COOPER: Nobody wants to be a diversity hire... so stop it

With the best of intentions, EDI — Equity, Diversity and Inclusion — is the term used by companies, universities and other social institutions when they discuss what they are doing to promote or even ensure, that people of disadvantaged backgrounds are able to flourish in their organizations. These initiatives (sometimes the letters are in a different order) often include analyses of differences in pay or other rewards among different categories of employees.EDI advocates say it works; critics say that it doesn’t. Advocates say it works because it is imposed with the help of government; critics say if it worked it wouldn’t have to be imposed.One way or another EDI seems to be settling in for the long haul, not yet by legal enforcement but by establishing squatters’ rights. Legal formalization comes later. To see what is involved, let’s consider the more familiar limited or “liberal” option.This option maintains that human nature is more important than the background, customs, and history of individuals. Human nature allows us to overcome deprivation and even oppression. Individuals in liberal societies have a chance to succeed because conventional barriers characteristic of status societies — feudalism, for example — are not determinative. Liberal governments assure more or less equal opportunities. EDI is different. It aims to bring the egalitarian ideals of liberal societies closer to a guarantee or to make these ideals a reality. Where a liberal government secures the right to compete for a job, which includes the possibility of failure, EDI comes closer to securing people a job by reducing that possibility for people with a specified background. Supporters call this “progress” or “real” reform.EDI and anti-racism initiatives took off, especially but not exclusively in the US following the death of George Floyd in May 2020 at the hands of Derek Chauvin, a Minneapolis policeman.Many companies soon hired their first diversity officers and pledged millions of dollars to do something. The total commitment has been estimated at over $200 billion across the continent. Many companies lacked in-house expertise so they hired EDI consultants, thus creating a lucrative new industry.Moreover, prior to EDI, the story goes, no one discussed workplace discrimination. Alleged victims didn’t like to appear to be whiners and victimizers (mostly white men) were apparently unwilling to discuss their own transgressions. One celebrated EDI “expert” coined the term “white fragility” to describe what she and other EDI advocates called white evasiveness regarding discrimination.After the Floyd killing other categories of humans besides those defined by skin colour were welcomed aboard. Now, in addition to racist discrimination, EDI advocates are agitated about sex and gender and articulating differences between transgender persons, genderqueer persons, drag queens and so on. Hence the expectation that emails include preferred pronouns so no one be “misgendered.” Many longtime employees have found the shift from discrimination based on the skin colour with which one was born to a gender attribution with which one “identifies” to be deeply disorienting.Many have noticed that by combining pretence and manipulation in order to ensure what it thinks is a good result, EDI is necessarily underhanded.EDI advocates respond by calling any resistance to their initiatives the result of “unconscious bias.” To recognize unconscious bias, they say one must be committed to EDI. Otherwise, it remains invisible. Critics say this is circular nonsense.Worse, unconscious bias can only be demonstrated statistically by showing that various categories of humans are underrepresented in certain categories of jobs. These findings, being statistical, are held to be “objective” outcomes, and so independent from the intentions of administrators and managers. Statistical expression of unconscious bias is often called “systemic” discrimination, racism, etc., in order to obscure the possibility of individual prejudice, which is, of course, unconscious anyhow. But this also means the unconsciously biased can bear no responsibility either.These ambiguities obscure more significant problems. For example, an EDI appointment is never effective unless the appointer and the appointee both deny it was made for EDI reasons. Why? Because no one can be proud of being an EDI beneficiary since it implies a defect in the appointee. Not that it is the beneficiary’s fault but that defects must never be acknowledged. Necessarily, EDI appointments are an admission that the appointee cannot help himself (or herself or itself) but for that very reason this fact can never be admitted.All right: EDI appointments don’t get no respect. But do they deserve it?Here is another problem: to whom are charges of racism, colonialism and so on directed? To people who think that colonialism etc. is a bad thing, not to pro-colonialists and racists. But this means the accusers do not really believe their own accusations. That’s why they don’t address racists and colonialists. But are there any such persons around?According to EDI bureaucrats there are far too many. Just look at the statistics! Again, this circularity means that no one is responsible but everyone is suspect. Alleged EDI beneficiaries are free to blame everyone but themselves for their deficiencies. Thus EDI quietly celebrates victimhood, dependency, and passivity, which also explains why EDI cannot avoid being underhanded.Underhandedness also accounts for why a couple of years ago stories began appearing in the mainstream media about cutbacks to EDI corporate and university programs. The savings were considerable.The University of Calgary has been able to avoid any useful EDI cost cutting.A week or so ago the Office of EDI — The Office — issued a notice calling for applications seeking to fill a position identified as “a Full-time Regular Director, Operations and Programs,” for the entire university EDI effort.The Office was described as “the institutional hub with the mandate to advance the UCalgary’s commitment to EDI” along with “next generation perspectives, policies, and strategic direction” dealing not just with EDI but also “accessibility and promising practices on decolonization.”Decolonization? In case anyone wondered about the University of Calgary’s involvement in colonization and thus rendered decolonization necessary, three of my colleagues recently explained “how the university perpetrates colonial violence on campus.”The university does so by “transmitting hegemonic narratives which maintain traditional power dynamics.” This grievous fault was demonstrated when the U of C called on the Calgary Police to evict trespassers a few weeks ago. Or, as the authors put it, “the anti-riot unit of the Calgary Police Service violently dispersed peacefully protesting students in an encampment.”This colonial violence resulted in threats to an “unwritten contract” between persons such as themselves and their students. The U of C had been exposed as having endorsed and validated “white or white-serving narratives” and silenced “voices who are marginalized” by enacting “symbolic violence” on the victims, “historically marginalized peoples,” which now included (alleged) students.Accordingly, “as scholars of decolonization” the authors “see” enforcing anti-trespassing rules “as a form of colonial violence.” They advocate a “dignity-affirming dialogue” with students, “not the continued use of police brutality.”They ended their article by recommending the work of Paulo Freire as a key to understanding student protest. One suspects that the (alleged) students had never heard of Freire and couldn’t spell his name if they had.Far from being a “well respected philosopher and educator,” Freire was neither. He was a Marxist agitator whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed subordinated the traditional purpose of education — literacy, numeracy, and the formation of a decent character — to the task of creating a sense of grievance, resentment, and indignation. This “critical pedagogy” is much easier to deliver than ensuring the bother of actually learning anything.Now, I mention this curious narrative regarding colonial violence at the U of C because it seems to be accepted by The Office. That it is contested elsewhere is beside the point. The most egregious nonsense can still serve as the justification of all kinds of administrative practices. And that is what The Office has in mind. The holder of the new position will report to the Vice Provost for EDI and will oversee “the effective communication and management of information” to ensure The Office is represented in many meetings and events. That is a recipe for empire-building: The Office is looking for an ambitious Director. These people are well organized, lavishly paid, and have clear objectives.The problem is their objectives are malign and the EDI bureaucracy is entrenched. Moreover, as distinct from the followers of Paulo Freire, real scholars — and they still exist at the U of C — have neither the time nor the inclination to deal with this sort of ideological destructiveness.So: what is the alternative? Under the Post-Secondary Learning Act, the Minister of Advanced Education appoints the Board of Governors to “act in the best interests of the university.” The current minister, Rajan Sawhney, is a Calgary MLA and an alumna of the University of Calgary.OK, Minister: do your duty and rid of this administrative nightmare.

COOPER: Nobody wants to be a diversity hire... so stop it

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