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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Ricardo Duchesne</title>
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		<title>Progressives are Running the Universities</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ricardo-duchesne/progressives-are-running-the-universities/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=progressives-are-running-the-universities</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2010/ricardo-duchesne/progressives-are-running-the-universities/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 23 Dec 2010 04:30:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Ricardo Duchesne]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=79920</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[What kind of racism really exists in the academy?]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/rac.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-79921" title="rac" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/rac.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="239" /></a></p>
<p><strong>This article is reprinted from <a href="http://www.universityaffairs.ca/Default.aspx">University Affairs</a>.</strong></p>
<p>The November 2010 issue of <em>University Affairs</em> welcomes its readers with a rather eye-catching, if predictable, cover story, “<a title="Racism in the academy" href="http://www.universityaffairs.ca/racism-in-the-academy.aspx" target="_blank">Racism in the academy</a>,”  by Harriet Eisenkraft, in which up to 20 academics from across the  Canadian university landscape are interviewed and cited in support of  the sweeping allegation that “many non-Caucasian scholars still feel  excluded or denied opportunities” in our universities. After five  decades of official multiculturalism and three decades of mandated  employment equity, Peter Li, a professor of sociology at the University  of Saskatchewan, says that racism is still a pervasive (not a “random”  or incidental) feature; “regularized and embedded in the social process”  of Canadian academic hiring, promotion, governance, research, and in  the curriculum.</p>
<p>Dr. Li is hardly a lone voice. Malinda Smith, a political science  professor at the University of Alberta, maintains that, for all the  programs and the offices created in the name of equity and diversity,  attention to issues affecting minority scholars are still “perpetually  deferred.” The article states that every new report on systematic racism  has had the unfortunate effect of producing a &#8220;backlash.&#8221; According to  Audrey Kobayashi, a professor of geography at Queen’s University, one of  the effects of the backlash “is to prevent progressive people from  acting progressively” in the universities.</p>
<p>These are her words; I am not trying to be amusing. How can the most  leftist institution in Canada be accused of curtailing the efforts of  progressives to fight against “structural racism”? This is exactly the  point: the preponderance of progressives in the faculties of arts across  Canada is the very ground sustaining and encouraging these outlandish  claims. In case we need to be reminded again, “studies in both nations  [Canada and the United states] confirm that the humanities and social  sciences are dominated by scholars with left-wing opinions and values”  (as Christine Overall, cross-appointed with the department of philosophy  and women&#8217;s studies at Queen’s, had acknowledged in an article, “<a title="Lefty Profs" href="http://www.universityaffairs.ca/lefty-profs.aspx" target="_blank">Lefty Profs</a>,” published two years ago in <em>University Affairs</em>).</p>
<p>It is well known that progressives have been able for decades now to  exercise their control through domination of hiring committees and the  imposition of politically correct speech codes designed to exterminate  dissent. Dr. Li is not some isolated figure fighting for racial justice;  he belongs to a <a title="department dedicated to teaching students" href="http://artsandscience.usask.ca/sociology/" target="_blank">department dedicated to teaching students</a> to “think critically about the world around them” and “committed to  link the aims of the discipline with the mission of the University of  Saskatchewan”. Saskatchewan, like many universities in Canada,  officially calls itself a “progressive university” committed to  “employment equity” for women and visible minorities.</p>
<p>Of the <a title="15 full-time faculty members" href="http://artsandscience.usask.ca/sociology/people/" target="_blank">15 full-time faculty members</a> teaching in Dr. Li’s department, eight are females, and three of the  males, together with Dr. Li, are visible minorities of Asian origin.  What is more, most of these members have research interests that touch  on race, ethnicity, multiculturalism and social inequality. Among the  many socialistic colleges, programs, and departments housed in  Saskatchewan are: “Discrimination and Harassment Prevention,” “Family  Medicine,” “Indian Teacher Education Program,” “Native Studies,”  “Women&#8217;s and Gender Studies”.</p>
<p>A similar set of facts can be adduced for all the academics cited in  this article. Jeffrey Reitz, who claims that white people tend to  trivialize the experiences of minorities as unimportant, is director of  ethnic and immigration studies at the University of Toronto, housed in a  department in which the research and teaching areas are singularly  left-oriented in character: “health and mental health,” “networks and  community,” “gender and family,” “crime and socio-legal studies,”  “immigration and ethnic relations,” “stratification, work, and labour  markets.” Constance Backhouse, who wants universities to “take the lead”  in dismantling the “mythology” that Canada is a “race-less” society,  belongs to the <a title="faculty of law at the University of Ottawa" href="http://www.commonlaw.uottawa.ca/en/welcome.html" target="_blank">faculty of law at the University of Ottawa</a>,  wherein the “Message from the Dean” states categorically and imperially  that research and teaching are expected to be pursued “in a progressive  atmosphere where issues of social justice are at the forefront of  student and faculty concerns”.</p>
<p>This influence of progressives over our universities may explain why  few of the specialists cite any solid evidence to substantiate their  claims. Working within an audience of true believers, they have grown  accustomed to soft-ball questions and easy endorsements. Pretty much all  the &#8220;evidence&#8221; cited is anecdotal, based on &#8220;feelings&#8221;, and in no way  the foundation for making a &#8220;systemic racism&#8221; allegation. The one meagre  fact offered is that “about 14 percent of faculty positions are held by  visible minorities, whereas 24 percent of all PhD-holders in Canada are  visible minorities.” It does not take statistical expertise to realize  that this claim is devoid of any meaning unless one offers a  system-wide, representative set of statistical indicators on all the  positions held by all ethnic groups, on all the PhD-holders, on all the  academic openings in the last few decades (rather than merely looking at  the ethnicity of academics who were employed decades ago), on all the  number of actual applicants for jobs, and on all the respective  qualifications of the applicants.</p>
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