The Liberal government of Canada has formulated a new program to which all universities are expected to commit. It is called “Dimensions: Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.” A “Charter”
for “Dimensions” has been distributed to all university presidents, who
are urged to sign, endorsing the program for their universities.
Minister
for Science and Sport Kirsty Duncan launched this program, using the
“independent” funding councils—The Canadian Institutes of Health
Research (CIHR), The National Science and Engineering Council (NSERC),
and The Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC)—as the
conduit for “Dimensions” grants. This is not the first time that
Minister Duncan has imposed “equity, diversity, and inclusion”
conditions for grants; in 2017, new diversity criteria were enunciated for the Canada Research Chair grants.
The
pressure continues through subsequent grant years. Minister Duncan
says, “Our government is committed to promoting equity and diversity
within research and to supporting the next generation of research
leaders.” Ted Hewitt, president of the Social Sciences and Humanities
Research Council of Canada and chair of the Canada Research Chairs
Program Steering Committee assures us that they have “A strong action plan to address equity, diversity and inclusion.”
What is this “equity, diversity, and inclusion” in aid of? According to the Charter of the Dimensions program, the objective
is “to foster increased research excellence, innovation and creativity
within the post-secondary sector across all disciplines.” Who could
object to “increased research excellence, innovation, and creativity,”
which is the conventional and legitimate objective of research
administrators? What is new here is the means by which these results would be allegedly brought about: “through increased equity, diversity and inclusion.”
According
to the Charter, “The post-secondary research community has the greatest
potential to thrive when members experience equitable, inclusive and
unbiased systems and practices.” The NSERC press release announcing the
Dimensions program claims that “Evidence clearly shows
that increasing equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in research
environments enhances excellence, innovation and creativity.” In fact,
no such evidence is adduced or cited, and readers should be skeptical of
unsubstantiated claims. Without evidence, it would be prudent to assume
that the asserted relationship is fabricated and imaginary.
What does “equity, diversity, and inclusion” mean in practice? It means that certain categories of people must favoured in
academic competitions, while unfavoured categories of people must be
excluded. The favoured must be put up for grants, or else the grants
would not be forthcoming; conversely, unfavoured categories of people
must be excluded from the competition, or else the grants would not be
forthcoming.
How are favoured and unfavoured categories of people decided? According to the Charter:
To advance institutional equity, diversity and inclusion, specific, measurable and sustainable actions are needed to counter systemic barriers, explicit and unconscious biases, and inequities. This includes addressing obstacles faced by, but not limited to, women, Indigenous Peoples, persons with disabilities, members of visible minority or racialized groups, and members of LGBTQ2+ communities.
The theory
of “systemic barriers,” much loved by sociologists, attributes the
different distributions of categories of people in society to prejudice
and discrimination on the basis of race, gender, and ethnicity. A
“social justice,” equitable, diverse, and inclusive distribution would
be for each gender, race, and ethnic group to be represented in every
department, faculty, and university, in every list of competition
winners, in every new hire, according to its exact percentage in the
general population.
This new
criterion, “representation according to its exact percentage in the
general population,” has been institutionalized without any consent of
the general population, without any legislation, without any vote. It is
an extreme version of “equality,” an equality of results, the concept
of equality that is favoured by radical socialists and communists, and
which was imposed in failed societies such as the USSR and Mao’s China.
“Equality of results” is far from the liberal idea of “equality of
opportunity,” in which occupational, monetary, and academic achievement
results vary according to the motivation, preferences, abilities, and
commitments of individuals.
The
theory of “systemic barriers” assumes that there is no material
difference among people in regard to motivation, preferences, abilities,
and commitments, and that all differences in statistical representation
are the result of prejudice and discrimination. This is clearly false.
One kind of evidence is the impressive statistical overrepresentation
in prestigious fields by members of unpopular minorities, such as
African Americans in professional sports, and East Asians and Jews in
academia and other professions, which clearly was not the result of
prejudice and discrimination against whites, people of European descent,
and Christians.
Another kind of evidence is the poor school performances of some minorities, at least partly due to cultural inclinations and social pathologies of crime and single parent families.
A
third kind of evidence is the differential preferences of members of
different categories. Despite the full court press on the part of
universities and professional organizations to recruit females to
science and engineering, they remain heavily “underrepresented,” in
spite of discrimination in favour of females and against males. Where
females are free to choose, they choose
social sciences, social work, law, or medicine, anything but natural
science or engineering. The is true not only in North America, but in
the feminist countries of Sweden and Norway, where fewer females choose science and engineering than anywhere in the world.
A fourth kind of evidence is the poor results
of decades of so-called “affirmative action,” discrimination in favour
of “underrepresented” minorities. Not surprisingly, individuals from
“underrepresented” minorities recruited with weak academic records,
given special funding and provided with segregated “identity” housing,
do poorly at university.
Thus,
there are many factors that influence “underrepresentation” of certain
categories of individuals that are not “systemic barriers” involving
prejudice and discrimination.
