It doesn't say that only women will be considered. They are trying to address gender and other imbalances in their staffing, and are encouraging women to apply. It also says "All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada will be given priority." Which doesn't exclude men, or favour women. Further down is "To address gender inequity in the field of computer science and alleviate the under-representation of women in such positions, this position is targeted to candidates who self-declare as women." (My bolding).

@WeatherVane so it is legal or not?

See the informed answer.

Legality aside, it is extremely cringe and will not attract any trans women because "identifying as" is seen as highlighting the act of correcting other people's notions of one's own identity -- basically "if you work here, you will continuously need to correct other people."

@SimonRichter And it is also cringe in the way it dog-whistles complete hatred and contempt against straight men too, it reads like "you are not welcome here, and we will participate in ritual humiliation of your kind". Sadly, the term "diverse and inclusive", although originally positive terms, have been degraded into something like "people's democratic republic" - anyone who encounters this term gets a vibe of it not meaning what the words themselves would originally indicate.

There is a major difference in language between the first and the second paragraph. The second one first explicitely says 'everyone can apply' and then specifies that they will give priority to a specific subgroup (Canadian citizens). The first paragraph never mentions everyone can apply, it only says 'we welcome applications from specific subgroup'. To belong to the welcome subgroup you need to satisfy two conditions that are grammatically on equal footing a) self-declare as a women and b) meet the requirements of the position.

@vsz As a straight man, there's no dog whistle. More than that, I'd be concerned about that attitude by anyone I worked with, in exactly the same way as anyone twisting "Black lives matter" to mean "Other lives don't matter". I'd be more concerned if the end result was that candidates were accepted who weren't good enough, but that's always going to be a concern with positive discrimination, even when the result is a good thing for the field as a whole.

@Graham : BLM doesn't have to always be "twisted", there are prominent cases of BLM advocates openly stating things like "white lives don't matter", or "whiteness is an abomination". But that's besides the point, I never intended to mention BLM as an example, you did. BLM alone, without the extreme examples I mentioned, is indeed not a dog whistle, but the example in the question is, as it does not merely state something positive about a group, but it has exclusionary language. It talks about the position being "designated", to "improve equity".

Has anyone ever actually investigated whether this actually works? I.e. do job postings that explicitly invite minorities actually get more applications of these minorities?

@vsz It reads like nothing of the sort. It reads like an attempt to even out the balance between men and women in a workplace typically completely dominated by men. You immediately jump to the conclusion that it entails “ritual humiliation” of straight men, which is an extreme and completely unfounded contortion of the text. The text itself excludes gay or trans men just as much as it does straight men.

@JanusBahsJacquet I'm speaking of how it often turns out in practice, when policies of this language and style are created. Mandatory ideological training sessions labeling part of the population as the root of all evil usually follow afterwards. My experience comes from companies where the HR department started writing in such a style, and then hired a "Diversity and Inclusion Officer". Just like the label "people's democratic republic" by itself does not entail anything bad. All these words are nice words. Democracy is a good thing, living in a republic is good, and it it's for the people!

@vsz And the officer hired by your company mandated you to attend training sessions in which you were told that some part of the population is "the root of all evil"?

@vsz Yes, in a field overwhelmingly full of straight white middle-class men (that's not a slur, that's simply demographic fact), they're trying to get one person who bucks that trend. One person. They are saying nothing negative whatsoever about the majority, merely that they want to also employ one person who isn't purely from that majority. I would love to hear your examples of multiple companies where the events you claim to describe took place.

@Graham see the comment above yours. Please use Law Chat instead

Of course it's legal. Major universities don't do things like this without checking with their lawyers. A better question might be "how is this legal?" Anyway, I've upvoted.

@phoog from the below answer, whether it is legal still depends on whether it is in "an approved program". i hope they can put the "an approved program" information in the job posting. otherwise, it is confusing. ====== fyi, in US, "the Supreme Court ruled against race-conscious admissions in June 2023".

What on Earth is it supposed to mean to "identify as... being sexually diverse"? Diversity is inherently a property of groups, not individuals.