Reconceptualizing “merit” and “fit”: An equity-minded approach to hiring.

This chapter shows how academic hiring practices—including the beliefs, values, and biases around “merit” and “fit”—perpetuate racial inequities by leaving unexamined and unquestioned the shared, racialized assumptions that guide hiring, recruitment, screening, and evaluation. The chapter provides a framework, grounded in Bensimon’s concept of “equity-mindedness,” to redefine “merit” and “fit” in terms of racial equity and justice. The chapter also presents a suite of “critical inquiry” tools that search committees can use to examine how hiring is conducted on their campus, how merit and fit are currently conceived, and how equity-minded conceptions of merit and fit can be centered.