This article originally appeared in the National Post. Below is an excerpt from the article.
Proponents of EDI too often overlook or downplay its essential feature: it is discriminatory and contrary to section 15(1) of the Charter and its equivalent in provincial human rights codes. Promoting diversity sounds better than practicing discrimination, but the two have gone hand in hand in our universities and other public settings. As the Post’s Tristin Hopper observed: Canadian universities have engaged in race-centric hiring and admissions, and in some cases, race-segregated student spaces and events.
The question is not whether racial, gender or other attributes can be taken into consideration in faculty appointments and student admissions. The whole person — the entirety of a person’s life and experience, including their personal identities — may be relevant in these decisions, though they should depend on individual cases, not on identities, per se.
The question, rather, is how far one can go in permitting what would otherwise be unlawful discrimination in the name of affirmative action. The answer in Canada is “very far.” Recent examples include academic jobs or clusters of appointments from which some applicants — straight white males in particular — are barred; institutional requirements that applicants pledge support for EDI; student admissions pathways committed only to non-whites or persons of other group identities; quotas for designated groups in Canada Research Chair appointments and research council awards; and lounges or other student spaces set aside only for people of colour.
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Peter MacKinnon is a former law professor who has served as the president of three Canadian universities and a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