Furthermore,
if females are subject to “systemic barriers, explicit and unconscious
biases, and inequities,” as the Charter claims, how can we explain that,
according to StatsCan,
“Women continue to outnumber men in most fields of study,” making up
56.2% of students, dominating in education, health, and related fields.
Is it that females are discriminated against in funding? To take one
important example, females account for 60% of the awardees
in the Canada 150 Research Chairs Program. How can we explain why 56.2%
female enrolment and 60% of female chairholders are not sufficient
“equity, diversity, and inclusion,” requiring, according to the
Dimensions program, even more places and benefits to females?
The frantic search
for First Nations students to recruit and First Nations professors to
hire is seen in universities all across Canada. The main problem is the
paucity of candidates. My own department made offers to three First
Nations individuals, but was rebuffed. Still, the search goes on, and
posts designated for First Nations individuals are closed to others.
Along
with all of the wonderful inclusion of females, people of colour, First
Nations, LGBT+, Muslims, etc., there is a necessary corollary:
exclusion of people in other categories. The exclusion of males
in favour of females begins early, in schools now devoted to feminism
that discriminate against males. Under the guise of “diversity,” females
are favoured in university admission and funding, and also in hiring,
even though they are already in a large majority. The few fields in
which men are prevalent, science, math, and engineering, are now
targeted for recruiting females to replace males. Will “diversity” be
satisfied when universities are 70% female, 80% female, or when males
are totally excluded?
“Inclusion”
of First Nations individuals is fine, but when they are exclusively
included, there is no room for others. For all of the student and
faculty positions dedicated to First Nations, the following (and others)
are excluded: Cambodian-Canadians, Vietnamese-Canadians, Mongolians,
Koreans, Chinese, Fijians, Hawaiians, Moroccans, Algerians,
Tunisian-Canadians, Turks, Syrians, Arabians, Iranian-Canadians,
Pakistanis, Malians, Nigerians, Kenyans, Congolese, South Africans,
Greeks, Italian-Canadians, Germans, French, et al.; you get the picture.
Inclusion for the favoured few means exclusion for the rest.
And what about those pesky overrepresented categories of people? To make room for the “underrepresented,” do we now put quotas limiting the number of people from overrepresented categories, the way Harvard has done with East Asian Americans? And as McGill and other institutions did in the past to keep out Jews?
The “equity, diversity, and inclusion” ideology, often labelled “social justice,”
is based on a neo-Marxist analysis of society that posits class
conflict between various census categories of individuals: females vs.
males, people of colour vs. whites, LGBT+ vs. heterosexuals, Muslims vs.
Christians and Jews, First Nations vs. colonial settlers, etc., in
which females, people of colour, LGBT+, Muslims, and First Nations have
been oppressed, exploited, and victimized respectively by males, whites,
heteros, Christians and Jews, and colonial settlers throughout all of
history. “Social justice” theory thus portrays “the oppressors” as evil
and deserving to be overthrown and marginalized. “Social justice”
discourse thus vilifies “toxic” males,
“racist” whites, etc., and “social justice” policies are aimed at
turning the oppression tables by replacing males with females, whites with non-whites,
and so on. That is why a supermajority of females is still “equity,”
and “diversity” is limited to preferred genders, races, sexualities, and
ethnicities. And why the “dead white men” who created Western culture and built Western Civilization should, according to “social justice” advocates, be boycotted.
“Social justice” ideology is highly illiberal,
in that it treats people not as individuals but as members of worldwide
categories. In the name of “justice,” it treats all men as if they are
the same, all whites as if they are the same, all “colonial settlers” as
if they are the same, because, so the story goes, by means of their
social structural position, they all have power and “privilege.” And all
women, non-whites, and LGBT+ are the same, all victims! And although
“social justice” claims that members of victim categories cannot be
racists, sexist, or bigoted, because they have no power (sic), what is
“social justice” but reverse racism, reverse sexism, and bigotry toward
unfavoured categories of people?
If
the goal of the government’s Dimensions program is “to foster increased
research excellence, innovation and creativity,” is the best means
really to pick people by their reproductive plumbing, skin colour,
sexual preference, religion, and ethnicity? Should not research-related
criteria be the basis of selecting students and professors? When I was
admitting students and hiring professors, I was interested in their
grades, test scores, letters of reference, publications, statements of
research interest, and I always picked the best in academic merit,
irrespective of their reproductive plumbing, skin colour, sexual
preference, religion, and ethnicity. I would have felt it to be
absolutely wrong, as well as counterproductive, if anyone had suggested
it, to give any consideration to these non-academic, racial, gender,
etc., factors.
There is a
kind of “diversity” that I do support strongly: intellectual diversity
and diversity of opinion. It is only through the confrontation of
different views, interpretations, and theories, together with
evidentiary substantiation or refutation, that knowledge increases and
improves. “Social justice,” with its “equity, diversity, and inclusion”
of race, gender, sexuality, and ethnicity, has no room for diversity of
opinion. No demonstration of that could be better than the Dimensions
Charter Principles dictated by the Canadian government to all
universities.
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