AbstractThis paper describes a method for measuring the effects of academic and living conditions on the academic performance of female cadets in engineering at the Royal Military College of Canada (RMC). For the purposes of this paper systemic harassment is defined as policies, practices, procedures, actions or inactions, that appear neutral but have an adverse impact on an identifiable group. Two different measures of academic performance are used in this paper, the average grade of cadets, and the retention rate of cadets in engineering programmes. Both measures indicate that female cadets, particularly those studying engineering at the college, are adversely affected by the systemic discrimination that exists there. The paper also describes the educational system as it existed at RMC during the period of the study, discusses the perceptions of the affected group as reported elsewhere, and provides a model for analyzing the results.