Coming soon to a workplace or academic institution near you.
It has long been said that when America sneezes Canada catches a cold, and concomitantly with the intertwining of their economies forming the world’s largest bilateral trading partners when the US economy coughed the Canadian economy choked. President Trump is to all appearance’s hell bent on carrying out his oft repeated promise to make America Great Again. He said it before being selected and elected, and he certainly means it regardless of who gets affected.
There is an increasing obsession by the President and much of the GOP on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, in so much that it threatens to stonewall the essential project of becoming a more just and inclusive multiracial democracy.
Not wanting to lose even a nano of a second, on his very first day in Office the President issued an Executive Order banning DEI programs across the Federal government. This was followed by a memo, calling on civil servants to report colleagues engaged in anything that even implies DEI or face consequences. Trump has been extremely loose-lipped about his negative view of DEI, reaching a pitiable low when he attributed DEI programs as the causal factor for the recent death of 67 people following a regional jet collision with an Army Blackhawk helicopter over Washington D. C . DEI has taken on the role of a convenient schmuck — a man-made phantasm being used to incite fear, fuel division, and justify rolling back hard-fought progress on racial justice.
According to Wyle Baoween, CEO and founder of Inclusivity, in talking with Canadian HR Reporter ruefully lamented, “It’s a very critical time for DEI”. https://www.hrreporter.com/focus-areas/diversity/its-a-very-critical-time-for-dei/391326.
In previous INCLUSIVITY -conducted surveys, seven to eight percent of Canadian employees reported being opposed to DEI initiatives, says Baowen. However, lately he has seen a rise in vocal opposition, with more employees openly expressing their objections. He further reiterated that many DEI efforts in Canada have been led by employees, lacking expertise in change management, cultural transformation and data analysis. “If you want to change a culture, you need to be an expert in cultural change, change management, metrics, data,” he says.
º”Unfortunately, many organisations did not invest in this kind of experience and expertise”.
Instead of hiring specialists , some companies assigned the DEI responsibilities to diverse employees from other departments, such as marketing, HR or operations. While these employees are experts in their own work, they are not experts in cultural change , metrics and data. https://universityaffairs.ca/news/inside-the-university-of-albertas-move-away-from-equity-diversity-and-inclusion/
The swirling changes in the U.S., all the messages, new ideology and mandates, will certainly present a different perspective for DEI in Canada. Organizations and institutions must remain resolute and more persuasive in making the case for DEI from both a moral and practical perspective. Anyone who cares about fairness and justice for all, must pay careful attention to the underlying agenda at play, which is rooted in a backlash against efforts to address systemic racism and sexism.
In order to justify the surreptitious disassembling of DEI, the Trump Administration claims that they are just trying to reshape the government and by extension the American society into one that is based “solely on merit”, and that is “color blind”. At first glance, these slogans may sound appealing. After all, a society based “solely on merit” and “color-blind” policies suggests fairness. Then again, anything to Make America Great. The appeal that Canada should be a color-blind society ignores the ways in which opportunities and privileges are so often still granted or denied based on someone’s race, gender, ableness, and other types of human diversity.
Instead of trying to erase the many positive ways our race and ethnicity shape our identity, we should hold fixedly to the fact that out of many, we form one nation. Canada cannot allow America’s unwarranted attack on DEI to succeed, for it risks embedding the very inequities that have long plagued our nation. –compromising not only its moral integrity but also its collective progress towards a future where we can more fully realize the promise of justice for all. The principles underlying DEI are deeply rooted in the core values of Christianity which holds that every individual is created in God’s image, and as such is deserving of dignity, respect and opportunity. As Canadians, we must be committed to far more than an acronym: we must fiercely and persuasively defend the work yet to be done behind each of the words. Canada has also been having her own sniffles about DEI, way before Trump sneezed. It has been said that the DEI language creates confusion, and that it has become unnecessarily complicated and over intellectualized. The acronyms became difficult, specific words were used, which made it inaccessible for people. Simple people-oriented language should be the norm.
On Jan. 2, the University of Alberta became the first Canadian institution to publicly announce a shift from equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) to a new framework of “access, community and belonging.” University leadership described the plan as a more authentic and hopeful vision for what the U of A wants to achieve.
https://universityaffairs.ca/news/inside-the-university-of-albertas-move-away-from-equity-diversity-and-inclusion.
Some Canadian agencies have also felt the effect of Donald Trump’s purge of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes in the US. Pride Toronto, one of the largest celebrations of LGTBQ+ people in North America, is reeling from the loss of three major sponsors who have pulled funding. Additionally, the full extent of the DEI in Canadian universities is now emerging days after the American executive order was signed ending federal DEI programs, a study was released by the Aristotle Foundation indexing DEI-related discrimination in Canadian universities. At McGill University and the University of Saskatchewan, all job applicants were required to complete a DEI survey. DEI statements or essays were required in nearly two-thirds of the University of British Columbia’s job postings, and 55 per cent of those at the University of Manitoba. Not only does this often require candidates to contrive an active history of work in DEI, but there is evidence that these programs fail to address inequality, and what evidence is claimed for the efficacy is often faulty.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/lawrence-krauss-the-dei-nightmare-must-be-dismantled-in-cana da-and-the-u-s
As Canada heads into its own election season, the effects of DEI will certainly continue to cross borders, nevertheless, President Trump’s call for DEI to DIE does not mean that Canada should not allow the world to see that DEI is not a political statement but a business survival strategy.
Aleuta continua– The struggle continues.
