DEI and academic hiring in public universities: An index of university discrimination in Canada

• David Hunt, Collin May, Ven Venkatachalam, and Alex Emes
• January 29, 2025

Executive summary

This study conducts a preliminary assessment of academic job postings at public universities across Canada to gauge the extent of discriminatory hiring and threats to academic freedom from diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Typically, DEI strategies rely on equity-based moral justifications or productivity-based rationalizations for diversity and inclusion. Both approaches are increasingly coming under scrutiny as they often heighten discord among groups while privileging those already doing well (in their finances and/or career) within marginalized communities to the detriment of lower- and working-class individuals throughout society.

To measure the prevalence and severity of DEI in academic hiring, we reviewed approximately 50 active, academic job postings from the largest public university in each Canadian province. The review was based on eight research questions that each gauge a different DEI strategy—from acknowledging DEI ideologies, to compelling intellectual conformity, to reverse racism (e.g., excluding white males from applying).

All 10 universities sampled—and 477 of the 489 job advertisements reviewed—employed some form of DEI requirement or strategy in filling academic vacancies. In other words, 98 percent of the academic postings directly or indirectly discriminated against candidates and/or threatened academic freedom.

Some noteworthy instances include the following:

• All University of Toronto job postings and 96 percent of Dalhousie’s mentioned or implied a candidate’s “contribution to DEI” was an asset.

• McGill and the University of Saskatchewan required all applicants to complete a DEI survey.

• Nearly two-thirds of the University of British Columbia’s (UBC) and 55 percent of the University of Manitoba’s job postings required candidates to submit a DEI statement or essay.

Interestingly, the institution most likely to exclude candidates outright was also the least likely to employ any DEI strategies. At UBC, nearly one out of every five academic job postings explicitly restricted the job to a particular race, ethnicity, group identity, or other inherent trait. However, it was also the university least likely to call for specific DEI strategies; they were absent from 12 percent of UBC’s postings.

To rank and compare the universities in the aggregate, we created an index. To do this, we equally weighted each of the eight questions (i.e., DEI strategies), coded and tallied the results, normalized the data, divided the score of each university’s DEI measures by the maximum extent of each variable (to create relative values between zero and 100), and then ranked the universities by total score. For example, an institution without any evidence of DEI in its hiring process would score zero, while a score of 100 would signify having the greatest DEI prevalence in all eight measures.

The University of Toronto, with the highest score of 73.1, ranked at the top of the list; its academic job postings had the most discriminatory practices and/or were most threatening to academic freedom. Ranking at the bottom of the list with a score of 24.3, with postings conveying the least exclusionary practices and/or that were least threatening to intellectual autonomy, was the University of New Brunswick. However, it is critical to note that even the lowest scoring—i.e., “least bad”—university prohibited white males from applying to an academic job posting in the hard sciences.

These preliminary findings serve as a reality check on the state of higher education, in general, and Canada’s public universities, in particular, as it relates to individual merit, academic freedom, and equality of opportunity. A sober reassessment of DEI policies is strongly recommended, and further study is warranted. There are fairer and more reliable ways to increase the likelihood of innovative perspectives and to more adequately advance social and academic equality of opportunity. Preferable alternatives to identity-based policies are viewpoint diversity and merit-based recruitment and advancement—i.e., hiring and promoting based on skill and qualifications, regardless of unchangeable characteristics.

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