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TOP STORY
After a study set out to find how many Canadian university jobs mentioned “diversity” as a condition of hiring, it determined that the answer was almost all of them.
Researchers with the Aristotle Foundation examined 489 job postings issued by 10 Canadian universities. Of those, just 12 didn’t contain some element saying that candidates would be prioritized based on their race, gender or sexual identity.
“In other words, 98 per cent of academic postings … directly or indirectly discriminated against non-minorities,” concluded the study.
“Only two per cent of vacancy postings did not contain any form of DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) ideology.”
Although Canadian universities have long prioritized diversity amongst their faculty and staff, since at least 2017 the policy has become explicit, with identity quotas put in place for everything from student admissions to hiring to grant awards.
As an example, every single applicant to the University of Toronto — even if it’s just for a job as a maintenance technician — is asked to complete a “diversity survey” laying out their race as well as their “ethnocultural identities, gender identity, visible and invisible disabilities, and sexual orientation.”
In some cases, universities will actively restrict a position to a specific identity group, such as a 2024 computer science position at the University of Waterloo that was open only to candidates “of a racialized minority.”
Some of this has come as a result of federal mandates. Under the Trudeau government, federally funded Canada Research Chairs have become subject to strict identity quotas: 22 per cent of the positions must be given to “visible minorities,” 50.9 per cent must go to scholars who identify as women and 7.5 per cent must go to candidates with disabilities.
Aristotle Foundation researchers based their sample on ten Canadian universities; one for each province.
Then, with a start date of November 2023, they gathered up 50 sequential job postings from each school (although, in the case of the University of New Brunswick and Memorial University of Newfoundland, there weren’t enough job postings to reach an even 50).
The resultant 489 job posts ran the gamut from a health sciences librarian at the University of Saskatchewan to an assistant professor of economics at the University of Toronto.
In 477 of the jobs, there was some part of the posting that made reference to “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI).
In 131 positions, the only diversity element is a boilerplate statement. Every single job posting advertised by the University of Manitoba, for instance, includes a statement outlining the school’s commitment “to the principles of equity, diversity & inclusion and to promoting opportunities in hiring, promotion and tenure (where applicable) for systemically marginalized groups.”
Other postings upped the ante by requiring applicants to fill out a diversity survey, explicitly stating that diversity characteristics were an “asset” or requiring the submission of an essay outlining the candidate’s commitment to DEI. In sixteen of the postings, a job was explicitly barred to anyone not meeting certain identity characteristics.
Only three universities were found to have posted a job that made no mention whatsoever of DEI: The University of British Columbia, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Dalhousie University and the University of Prince Edward Island.
UBC was actually an odd mixture of jobs with intensely strict identity characteristics (such as a posting for a Black scholar in visual art), and six postings that contained no DEI component.
Those non-DEI postings at UBC were: A “contemporary world literature” scholar, an associate professor of counselling psychology, an associate professor of “energy systems,” an assistant professorship within the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and two sessional instructors.
Aristotle Foundation researchers note that one of the limitations of their study is that they can’t tell if universities are doing anything beyond paying lip service to DEI principles. “Our index measures the prevalence of exclusionary potential, but it does not prove for certain if discrimination has technically occurred,” it noted.
The report also allowed that there are situations in which there would be non-DEI reasons to limit candidates based on identity, such as “a course on a particular culture to be taught by a scholar from that culture.”
But in a conclusion, the Aristotle Foundation called their report a “reality check” on Canadian universities, warning that DEI policies were harming “individual merit, academic freedom, and equality of opportunity.”
“Should Canadian taxpayers fund public institutions that claim to serve the public interest but favour one race over another?” it read.
IN OTHER NEWS
Although the immediate threat of a trade war with the U.S. has ended, Canadians appear to be sticking with many of the anti-American reactions that the fight inspired. A few examples …
- New Brunswick liquor stores won’t be stocking any U.S. product for the immediate future.
- B.C. promised to fast-track 18 resource projects in an explicit bid to get more exports to non-American customers.
- Canadian fans at NBA and NHL games are still booing the U.S. national anthem.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith – whom some are crediting with obtaining Canada’s last-minute reprieve from trade war – said that the country’s best strategy to deal with U.S. President Donald Trump is not to antagonize him. “Don’t poke the bear here,” she told the Calgary Herald. It’s a sentiment you can also find among some members of the Trudeau cabinet. At a press event this week, Public Safety Minister David McGuinty said that Canadians shouldn’t begrudge Trump’s actions, as the U.S. president has a “job to do.” “He ran in an election, he had a platform, he made promises to his people, and in his mind, he’s delivering on those promises,” he said. Where McGuinty and Smith differ, however, is on the subject of convening parliament, holding a vote of non-confidence vote and triggering an election. Smith thinks an election should basically happen immediately. McGuinty told CBC that parliament should only be reconvened if the other parties could put “the interests of 41 million people ahead of their own” – a possible reference to them wanting a non-confidence vote.
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