Top Ontario Universities paying “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” officials six-figure salaries

Ontario’s top universities are paying employees generous six-figure salaries to promote and advance “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” (EDI) initiatives and ideology, True North has learned. 

The 2022 salaries were found using the Ontario Sunshine List, which publicly lists provincial public sector salaries that are over $100,000 per year. The list covers public sector employers that receive significant funding from taxpayers – including universities.

Universities in Ontario get part of their funding from the provincial and federal governments. They also receiving funds through tuition fees and other forms of revenue. 

While most officials earned between $100,000 and $200,000 per year, several received over $300,000 per year. Some of the people on the sunshine list serving as EDI officials are also professors – while others are employed and paid six figures specifically to advance EDI and other social justice agendas.

Notably high salaries include an Associate Professor serving as Deputy Provost of Academic Operations And Inclusion at Queen’s University who earned $346,376 and a professor serving as Vice-President, People Strategy, Equity And Culture at the University of Toronto who earned $341,000. At Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson), a Special Advisor To The President for Equity Diversity Inclusion And Decolonization Curriculum Transformation was paid $329,697, while a Vice President of Equity And Community Inclusion University earned $324,973.

Other noticeably high salaries include York University’s Vice President of Equity, People And Culture, who was paid $277,007, a McMaster professor serving as Vice-President of Equity And Inclusion who was paid $274,950, a University of Toronto professor serving as Vice-Dean of Faculty, Academic Life And Equity, Arts And Sciences who earned $266,150, and another serving as Vice-Dean of Faculty Affairs, Equity And Success at the university’s Scarborough campus made $252,668. Western University’s Associate Vice-President of Equity, Diversity And Inclusion made $257,830 in 2022.

Several people employed by universities for “anti-racism” work were also paid six-figure salaries. A Dean’s Advisor On Black Inclusivity Initiatives And Student Inclusion at the University of Toronto earned $125,201, and an Educational Developer in Anti-Racist Pedagogies earned $101,382. The University of Windsor paid an associate professor serving as Anti-Racism Pedagogies Teaching Leadership Chair $170,918 and its director of Anti-Racism Organizational Change $128,542. Toronto Metropolitan University’s Projects And Operations manager for the Presidential Implementation Committee To Combat Anti-Black Racism earned $110,766, while the University of Waterloo’s Director Of Anti-Racism made $107,072.

Reacting to the high salaries paid to EDI officials, former Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship (SAFS) president Mark Mercer said that “EDI offices are not necessary to any function of a university and EDI initiatives are often harmful, as they contravene academic values when they seek to regulate discussion or to direct research and teaching, and when they place colour, sex or identity above academic accomplishment or promise.”

He added that each of the salaries “could be used to hire two or three junior faculty members, and that would mean smaller classes, more varied courses and a greater dynamism of ideas and perspectives in classrooms, seminars and lab benches.”

“The irony is palpable: if the goal of EDI is to see that scholars from different backgrounds become professors, don’t spend the money on EDI offices or initiatives but on simply increasing the number of faculty members.”

While EDI ideology has been fully embraced by Canadian post-secondary institutions with little political pushback, a different picture is unfolding in the United States.

In Florida, Republican governor Ron DeSantis recently signed a bill banning the state’s public colleges and universities from spending money on “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” initiatives.

“If you look at the way this has actually been implemented across the country, (EDI) is better viewed as standing for discrimination, exclusion and indoctrination,” said DeSantis. “And that has no place in our public institutions.”

Below are tables of salaries earned by “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” officials at top Ontario universities as per records provided by the Government of Ontario found by True North on the province’s Sunshine List.

University of Toronto:

University of Waterloo

York University

Western University

Toronto Metropolitan University

McMaster University

Queen’s University

Carleton University

University of Guelph

University of Ottawa

Brock University

Wilfrid Laurier University

University of Windsor

Lakehead University

Trent University

A 2022 job opening for a Director, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion shows the university being willing to pay up to $143,878 per year for the job.

The post-secondary institutions in this article are considered to be the top in the province by EduRank, whose rankings are “determined by analyzing 34M citations received by 823K academic publications made by 24 universities from Ontario, the popularity of 2,324 recognized alumni, and the largest reference database available.”