No girls allowed

I was shocked to find, on the inside back page of section A of my Globe today, a full page advert for the University of Waterloo.

That in itself is not shocking. With the collapse of advertising rates across the newspaper universe, it’s not unusual to find public universities splurging on full page ads in major papers. That full-pager in that location would have cost a small fortune ten years ago. Today… not so much. I’m guessing UW didn’t pay more than a hundred bucks.

But that’s not what’s shocking.

No, what’s shocking is that the photo in the ad shows six U of W students fiddling with what is allegedly a self-driving car, and all six appear to be dudes. Apparently there are no girls allowed in the disruptive and innovative self-driving-car initiative at Canada’s answer to MIT.

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised; it’s not the first time U of Waterloo has dropped the inclusivity ball in their PR… wait a minute… I just realized something.

The caption to that photo reads “The road to discovery in automotive technology is seldom straight.”

Oh… maybe they’re subliminally advertising their inclusivity after all.