In an opinion piece for The Conversation, Christopher Stuart Taylor (University of Waterloo) discusses why the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts of Canadian universities struggle to meaningfully address racism. Taylor writes that DEI initiatives in Canada root back to the official multiculturalism policy of 1971, which the author argues was created to ensure English and French communities got along, while ensuring Black and Indigenous people conformed to the status quo. The author adds that Canada continues to grapple with reconciling its settler colonial historical past and that “DEI, like multiculturalism before, was never designed to directly tackle that history.” Taylor concludes that universities can only meaningfully address racism once they have recognized the historical underpinnings of Canadian DEI.
