Inclusion Through Exclusion: The Culling of Academics in Canadian Universities

For the slides, preliminary data sets and more resources: https://pagewizardgames.com/diepledge/

You can find my talk as well on YouTube: https://youtu.be/mtXJVlJ8cAU

We explore the issue of exclusion in academic institutions in Canada, with a focus on Computer Science. Academic culling in our research is the active (intentional or unintentionally) removing of plurality from universities through requiring compelled speech, or placing (new) barriers to academic appointments to serve ideological/political/religious purposes [in this case, so-called "diversity, inclusion, and equity" (DIE)]. Namely, we study a (new) practice that discriminates against academics that do not value or wish to pursue goals of DIE, or academics that abstain on the basis of academic principles/standards.

Our interest in this topic largely came as a result of observing incongruities in our professional experiences in inclusion and those of DIE. There are many grounded and reasoned ways one may disagree with DIE and its methods; whether one agrees or disagrees with DIE, a concerning trend has grown in public Canadian universities of overstepping the boundary of respecting the intellectual autonomy of academics. Have our public universities focused so hard on identity and related political/ideological pursuits, that they have an identity crisis? What does this mean for the next generation of students, our academics, and the future of scientific research in Canada?

We focus on what we call DIE pledges, a term for requiring applicants or academics more broadly give their commitment to DIE in some form: As a job requirement, a statement, or, to participate as an activist. Fundamentally, like other ideological pledges built on non-academic requirements (or even anti-academic requirements, as in this case), pledges such as these are an afront to intellectual autonomy of academics and violate the merit principle.

The following is a preliminary investigation based on our 5+ year study of this topic. We monitored job advertisements posted on CS-Can and other Canadian institutions, that may require a Computer Science PhD. The primary focus was monitoring CS-Can, where job advertisements for faculty positions in Computer Science Departments in Canada are regularly posted. Concerning increases in these practices have occurred.

To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first attempt to document/report this in Canadian STEM fields.

"The State of Academic Freedom in Canada" - https://youtu.be/--ra_fiz0nk

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#universities
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