Finally some academic pushback to DEI nonsense

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The bad news: there is no plan to ramp down diversity-based funding and the use of racial quotas in the federally funded research landscape. The good news? More and more people have noticed — including the academics at the heart of the system.

In the latest development, about 40 Canadian university professors have recommended to the House of Commons that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies in federally funded research be abolished. Such policies have multiplied within the three agencies responsible for funding research, known collectively as the Tri-Council, since the Liberals took office.

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“These policies disproportionately punish small institutions, are not supported by evidence, employ flawed metrics with no end goal, and are unpopular with the public who funds the research,” they wrote in a brief filed to the House science committee on May 24.

The House of Commons is currently studying the distribution of federal funds at Canadian universities. Much of the discourse has focused on shares of funding for small versus large institutions, and funding for English researchers versus French — but DEI has been raised as well.

Last month, the head of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, which oversees the racial-quota-bound Canada Research Chairs Program, told the committee that he has no plans to stop identity-based hiring, even though its quota for non-white researchers has been surpassed. The rest of the quotas — Indigenous, disabled and women — are close to being met. Canada Research Chair openings continue to exclude white applicants, now to the puzzlement of international onlookers like Elon Musk.

Aside from the Canada Research Chairs, other federally funded research initiatives have been bogged down with diversity requirements at the direction of the Liberal government: some undergraduate funding programs have recently been restricted to Black applicants only. Researchers are asked to disclose their diversity status (i.e., whether they are members of preferred groups), and sometimes, they are required to file diversity statements with their grant applications.

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This has all been very costly, particularly for small institutions, our 40 academics point out. They cited a recent parliamentary brief by the Alliance of Canadian Comprehensive Research Universities, representing about 40 institutions, which claims that “costs continue to increase with new compliance requirements announced by the (Tri-Council) such as for EDI, Research Data Management and most recently Research Security.” Federal research agencies have been requiring more and more reams of demographic data to be collected, stretching the administrative capacity of medium and small institutions.

Another brief by the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières revealed similar concerns: “Our researchers are investing significant energy into looking at EDI and implementing measures that promote inclusion of persons, openness to diversity and equity of opportunity.”

Another problem the researchers point out is the lack of evidence to show that DEI works. One research review by one of the authors found that it’s largely ineffective — or worse, counterproductive — at accomplishing its goals. The signees criticized the research agencies for asserting that “the evidence is clear” in showing that DEI strengthens science and engineering research.

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“Unfortunately, citations for such statements — to the extent that they exist at all — only link to other Tri-Council web pages that do not appear to address the foundational claim that EDI improves research,” they countered.

The brief also opposed the newly popular practice among funding agencies and universities of requiring DEI statements to be submitted in applications for grants and jobs, in addition to cover letters and CVs.

“This places principled researchers who hold classically liberal values — such as race neutral evaluation of individuals based on merit — in a difficult predicament: they either must lie to receive funding, or act based on conscience and forego research funding,” reads the brief.

Of course, this brief doesn’t represent the whole of academia. Many more university professors, especially in the past several years, have fervently advanced DEI in their departments, their lectures and their administrations. Zeal for this increasingly totalizing cause has silenced plenty of others who aren’t in favour of top-down, identity-obsessed procedures.

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It’s significant, though, that a critical mass of DEI dissidents has formed, and is now organizing counter-arguments to present to the country’s halls of leadership.

Even just a few years ago, resistance was limited to a few bold individuals who spoke up on their own. Canadian historian Frédéric Bastien, a white man, said he was disqualified from a prestigious Canada Research Chair position at Laval University due to his ethnicity and sex. Bastien filed human rights complaints on the matter, but he died in 2023, which would have put an end to the proceedings.

In 2021, chemistry professor Patanjali Kambhampati of McGill University said he had been denied two federal grants because he declared in his forms that he would only hire on merit — not identity.

“We will hire the most qualified people based upon their skills and mutual interests,” he wrote in the rejected application.

Criticisms of DEI and its intrusion into research have also been raised by biochemist Geoff Horsman, social scientist David Haskell and chemist Leigh Revers, all of whom are professors who have written in Postmedia’s pages and all of whom signed the brief submitted to the House.

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At Tri-Council headquarters, there is little appetite for moderation when it comes to demographic favouritism, and one brief to Parliament probably won’t change the minds of the DEI-faithful. But that may change. As their anti-intellectual, discriminatory practices are exposed, public research funders will need to change course to preserve their reputation.

Plus, if the reins change hands in Ottawa, so too should those of the research agencies — and as this Commons brief shows, there remain plenty of academics in Canada who would bring the right ideas to those seats.

National Post

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