Diversity, equity and inclusion policies are “sadly lacking in idea diversity” and are driven by people who believe that racism explains everything, said Mark Milke, founder and president of the Aristotle Foundation on Public Policy.
Milke was talking to John Ivison about a new study of academic hiring practices at Canadian universities undertaken by the Aristotle Foundation.
The study found a near universal use of DEI policies to promote the equality of outcomes in the university system.
Milke said the study looked at academic job postings advertised by the top enrollment universities in each province and whether they asked for a DEI statement.
“What we found was, of the 10 universities across the country, basically 98 per cent had, or required, some sort of DI statement from the applicant if you wanted to apply for the job. In some cases, the DEI statement was absolutely required. In some cases, you had to provide some sort of fealty to this concept of DEI. And (that) is not as benign as it may sound.
“The first question in our study asked: does the job posting mention or promote DEI? And almost all universities, 100 per cent of University of Toronto applications, do. The lowest was the University of British Columbia. Only 88 per cent of the job postings (at UBC) mentioned DEI. But that tells you something, that they’re looking for certain types of information and perhaps certain types of individuals,” he said.
McGill University and University of Saskatchewan, required applicants to fill out a DEI survey in 100 per cent of their postings. “In other words, telling them who you are, what your skin colour is and the rest of it. In some cases, whether you favour the concept and what you’ve done to advance DEI,” Milke said. “They’re looking for information, not necessarily, I would argue, related to the job itself, you know, are you a good engineer? Can you teach engineering? What’s your record of publishing in history, for example? Maybe that comes later in the process. But they’re certainly screening people at the beginning based on identity.”
Ivison noted the most egregious example in the report – the case of the Canadian Research Chair in Quantum Sensors for Space at the University of New Brunswick, which said the only applicants who identify as members of “gender equity deserving groups” would be considered.
Most universities were not as explicit in restricting job openings.
What they do at the front end is to try and sort through people who they may consider overrepresented, to use an awful word
But Milke suggested the point is made just as effectively by pre-screening.
“What they do at the front end is to try and sort through people who they may consider overrepresented, to use an awful word, in a certain profession or faculty.”
He said that merit-based appointments would naturally become more diverse, reflecting the more ethnically diverse country that Canada has become.
“The problem with diversity, equity, and inclusion, and this attempt to make everything exactly equal at the end and discriminate at the front end to do that, is you’re not looking at merit and qualifications the way that universities claim they are. Instead, you’re basically banning people from the position who don’t fit some irrelevant, non-changeable category.”
Milke said DEI policies entrench the notion that Canada is a systemically racist state.
“Now, 100 years ago, there was systemic racism. If you were Chinese, for example, you could not get into a white hospital. They had to set up their own hospital. The same with Jewish people in Toronto, which is why Mount Sinai Hospital was set up. But that was 100 years ago. Systemic racism has been outlawed in Canada since the 1950s. You still find individual cases of prejudice, but systemic racism as a policy, as a law, began to be abolished in places like Ontario in the early 1950s.”
Ivison noted that the Trump administration is moving quickly to dismantle DEI in its areas of jurisdiction but that in Canada, the Liberal government has been an enthusiastic cheerleader of the policies, linking DEI hiring to federal funding.
Milke said he would like to see the federal government reverse direction and admit students and professors based on merit and achievement.
“The fundamental nature of DEI is flawed and what governments and universities should be doing is saying, ‘look, how can we restructure this? We do want people of all colours, creeds, backgrounds to succeed and help them to do that, but not by focusing on irrelevant characteristics’.
“The more they go down the DEI path, universities are going to capture a segment of the population that believes racism explains all, or mostly all. So, I think a federal government should strongly consider going back to not only Martin Luther King’s vision of equality of the individual (but to) Pierre Trudeau’s vision, in which he believed in the equality of the individual.”
Milke said he believes diversity is a very positive quality and that successful cultures and civilizations need an array of ideas to flourish.
“These days, we may be admitting too many immigrants at once to have everyone get or provide housing, (but) that’s a separate issue. In the main, cultures that beg, borrow, and steal from each other generally succeed. Diversity is not a bad thing. It can be a very good thing. But not when it’s top down and people look at you and assume because you’re a certain skin colour, you’ve got privilege. I mean, it’s a fallacy.”
National Post
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