.”