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Affirmative action discrimination and other forms of racial preference are pervasive in Canadian public institutions. See, for example, the new Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU). admission to medical school politics, which reserves 75% of its seats for indigenous, black and other “equity deserving” groups, who can still be considered for admission under certain circumstances if their undergraduate GPA is below 3.3 – an already low standard for admission.

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There is already good evidence to suggest that race-based admissions policy is ill-advised because negative impacts of affirmative action in college admissions over the decades in the United States and elsewhere are well documented. But in addition to the evidence about the overall harms of affirmative action, the new reports provide yet more reason to believe that TMU’s medical school admissions policy will backfire. The most obvious downside: the quality of medical practice could be reduced as academic standards for admission are lowered and as race and other irrelevant factors are considered instead of ability.

Indeed, a new US study of affirmative action in another industry – intelligence – suggests that this concern is well founded. In an article In Econ Journal Watch, John A. Gentry of Missouri State University’s School of Defense and Strategic Studies outlines the effects of affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies on the operational performance of 18 U.S. intelligence agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

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Like other federal agencies, Gentry writes, the intelligence agencies “have been a setting of burgeoning DEI policies and programs, especially since 2011, designed to favor privileged demographic groups in hiring, promotions, awards, and assignments.”

What were the results? First, while the intelligence community has historically emphasized apolitical public service, the introduction of DEI introduced political motivation into its procedures and activities. Second, teamwork was affected because DEI’s “heavy-handed orthodoxy causes significant self-censorship by government personnel who do not support the DEI agenda.”

Third, numerous intelligence officers have said that DEI has led to more tolerance for poor management and poor operational performance in the name of protecting diversity. This damaged the collection of human intelligence. Intelligence analysis was likely adversely affected for similar reasons. Ultimately, DEI-motivated activism reduced public trust in intelligence agencies.

“Not only do DEI policy advocates fail to understand that domestic demographic diversity does not improve the performance of foreign-focused intelligence services, it has significantly impaired the agencies’ operational performance,” Gentry concludes.

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While Gentry’s journal article was about the intelligence sector in the United States, it is not hard to see how many negative outcomes—such as politicization of the profession, self-censorship, and reduced public trust—could arise from inserting racial quotas into admissions schools. Canadian medicine and promotion of “social justice” over medical expertise in the medical profession in general.

More recent evidence that TMU’s affirmative action policies will backfire comes from a New York Times op-ed review of the University of Michigan’s expansive DEI initiatives. It concluded that “Rather than improving students’ ability to engage with one another across their differences, DEI’s expansion in Michigan has coincided with an explosion of campus conflict over race and gender.” Students and faculty members at the school reported a less positive campus climate and were less likely to interact with people of a different race after the introduction of DEI programs.

The report is devastating because of how widespread DEI initiatives are at the University of Michigan: It has spent nearly $250 million since 2016 on DEI staff and programs. “Every university department, unit, and office must have a DEI action plan,” wrote Robby Soave for Reason magazine. And “about 241 university employees work in DEI offices or have one of those keywords — diversity, equity or inclusion — in their job titles.”

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When this latest piece about the University of Michigan is added to the voluminous evidence of the negative impact of affirmative action on universities, TMU’s medical school admissions policies cannot be expected to be beneficial. Nor should this evidence give anyone confidence that other illiberal policies such as race-based programs to combat povertybased on race federal procurement or based on race the justice system — would benefit Canadians.

Treating people differently based on race does not improve social harmony or other outcomes.

National Post

Matthew Lau is a senior man at Aristotle Foundation for Public Policies and the author “Claims of systemic racism in Canada: An evidence-based analysis.”

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