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the new faculty should be female in order to help address the wildly disproportionate gender ratio in our current faculty.

This is not a good reason. Gender imbalance is fought educating everybody (males, females and any possible group) equally and hiring the best people, regardless of their gender, not choosing people by gender, that's sexism.

The candidate that we support is highly qualified in terms of research and teaching. Moreover, among all the candidates who have visited, they are the only one who have any experience with diversity initiatives and getting underrepresented groups into stem. This is very important to many of us, especially since the department is planning to add an undergraduate program in the near future.

These are very good reasons to hire someone, and reasons to be proud being hired for. If I was her I'd find disrespectful being hired first because I'm a woman and second because of these good reasons.

We are planning to write an open letter to the department in support of this candidate, citing her qualifications as someone who has worked to make science a more inclusive place for women and other underrepresented minorities.

Again, these may be good points to write in the open letter, but the fact that she's a woman shouldn't matter. She's a great candidate no matter what she has between her legs.

I find this logic of hiring women because they are women very sexist, towards both men and women. Towards men because they are at a disadvantage, towards women because you're treating them like kids, giving them a preferential route they don't need. Women can clearly be good enough to be hired just for their skills and not for their gender.

Fight for her to be hired if you think she's the best choice, write the letter and explain why she's the best choice, that she's better than the other candidates because she is better, not because she's a a lady.

If you write such an open letter and she is hired, there is a risk that rumor will spread that she was only hired because she is female. Such rumors are harmful even if she was clearly hired on merit alone.

So consider the possibility that your letter does more harm than good. And, if you do write such a letter, make it clear that you think she is the most qualified candidate for the job, not that you think she should be hired for her gender.

It is certainly appropriate for you to express your desire for a particular candidate. In addition to writing to the chair of the department, it would also be helpful to contact the chair of the hiring committee (in case that individual is not the chair of the department).

If you are concerned about blowback for some reason, it would also be possible to write and submit the letter anonymously.

I am not a lawyer, but I’m pretty sure that what you are proposing (taking gender into account in hiring of faculty) would be illegal in any public university in my state, and I suspect it may run afoul of other US states’ and perhaps US federal legislation. See here and here for more information. I advise you to inform yourself of the laws and policies where you are before writing any letters.

Asking your department to do something that breaks the law is not only completely inappropriate, but it even risks leading a risk-averse administrator to choose (consciously or subconsciously) to take the opposite course of action from what you are proposing, just out of fear that they might later be accused later of illegal discrimination, with your letter being used as evidence that they acted out of impure motives.

I do think it’s probably appropriate (under reasonable assumptions about your institution’s culture being a relatively normal and healthy one) for you and other graduate students to express your opinions to the department about which candidate is most qualified for the position, based on objective criteria that are unrelated to gender.

We are planning to write an open letter to the department in support
of this candidate, citing her qualifications as someone who has worked
to make science a more inclusive place for women and other
underrepresented minorities.

Assuming that you value inclusivity (and most do, although some don't), then supporting her candidacy for her abilities and experience is entirely appropriate.

My main question is is whether it is appropriate for us to
additionally express our desire for a woman faculty member.

Well, that does depend on how willing you are to be called out for sexism.

What is the difference between the following two statements:

1. Hire him because we want a man in the position.




2. Hire her because we want a woman in the position.

Oh, you can get all sorts of justifications, but the heart of it is that specifying the sex of a new hire as a job qualification is sexist. By definition.

Stick with the inclusivity argument. Everybody knows what you mean.

You can request that the process is thorough and potentially short list is open. That is to prevent situation where considered candidates are all college buddies of some dude (becasue they went to all-male college or whatever).

You can influence the search processes, but hiring should be merit-based, and gender-neutral. However, in my opinion, "manels" are more and more because of lack of outreach and openness rather than "we couldn't find female candidates". So when people say

you should hire more women

what they mean (IMHO) is

check your process so that you don't follow implicit and explicit biases

For example, does your college provide day care? Or parental leave? Is there some controversial situation that is unresolved? (see what's up with my school)

And of course, you as students have (limited) power to nominate more candidates you deem high-quality. Nobody can stop you from telling your deans or professors "you should also consider X, Y, and Z because we love their work"

Can she also be "black". while at it ..?

What I mean is: you worry about the disproportion of the amount of women hired.
I'm only wondering how many black people are working in "such a place"?

Maybe it would also be nice if she could be "blind". I bet you don't have many blind black women working there.

Do you get my point?
regards, Miguel