April 2003
In his 1994 book Selling
Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada, Neil Bissoondath
a Canadian of Trinidadian background – offered a stinging indictment of
preferential hiring programs aimed at visible minorities. “As a member
of one of those targeted racial minorities, I can think of few things more
demeaning to me than to be offered an advantage because of my skin colour,”
he wrote. “It is demeaning because, no matter what I have struggled to
achieve, I am still being judged on the colour of my skin and not simply
as a human being with strengths and weaknesses. I am still, even with the
best of intentions, being viewed racially and that is offensive
to me.”
Mr. Bissondath was correct:
Hiring quotas that lower the standards for female and minority applicants
are an offence to the very people they purport to help. Well intentioned
though they may be, they falsely suggest that all women, blacks and
Indians should be judged by a lower standard because they are unable
to live up to the standards set by white males. In addition,
of course, they are
grossly prejudicial toward those
same white males in that
they deny opportunities to them on the basis of race or gender
a clear cut case of discrimination.
Though the federal government
has yet to abandon its “employment equity” programs, other governments
seem to have lost their enthusiasm, most notably the government of Ontario,
which stopped forcing affirmative action on the province’s corporations
in the mid ’90s. But heavy handed racial and sex preference programs are
still very much in vogue especially at academic institutions.
This month, the University
of Victoria’s School of Child and Youth Care began advertising for a new
assistant professor. But there is a catch: Only native Canadians need apply.
“In accordance with the University’s Equity Plan and pursuant to Section
42 of the B.C. Human Rights code,” the ad explains, “the selection will
be limited to aboriginal peoples. Candidates from this group are encouraged
to self identify.”
While this may be an extreme
example in that it explicitly excludes more than 95% of the Canadian population,
it is not an isolated one. For the past five years, British Columbia’s
government has allowed provincial universities to enact various equity
plans to increase participation by visible minorities, abori-ginals, women
and the disabled. Not coincidentally, discriminatory hiring appears to
have grown considerably more prevalent. In 2001, Doreen Kimura, a visiting
professor in the psychology department of Simon Fraser University, conducted
a survey on the hiring rates of men and women at two B.C. universities.
She found that while women accounted for 29% of applicants, they accounted
for 41% of those hired. Ms. Kimura subsequently concluded that in some
cases, it appeared women had been hired over better qualified men.
In Ontario, as well, universities
continue to place far too much attention on race and gender
not just in hiring practices (as when Wilfrid Laurier’s Department of Psychology
attempted to “address a gender imbalance” in 1999 by considering only female
applicants for a faculty position), but in the student admissions process.
The majority of Ontario law schools have a special “Aboriginal”
category under which applicants are subjected to less-rigorous standards,
and several complement this with an additional “access” category
for minority group members who claim to
have faced discrimination or other “systemic” disadvantages. In some
cases, the discrepancy in standards would surely strike even affirmative
action advocates as absurd; at York University’s Osgoode Hall law school,
aboriginal applicants are required only to achieve a Law School Admission
Test score in the 26th percentile or better to be considered
i.e., a standard so low that it excludes only the worst performing 25 out
of every 100 test takers. Non minority students, on the other hand, are
typically expected to score in the top 25%. If the Osgoode Hall playing
field were level, any professional recruiter who exhibited a general bias
toward the school’s non aboriginal graduates would properly be deemed a
racist. But under the current scheme, such a preference would seem entirely
rational.
We do not dispute that it
is a noble goal for Canadian universities to be reflective of our country’s
demographics, both in terms of faculty and the student body. But under
no circumstances should this be achieved through heavy handed programs
that reward race, ethnicity or gender over merit. While these programs
may help university administrators meet their quota numbers, they also
imbue women and minorities with the stigma of inferiority.
Editorial, National Post,
March 17, 2003.
Re: Quotas Help No One, editorial,
March 17.
Ever wonder how the stereotype
of the “dumb jock” got started? It is not because there is a negative correlation
between intelligence and athleticism in general. If anything, there is
a slight positive correlation, in fact.
The stereotype began when
colleges started admitting students on athletic scholarships who would
not qualify on academic merit alone. Consequently, the students with the
lowest academic aptitude in any given class were most likely to be the
“jocks,” and everyone saw this.
Blinded by ideology, the
promoters of preferential policies do not see the implications of this
same selection mechanism for the female and visible-minority students they
recruit, or faculty they hire. Instead, they bleat about the “prejudice”
in others, which they themselves do everything in their power to create.
Contrary to what is said in the editorial, there is no “nobility” in any
of this.
Grant A. Brown
Letter to the Editor,
National Post, March 18, 2003.
Grant A. Brown is currently
a member of SAFS Board of Directors.
Re: Quotas Help
No One, editorial, March 17.
Your editorial criticizes
Osgoode Hall Law School and other law schools for having a special admissions
category for aboriginal students. It is now so difficult to get into
law school that very few aboriginal students would get in. This is
because they typically lack the traditional academic preparation that non-aboriginal
students have received. And yet it is surely important that aboriginal
people have access to law school, so that they can become lawyers and judges.
In fact, Canada’s Charter
of Rights and Freedoms expressly recognizes that programs to assist certain
disadvantaged groups should be continued, as a means of addressing historic
discrimination and broadening access for all.
That is the reason for our
special admissions category for aboriginals students. Once admitted,
however, they have to meet exactly the same standards as everyone else.
At the Osgoode Hall Law School. This year, out of 870 LLB students,
only 14 are aboriginal. We would prefer to increase that number rather
than to reduce it.
Peter W. Hogg, Dean, Osgoode
Hall Law School; Patrick J. Monahan, Associate Dean and Dean-designate,
Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto.
Letter to the Editor,
National Post, March 19, 2003
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