Heterodox Conversations™| What is the Proper Role of EDI in Canadian Universities?

This event is a Heterodox Conversation, an initiative of HxA to improve research and higher education by bringing together two scholars who model constructive disagreement and open inquiry across differing viewpoints.
Hosted by the McGill University HxA Campus Community
Visit heterodoxacademy.org to learn more about our work.
Bios:
Sophia Moreau is Professor of Law and Philosophy (with a cross-appointment in the Department of Philosophy), a Faculty Associate at the U of T’s Centre for Ethics, and a Faculty Associate of Victoria College. She is an Associate Editor of Philosophy & Public Affairs, Book Reviews Editor of the University of Toronto Law Journal, and a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Law and Philosophy and Legal Theory. Prior to coming to the University of Toronto, she clerked for Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin at the Supreme Court of Canada; was a Frank Knox Memorial Fellow at Harvard University; and was a Commonwealth Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford.
Professor Moreau has been the HLA Hart Visiting Fellow at University College, Oxford (Hilary Term 2023); a Visiting Professor at NYU Law School (Fall 2022), Weinstein Fellow at Berkeley (Spring 2022) a Chancellor Jackman Research Fellow at the Jackman Humanities Institute (2021-22).
Azim Shariff is a Professor and Canada 150 Research Chair at the University of British Columbia, where he directs the Centre for Applied Moral Psychology. His research on morality, religion, politics, and technology regularly receives global media coverage and has appeared in top academic journals such as Science, Nature, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. He has written about this work for The New York Times and Scientific American and has spoken at TED, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the World Science Festival in New York. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences. He teaches a free Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) on The Science of Religion for the public through edX. Professor Shariff earned his doctorate from UBC in 2010 and returned as a faculty member in 2018.

[@runamucker]

What I got from this -- the first proper expert-level discussion of DEI/EDI I've ever seen -- is that it's invaluable in some situations, and is being grossly misapplied in others. The validating surprise for me is that people who are equipped to seriously address the topic mostly agree, and don't hold any of the views that have made the concept so distasteful to me. My opinion on its application has changed, and I have learned I know even less about the topic than I thought. Thanks HxA!

[@explrr22]

This for me, somewhat accomplished, the JS Mill objective of engagement with conflicting perspectives. Elsewhere, although there's lots of public dialogue concerning DEI/EDI, very little of it presents considerations or attempts persuasion without dogmatic moralistic certainty.
I've only watched the first hour so maybe it deteriorates or improves...
But I already know more respect worthy arguments for AND against my initial inclinations!
This wasn't a super engaging or immediately rewarding media experience...
But, that's what useful informative learning is often like. The costs and discomfort are more immediate and the benefits come more long term after some repetition and variations of the practice.
Production values are unfortunately terrible proxies for what's most valuable.

[@explrr22]

Sampling from questions suggested to me that there's a significant presence of weakly argued dogmatic support or opposition even at a hererodox event.
I'm still not convinced it wouldn't be better to dismantle the whole supporting DEI/EDI infrastructure and rebuild from scratch with new foundations directed more at general fairness and support for those who might benefit.
I'll settle for less, simply because of the difficulty, but it's also not clear that a future path for something closer to objectives of these guests actually exists.
Of course time could provide surprises, but popularity of blinkered orthodoxy vs hererodoxy, still suggests to me, more harmful and unproductive social warring in next decade.
Keep up the good fight, as I could be wrong... ❤
The odds for HXA approach do look better than they have for a while! 😊

[@DanielPage]

Answer: None.

[@wiseonwords]

100% in agreement!