University of Alberta North Campus. Photo by Jeffrey Beall/Wikimedia Commons.

In his January 2 op-ed in the Edmonton Journal, University of Alberta President Bill Flanagan explains why a coterie of senior administrators is ditching the “language” of equity, diversity, and inclusion, or EDI (to which “decolonization” had been added in the university’s strategic plan), and replacing it with “access, community, and belonging.” This news came as a surprise to many faculty members, who were unaware that such a rebranding was in the works. They are left to surmise what the words will mean in practice, and what factors impelled the rebranding of EDI.

It should first be acknowledged that many faculty, students, and staff were critical of EDI initiatives for their perceived superficiality. As Changing the Story, a recent document published by the university’s vice-president for EDI states, feedback on EDI policies since 2019 has called for “institutional commitments that move beyond value statements.” For example, there are reports from hiring committee members that EDI considerations were absent or insignificant. Some departmental, divisional, and faculty administrators have turned a blind eye to (or are complicit in) the cronyism, discrimination, or hostile environments that have caused faculty members to leave the university. Sexist and racist discrimination is going unaddressed because victims experience existing grievance processes as unresponsive, ineffectual, and even worsening their situations. A follow-up “what we heard” report published by the VP for EDI acknowledged “the community’s concern over the perceived lack of visible consequences for harassment and interpersonal harm.”

Bill Flanagan: Why the U of A is moving from EDI to access, community and belonging | Edmonton Journal https://t.co/oojv4Mple3

Compensation for pay inequity for women associate professors and racialized men has not been forthcoming since the 2019 settlement with women full professors. Moreover, some administrative decisions contradict EDI goals: tuition fee increases that make it harder for individuals from working class backgrounds to pay for and complete degree programs, increased reliance on contract academic staff, teaching evaluation methods that discriminate against women and racialized instructors, inadequate financial support for campus childcare centres that have long waiting lists for spaces, closure of the sexual assault crisis centre, and statements and actions from the president himself framing Palestinian students and their allies as threats to the university’s security. The administration has profiled its commitment to “Indigenization of the curriculum,” while promoting research on the oil sands extraction that ultimately serves the ongoing dispossession of Indigenous peoples (the terms “Indigenous” and “decolonization” do not appear, by the way, in Flanagan’s op-ed description of the new ACB framework).

However, President Flanagan was not announcing, in his op-ed, measures to make EDI initiatives more effective and meaningful, although there are some proposals in this regard in the Changing the Story document. The principal aim of the president’s January 2 op-ed and a January 3 television interview appears to be political: to assure the United Conservative Party (UCP) government of Alberta and its electoral base that the UAlberta will not be pursuing the “woke” aims that so antagonize them. Witness the resolutions on “DEI” passed by UCP members at their 2023 and 2024 conventions, for which the........

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