Saint Mary’s philosophy professor Mark Mercer is slamming his “cash-strapped” university for hiring an elite firm to run a snitch line.
Earlier this year, the mid-sized Halifax university announced the launch of an “anonymous whistleblower hotline” for people to anonymously disclose concerns about suspected improper activity, such as a breach of any university policy or regulatory requirement, as well as financial or research misconduct.
The university has hired elite accounting firm Grant Thornton to run the system.
In an email to True North, the university said the reporting system “provides a mechanism for university members to confidentially and/or anonymously disclose concerns.”
“The safe disclosure policy applies to all employees, students, volunteers, contractors and suppliers of Saint Mary’s, and works in tandem with our other codes and policies on conduct, such as Research Policies, the Code of Student Conduct Policy, the Sexual Violence and Harassment Policy and others,” the statement continued.
Posters promoting the new system have popped up around the university’s campus.
Photo of campus poster promoting the new “anonymous whistleblower hotline”
In an interview with True North, Mercer said he is worried about the effect the snitch line will have “on the culture of the institution” amid members of the woke class defining “unacceptable behaviour” as anything that they don’t like.
“I think the effect of the university promoting this is to make us look like we’re not a collegial place,” he said. “We’re not a place where when people disagree, they either have critical discussions with each other or ignore each other.
“Now we go to an authority as a way of resolving these things.”
For Mercer, the snitch line is entirely consistent with “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) ideology.
“One of the goals is something like comfort on campus for people from historically marginalized groups. And the means is to involve authorities and to level sanctions, to make people afraid to say or do things that are taken by the powers to be productive uncomfortability.”
Mercer also slammed the university for going “all out” with the initiative at a time he says faculty are instructed to make cutbacks due to a lack of financial resources.
In its statement, the Saint Mary’s media relations team did not address criticisms about the program’s cost.
It should be noted that Saint Mary’s is not the only university to have introduced a snitch line.
As previously reported by True North, Ottawa’s Carleton University, which mandates the use of preferred pronouns, has an online portal to report instances of “misgendering.”
