Jamie Sarkonak: The University of Alberta said it was ending DEI. That's not true

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Last week, the University of Alberta probably received too much praise for announcing the end of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) at the institution. Why? Nothing has actually changed, nor is it about to.

At first glance, there was cause for hope. On Jan. 2, university president Bill Flanagan told the world that his school was being replaced with “access, community and belonging,” or ACB. This change, he assured us, “is more than a change in terminology” and is in fact a “deepened commitment to creating a university community where everyone can thrive.”

Encouragingly, he added that “It is not the university’s role to take ideological positions.”

What this all meant in practice, however, he didn’t say. But, after doing some of my own digging, and inquiring about the U of A’s plans for the future of DEI (now ACB), it’s quite clear that we’re looking at a new marketing strategy, not a new product.

First off, the U of A seems willing to continue to enforce diversity quotas when the federal government demands it. The notable Canada Research Chairs Program, for example, requires institutions to hire based on diversity, which is why many academic jobs funded by the program exclude certain demographics from consideration (usually, white people or men). In fact, a current posting for such a position in diabetes medicine is open only to women and gender minorities. Sorry, diabetics, diversity comes first.

In an email, U of A spokesperson Michael Brown told me that the new “access, community and belonging” approach will be applied differently throughout the university, and that “In certain research contexts, such as those aligned with programs like the Canada Research Chairs initiative, an equity, diversity and inclusion framework may be the most appropriate approach.” Of course, it’s not a straight answer, but the university’s refusal to rule out diversity quotas is telling.

As for identity-based hiring programs taken on by the university itself (without direct pressure from the federal government), Brown wouldn’t say if the U of A would halt them either. The university has resorted to racial hiring in the past: in 2021, following the trend at the time, the university made plans to hire 11 Black academics as part of an anti-racism commitment (in the end, it hired 12).

Nor will the university pull out of the interuniversity treaty that spurred the above hiring initiative, Brown says. Named the Scarborough Charter, this agreement demands that its signatories integrate race into all aspects of university operations — budgeting, data collection, teaching, professional development, research, etc. Were the U of A serious about leaving DEI behind, it would withdraw its support from the initiative.

As for the actual work of hiring, the U of A maintains identity-focused practices and policies at its highest levels. Its university-wide recruitment policy is laser-focused on DEI, committing the institution to “actively encourage the recruitment of persons historically under-represented at the university.” In other words, the institution puts a thumb on the demographic scales.

Will this policy change in light of the supposed DEI walkback? Doesn’t look like it. Brown didn’t provide a yes or a no to my inquiry, and instead affirmed the university’s commitment to hiring the “best-qualified candidates and to recognizing and rewarding excellence by ensuring access to opportunities for all qualified candidates through the identification and removal of barriers to success.” Unfortunately, it often seems that these institutions consider entire demographic groups as barriers that need to be deprioritized in the job pool.

The U of A also continues to require job applicants to make diversity statements. On Jan. 6 — days after the DEI-to-ACB switch was announced — a posting for an associate ecology professor required candidates to submit a “1-2 page equity, diversity, and inclusion statement which includes the candidate’s contributions and plans to advance EDI in their research, teaching, mentoring and service.” Brown didn’t answer whether the university would be ending the practice, but he did say that it’s currently up to hiring managers to decide how candidates will be evaluated. Well, that’s still a choice by the higher-ups.

This all means that candidates are still being ideologically screened. Not all researchers value grading people by their demographic rarity, or strive to engineer equal outcomes between groups. The U of A either doesn’t want those people, or wants them to keep quiet about their beliefs.

Oh, and I can confirm, via Brown, that the U of A is not ditching land acknowledgements, the favoured prayer of DEI proponents.

Meanwhile, the bureaucratic machine that drives DEI at the highest level roars on, just with a new paint job. The DEI office, created just in 2022, is now the ACB office. The vice-provost in charge of it, Carrie Smith, still has her post. Her scholarly work covers feminist activism, digital culture and “scholar-activism and the transformation of leadership through feminist pedagogies,” which doesn’t give much hope that actual change is on the way.

The mission of her ACB office might be better described as “DEI-plus.” Instead of diversity, equity and inclusion, the “toolbox” is being expanded into human rights (which includes “psychological safety,” the university says — a huge red flag), intersectionality (a progressive term for grading one’s oppression), universal design, interculturality and pluralism.

Pluralism, the university says, means “balance identities and viewpoints to create just and peaceful spaces of recognition and belonging.”

The strategic plan that will be driving the DEI/ACB office sets out all sorts of goals relating to colonialism, “cultural safety,” increasing “critical consciousness” and a greater mish-mash of diversity consultant terms. When it was approved by the university’s board of governors in December, university administration was at least directed to “ensure (the plan) reflects a balanced representation of Canadian history, avoiding the endorsement of any singular perspective or prescribing specific viewpoints.” But, since the entire plan was built around the tenets of DEI regardless of a few word swaps, and the DEI vice-provost doesn’t believe the plan favoured any one view to begin with, levelling out the ideological slant will likely be impossible.

Indeed, much of the university’s DEI office sells itself with aspirational adminspeak that shares its vocabulary with life-coach motivational-speaker types. It’s a testament to bureaucratic bloat: most of its mission relates to the social-political goals of the left, and the little useful work it does can just as easily go to some other office — but it’s packaged like it offers the pathway to academic Nirvana.

The walkback (in name only) has still upset the social progressives who wanted more social values enforcement on campus, not less. “What a joke my uni has become,” tweeted U of A law professor Ubaka Ogbogu. His colleague, political science professor emerita Laurie Adkin, asked, “When has appeasing the far-right ever worked?” — because favouring equality is far right now.

But they shouldn’t worry. Nothing seems to be changing. Even the U of A itself admitted this: the school’s non-academic staff association said it was advised that despite the rebrand, “the work would remain, even with the rebranding and name change.”

Hold your applause, folks. No major university has ditched DEI just yet, no matter what the U of A says.

National Post