A “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) presentation given at London, Ontario’s Western University warned against supporting merit-based hiring and racial colour blindness, claiming the latter cause “microaggressions.”
Pictures of the presentation’s slides were posted to X (the platform formerly known as Twitter) on Tuesday.
The DEI presentation touched on several woke concepts, including “microaggressions,” white privilege, intersectionality and allyship.
The presentation described “microaggressions” as “a comment or action, whether intentional or unintentional, that expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group.”
According to the presentation, examples of “microaggressions” include telling someone, “I believe the most qualified person should get the job [and] when I look at you, I don’t see colour.”
The presentation also gave participants an intersectional case study about a woman named Susan.
“Susan is a wheelchair user who uses ASL. She is cisgender and a lesbian. She is out at school and, as she says, ‘proud of it’. Her family is upper middle class, and have always been highly supportive. She is actively involved in political events around Disability rights and awareness. She and her partner plan to marry soon.”
The presentation asked participants to identify “locations of oppression,” where Susan “experience(s) privilege” and how they think “these social locations might combine in Susan’s experience.”
The presentation also discussed allyship, describing allies as “people who recognize the unearned privilege they receive from society’s patterns of injustice, and take responsibility for changing these patterns.”
“Allies include men who work to end sexism, white people who work to end racism, heterosexual people who work to end heterosexism, able-bodied people who work to end ableism, and so on.”
Participants were asked to “continuously reflect on your own identity, and the power and privilege that you have,” and warned that “white silence, white privilege and white shame leads to a lot of white complicity in white supremacy.”
Western’s presentation was criticized by users on X.
DEI ideology has become rampant in Canadian universities, as revealed by True North’s Campus Watch reporting.
Western University is a signatory of the BLM-inspired “Scarborough National Charter on anti-Black racism and Black Inclusion,” which scholars have warned will have “terrible consequences” on academia amid it subverting academic principles in favour of DEI.
A True North investigation into the salaries of University DEI officials also revealed that Western University paid its Associate Vice-President of Equity, Diversity And Inclusion a whopping $257,830 in 2022.
Western University did not return True North’s request for comment in time for publication.
