Inclusion Through Exclusion
THE CULLING OF ACADEMICS IN CANADIAN UNIVERSITIES

by Daniel R. Page

Is Academic Culling Happening in Our Public Universities?

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 unintentional) 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?

If you are here, you likely have heard the above phrase before. For those unfamiliar with DIE: "Woke in Plain English" by Peter Boghossian

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.

Essay on concerns around DIE pledges (by Mark Mercer, Professor of Philosopher and Past President of The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (2013-2023)): "Swear Allegiance to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion or Don't Get Hired"

We thank The Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) for archiving many of the incidents we reported in this academic research.

Some other resources on related matters:

Acknowledgements:

This research along with other educational, academic projects, and multimedia projects were supported via the public on Patreon. Consider supporting this hard work and support our attempts to improve Computer Science education, discover/explore issues such as this, and produce more multimedia! Check out our YouTube channel for more and how you can support this work! Note we do have alternative channels than these for support, just reach out!

Video of Academic Presentation and Data Sets

Click Here For the Slides of the Academic Presentation (December 2023 presentation)

New Presentation Slides:

Data Sets

  1. Preliminary Data Presented in Talk for Reported Incidents of Computer Science Academic Advertisements in Canada (as of December 12, 2023):

Reported DIE Pledges: CSV, TSV | Reported Restricted/Preferential Hiring: CSV, TSV

Summary Google Sheet/Spreadsheet (contains up to date results)

2. (NEW) Canada Research Chair Searches 2023 - STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) minus Social/Medical, Restricted/Preferential Hiring and DIE Pledges July 2023 - end of December 2023. (complete data set, August 30, 2024)

Data Set: CSV, TSV

Summary Google Sheet/Spreadsheet (complete data set)

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31870.40003

Credit to Burgess, for the initial construction of the CRC Searches 2023 data set; it was used to create/specialize ours.

Preliminary Results

Incidents of DIE Pledges and Restricted/Preferential Hiring are occurring more often than before in Computer Science academic job advertisements. You can click on each chart to view it in a new tab.

Definitions:

  • Preferential Hiring: Hiring where all qualified applicants can apply, but preference will be given to applicants if they belong to a preferred group, specified by a non-academic qualification.
  • Restricted Hiring: Hiring where all applicants must belong to a preferred group, specified by a non-academic qualification.
  • DIE pledge: The requirement or expectation of an applicant to give/present a commitment to DIE, taking at least one of the following three forms:
    1. Job requirement is to be committed to DIE.
    2. Requiring a statement about DIE, often called a diversity statement or EDI statement.
    3. The position is itself as a DIE activist to some extent, including promotion or advocacy supporting DIE.

First data set results: Total job advertisements documented, requiring DIE pledges [see my most recent presentation slides for updated versions of these figures]:

A chart showing the number of DIE pledges advertised in total.  It shows larger numbers of incidents each successive year.

Of those job ads that were posted on CS-Can for the period, below are the frequencies of reported ads requiring DIE pledges:

A chart showing the number of DIE pledges advertised in total.  It shows number of reported occurrences, where 2023 is the highest.

Of the documented observed CS-Can ads for the period, below are the frequencies of reported ads for tenure-track positions (includes Canada Research Chair), requiring DIE pledges:

A chart showing the number of DIE pledges advertised for tenure-track positions.

Documented/reported incidents of preferential/restricted hiring (overall):

A chart showing the number of reported preferential hiring ads in total.  Year 2023 had the largest number observed.

By the nature of our research, it is based on reported/documented cases; the data set is technically incomplete. If you know of more CS academic positions (and have documentation of them), you may let us know here using the following form to help us document more incidents: https://forms.gle/pJQhCB3MhpTRwfsq6

In addition to the above preliminary results, we conclude that:

  • [Using the most recent version of the data set] At least 80% of Maclean's Canada’s Best Computer Science Programs 2024 List has engaged in some of these exclusionary practices. Note that in the first version of the data set published in 2023, this number is at least 75%.
  • At least 80% of the U15 universities have engaged in some of these exclusionary practices.

Results from second data set: Our second set of results and data set concern Canada Research Chair (CRC) positions in STEM fields that do not include Social Sciences, Health Sciences, and Medical Sciences. Our data set, which specializes the one by Burgess, contains every CRC job advertisement in these fields from July 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023. You can find Burgess's article here: "It's Time To Stop The Double Talk Around Diversity Hiring." Chronicle of Higher Education.

We were concerned with what could loosely be called the "hard, physical, mathematical/formal sciences, and engineering," which are often perceived/believed at times [by the public] to be largely void of ideological capture. We specialized Burgess's data set, added secondary sources, and when we limited the advertisements to the fields in question, we included a field that indicates if the institution required a DIE pledge in its advertisements/positions.

Below is a table with our findings. We counted up numbers of CRC searches/positions engaging in different DIE-related practices. Note that "not explicit" does not imply none of the practices are occurring, it just means the practice is not known to be explicitly required of the applicant based on the advertisement and its application process.

Positions/Searches - CRC STEM (less Social/Health/Medical), Jul 1 - Dec 31, 2023
Result in Question:
#
Total
%
Restricted Hiring
10
24
41.67%
Preferential Hiring
3
24
12.50%
Not Explicit
11
24
45.83%
Total Restricted and/or Preferential Hiring
13
24
54.17%
DIE pledges
16
24
66.67%
DIE pledges (omit unverified (U)*)
16
21
76.19%
Positions/Searches - CRC Computer Science, Jul 1 - Dec 31, 2023
Restricted Hiring
2
5
40.00%
Preferential Hiring
1
5
20.00%
Not Explicit
2
5
40.00%
Total Restricted and/or Preferential Hiring
3
5
60.00%
DIE pledges
4
5
80.00%
DIE pledges (omit unverified (U)*)
4
4
100.00%

We conclude that our results nearly match Burgess's results, even for this specific subset of STEM fields. That is, slightly above 54% of the advertisements imposed preferential or restricted hiring on applicants, whereas Burgess found ~55% did in all fields. In addition, we discovered that at least 66-76% of the advertisements required DIE pledges. Specifically in Computer Science, at least 80-100% of the advertisements required DIE pledges, and the practice of preferential/restricted hiring was employed at least 60% of the time.

*Advertisements marked U were marked as "unclear" or "unverified", as the advertisement did not explicitly name DIE but may be seen as "close enough" to some. In our results, we did not include advertisements marked U as part of those with DIE pledges.

Bibliographic Information

For academic questions, or if there are any typos to report: drpage@pagewizardgames.com

If a data set is cited, please refer to this page by its title or cite the applicable data set as, per appropriate format:

Page, D.R., Preliminary Data Set Reporting Preferential Hiring and DIE pledges in Canadian Computer Science Academic Job Advertisements. PageWizard Games, Learning & Entertainment. 2023. https://pagewizardgames.com/diepledge/

Page, D.R., Canada Research Chair Searches 2023 - STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) minus Social/Medical, Restricted/Preferential Hiring and DIE Pledges July 2023 - end of December 2023. PageWizard Games, Learning & Entertainment. 2024. https://pagewizardgames.com/diepledge/ . http://dx.doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31870.40003