After thoughtful reflection, we are announcing the end of the EUI Gender, Race and Sexuality (GRaSe) Working Group that we have started four years ago. We find indeed that the atmosphere at the institute is not appropriate to continue with our activity. What started out as a positive initiative, our 2015 survey on harassment and discrimination, has resulted in public humiliation. We believe this episode reveals the general attitude towards our working group from the side of the EUI administration. It is not the first time we feel to perform the role of “gender token” of the EUI – a role we are no longer willing to play.

Dear EUI colleagues and friends, We are sorry we could not inform you earlier about this, as the EUI administration asked us to wait for the President’s message and to change some of the content regarding our message below. Still, we  are  writing  to  confirm  that  the  survey  on  discrimination  and harassment  that  we launched […]

We are happy to announce that in its last Departmental Meeting, the Law Department approved of our initiative. In its call for applications for the new Chair in Constitutional and/or Public Law, the department will thus particularly welcome candidates interested in theoretical dimensions of gender, sexuality, and race. Big thank you to everyone who signed! […]

“Having at least one faculty member with expertise in gender, race and sexuality law is not merely a luxury anymore – it is a necessity. … Since the EUI aims at being at the forefront of academic discourse in Europe, it needs to pay attention to these developments in order to preserve its distinguished reputation and to ensure the intellectual competitiveness of its graduates. We believe that someone with a clear expertise on race and gender will attract a wider range of forward-looking applicants to the PhD programme of the EUI Law Department.”

If you want to sign the letter, please send an email (including name, department/affiliation, year) to: [email protected] by Tuesday, 11 November 2014, 10 pm.

Since the 1970s, feminist research has struggled to make its way into mainstream academia by showing the relevance of gender as a crucial category of analysis. Today, concerns about how gender shapes politics and society – understood in a very broad sense – are now addressed in a variety of disciplines, becoming mainstream. And yet, many feel that, due to the crisis and consequent shrinking of academic opportunities, gendered approaches risk to be dismissed once again.
With this in mind, GRaSe and COSMOS have invited scholars who are (or have been) based at the EUI to exchange their views on the relevance of gender for their own research. The aim is indeed to consolidate the importance of gender in academia and build a broad platform for future discussions which includes EUI professors, fellows and researchers as well as the network of alumni and alumnae.