Academics' warning of American-style 'anti-EDI' shift leads feds to backtrack from sensitive info ask
Why It Matters
Several researchers raised concerns about academia and funders’ slow shift to the right, emulating what is happening in the United States. Many also highlighted that they filled the EDI questions in funding applications on the condition that sensitive personal information will remain confidential, or if aggregated, will remain anonymous.
A federal committee has amended a motion to publicly release the confidential information of Canada’s researchers after a petition signed by more than 5,000 academics called the motion an American-style anti-EDI attack.
The original motion, agreed upon by the Standing Committee for Science and Research (SRSR), would have seen the disclosure of information provided by funding applicants to Canada’s three federal agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
“Data mining like this – with no formal accountability or peer review of the proposed use of the data – is unacceptable,” the petition reads.
While information about funded research projects is already publicly available, the motion would have released disaggregated data on the demographics of applicants and research collaborators. This could include their race, gender identity / expression, and sexual orientation.
Also being requested was demographic data about the identities of evaluation committee members.
Future of Good spoke with academics who had signed the petition, and many pointed out that they had filled out funding applications and EDI questionnaires on the basis that the information would remain confidential and anonymous.
It is unclear who will have access to this sensitive data, and what sorts of analysis will be carried out on it, academics said.
This motion is a “targeted attack on equity, diversity and inclusiveness in science and research,” and that it shows “an anti-EDI and anti-science trend on this [SRSR] committee,” according to the petition.
“This is not a new phenomenon. We’ve been seeing a lot of it creeping in from the United States,” said Dr. Sulaimon Giwa, associate professor and associate dean of undergraduate programs in the School of Social Work at Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador.
The letter encourages signatories to contact members of the SRSR, the Health Minister Marjorie Michel, and the Minister of Industry and Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions Melanie Joly. It also suggests filing a complaint with Canada’s Privacy Commissioner.
Future of Good reached out to the SRSR standing committee via email, but received no response by publication time.
Remarks during meetings
There are 10 members of parliament on the committee, including five Liberal MPs, four conservative MPs and one Bloc Québécois MP. The committee is chaired by Liberal MP Salma Zahid, who represents the constituency of Scarborough Centre-Don Valley East in Ontario.
During a meeting in October about the motion, Conservative MP Tony Baldinelli quoted Gad Saad, a Canadian marketing professor at Concordia University about DEI initiatives in research.
“There has been an autocorrection of all this diversity, inclusion, and equity stuff in the United States. I see no auto-correction taking place in Canada. If anything, I see the doubling down of all this parasitic nonsense in Canada…” he quoted.
A few minutes later, he quoted Montreal psychologist Stephen Pinker. “Canada has the reputation now of being more woke than that of the United States… researchers do not feel welcome here… they look for opportunities south of the border instead…”
“According to the EDI action in CIHR… the first-class average, or A-plus eligibility criterion, was removed… How is this lowering of standards increasing research excellence?” Baldinelli said, using his own words.
Representatives of the three standing committees in the meeting defended the policies as integral to scientific excellence, saying that inclusive practices enhance merit-based funding, broaden research impact, and reflect international best standards. They also called for proof of the claims.
However, MPs on the committee voted for the original motion as a way, they said, to increase transparency around who gets research funding.
After the petition was delivered, Liberal MP Taleeb Noormohamed introduced an amendment on Wednesday to limit the request to anonymized, high-level data, which was accepted by the committee.
Ardath Whynacht, an associate professor of sociology at Mount Allison University, told the Canadian Press she was happy about the amendment, but feels it was the $4 million price tag that drove the alteration to the original motion, rather than ethical concerns.
“The original motion revealed that many MPs have a cavalier attitude about violating Canadians’ right to privacy when they want to engage in political witch hunts,” Whynacht said.
During Wednesday’s meeting, Bloc Québécois MP Maxime Blanchette-Joncas said, “It’s absolutely crucial to be able to determine how the program funding is being allocated and what political choices are being made.”
Academics warn of a “breach of ethics and consent”
Several academics that Future of Good spoke with warned that releasing personal and sensitive information would undermine the integrity of the three federal funding agencies.
“The non-consensual sharing of equity-related data is unethical, and potentially challenges our protected human rights as students and faculty,” said Lisa Trefzger Clarke, a postdoctoral researcher at Carleton University.
Many researchers from Black and Indigenous communities, as well as academics with disabilities, have already been skeptical of providing this information, added Dr. Oluwabukola Salami, professor at the University of Calgary and Canada Research Chair in Black and Racialized Peoples’ Health.
Moving the data from anonymous to identifiable would have been a “breach of ethics and consent,” said Dr. Giwa.
This motion did not appear out of thin air. Last year, Alberta tabled Bill 18, the Provincial Priorities Act, which required all provincial entities to “obtain prior approval from Alberta’s government before entering into, amending, extending or renewing an agreement with the federal government.”
The Bill was intended to support the provincial government in “pushing back against overreach by the federal government,” and included regional health authorities, municipalities, housing management bodies and public post-secondary institutions.
Premier Danielle Smith also appeared on CBC to speak about how federal funding platforms certain types of opinions and academic research, implying those opinions are associated with the left of the political spectrum.
Smith said the Bill would allow “all people from all political perspectives are able to engage in robust rebate and have a robust research agenda.”
University of Alberta PhD researchers Andrea DeKeseredy and Ping Lam Ip analyzed research projects funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) between the fiscal years of 2013-2014 and 2022-2023.
They found that psychology, education and fine arts were the disciplines receiving the largest shares of funding.
“Interestingly, management, business and administrative studies acquired more dollars from SSHRC than many social science disciplines seen by conservative commentators as left-leaning, like sociology, geography, social work and criminology,” the researchers wrote in an article in The Conversation.
“There is simply no factual basis to suggest that federal agencies favour liberal or leftist research. If anything, social science disciplines often considered leftist by the right-wing are actually underfunded,” they added.
Speaking with Future of Good, DeKeseredy said thanks to the researchers’ advocacy, Bill 18 was amended.
When it was first proposed, University of Alberta leadership and unions were “vehemently against” the Bill, she added.
At the time of writing, the academics that spoke with Future of Good had not heard anything from their respective academic institutions about the motion from the SRSR.
What are the risks to the Canadian research ecosystem?
“When you say equity should not be considered in research, that means you’re basically saying ethics should not be considered in research,” Dr Salami added, citing historical examples of unjust, unethical experimental research carried out on Black communities and Indigenous children.
EDI is a critical tool to ensure that those who have been historically excluded from research can tell stories about their communities, said Dr. Giwa.
But there is a disconnect, he added. “The people making decisions about which research to fund oftentimes are not living in these communities.”
He also warned that we could see equity-denied researchers, peer reviewers and international collaborators withdrawing from Canadian federal funding grants altogether.