If it’s not illegal, it’s pretty sexist. They’re quite explicitly hiring more women and ignoring the relative quality of their applications.

Holly Else at Inside Higher Ed has the story:

Controversy in Switzerland over university job ad seeking only female applicants

A Swiss university is taking the “exceptional” step of advertising a job specifically for women to boost gender diversity among staff.

The dean at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne said that it was able to make the “aggressive” move because the post is sponsored by industry.

But an official from the Swiss Federal Office for Gender Equality has questioned the legality of the situation.

The advertisement seeks “an outstanding woman as a tenure-track assistant professor,” “with the support” of insurance group La Mobilière.

Marilyne Andersen, the dean, said that the ad is part of a wider initiative to get more female staff because women make up only 11 percent of the faculty. “We believe we need to be more aggressive and more proactive in trying to find female talent,” she said.

“What we really miss right now is a statistically valid pool [of women] at the beginning [of the recruitment process]…. Typically, out of 80 applications only 5 are from women, which makes it almost impossible that one of those five would be so good to pass on to the shortlist of candidates,” she explained.