in Domestic Policy, Inside Policy, AI, Technology and Innovation, Latest News, Multimedia, Video, Podcasts, Social Issues, Dave Snow, Peter Copeland, Education
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Welcome to Inside Policy Talks, where we discuss the ideas and policies shaping Canada today!
In this episode, Peter Copeland, Deputy Director of the Domestic Policy Program at the Macdonald Laurier Institute, sits down with Dave Snow, MLI senior fellow and associate professor at the University of Guelph, to discuss the growing influence of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at Canada’s major federal research granting agencies.
The discussion delves into how DEI policies impact intellectual diversity, as the language of DEI becomes increasingly pervasive in research funding guidelines.
As Dave writes, “Higher education in Canada has reached a tenuous moment. For too long, it has focused on “equity, diversity, and inclusion” (EDI) at the expense of research excellence. This has occurred alongside a growing lack of viewpoint diversity among faculty and concerns over the erosion of academic freedom and free inquiry in Canada.”
This report by MLI Senior Fellow Dave Snow shows how EDI in its “Mild,” “Moderate,” and “Activist” forms has come to dominate both Canadian academia and government in general. Specifically, it reveals how EDI has taken root at Canada’s federal research granting agencies (NSERC, CIHR, and SSHRC), whose combined budget is $3.95 billion and growing.
The findings are damning, and unfortunately, to be expected:
– The report assessed more than 2,600 individual SSHRC awards between 2022 and 2024.
– Activist DEI language was present in as many as 63 percent of project titles for the federal government’s specialized identity-focused “Future Challenge” grants.
– More troublingly, Activist DEI language was present in many of the titles of SSHRC’s prestigious Insight Grants (10 percent) and Insight Development Grants (14 percent).
-These grants are supposed to promote research excellence; instead, they are funding projects with titles such as “Just Kids: Children and White Supremacy” and “Reclaiming the Outdoors: Structures of Resistance to Historical Marginalization in Outdoor Culture,” with the latter costing taxpayers more than $250,000.
Professor Snow provides a detailed analysis of the different forms of DEI – mild, moderate, and activist – and offers recommendations on how federal granting agencies can renew their commitment to political and ideological neutrality.
Check it out here in the Hub, and read Dave Snow’s report here:
Peter Copeland 