McGill student paper The Tribune, which is calling on its university to change its name over “colonial and racist origins,” prioritizes non-white students when hiring for positions, True North has learned. 

The race-based preferential hiring practices are being done in the guise of “Equity, Diversity and Inclusion” (EDI) – a controversial woke practice that the student-funded publication’s Editorial Board has previously advocated for. 

The Tribune’s Editorial Board has also shared several provocative left-wing views, including on the police, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, free speech and Israel. 

Openings posted to LinkedIn in December for web and multimedia editor positions noted that the publication would “prioritize BIPOC applicants with similar credentials (CV, interview and experience).”

The Tribune says it is “working towards redress and strive to eliminate all forms of institutionalized oppression.” The student paper also recently revised its Workplace Conduct Policy and job application process to “remedy institutional underrepresentation across all levels.” 

The publication claims it has previously been guilty of institutional racism, saying, “our Editorial Board’s hiring process had discriminatory barriers to entry that did not open doors to all, and our channels for ensuring equity and a safe working environment were not made adequately available.”

“We have acknowledged The Tribune’s history of exclusion toward Black students, Indigenous students, and students of colour––voices needed for any paper to thrive.”

It, however, appears that The Tribune has opted to address its past discrimination with what many would consider to be new reverse discrimination. EDI hiring practices have become common practice in academia, with several university departments restricting professor positions to people of a certain racial group under the guise of increasing diversity.

The Tribune made headlines last week after announcing that it was dropping “McGill” from its name over the belief that the namesake’s legacy is rooted in violent colonialism and racism. It called for the university to follow suit. 

“McGill frames its founder as a philanthropist, but hardly acknowledges that the donated fortune, the gift that ensured he would be our namesake, was amassed through the exploitation of enslaved people in Canada, the Caribbean, and the slave trade more broadly,” wrote The Tribune’s Editorial Board.

Prominent Canadian scholar, author and public policy expert Brian Lee Crowley told True North The Tribune’s demand for a name change is based on “absolute nonsense.” He added that woke student activists  “claim that they’re acting on behalf of morality and a better understanding of history. And they know nothing of history and even less of morality.”

The Tribune’s editorial board has also previously called for the abolishment of police and shared solidarity with tent cities, saying Montreal “must offer community encampments anti-colonial housing solutions.”

It supported trans activists who aggressively shut down a McGill event featuring renowned gay rights advocate and scholar Robert Wintemute in an op-ed that downplayed academic freedom. Wintermute had told True North the shutting down of his event by protesters was “horribly anti-democratic.”

The Tribune’s Editorial Board has also written in support of Covid-19 restrictions as recently as Nov. 2022, saying society must adopt a “new normal” and called on McGill to reinstate certain Covid measures and make them permanent. The Editorial board has also said that mourning the death of Queen Elizabeth II meant celebrating “a violent legacy,” called Israel a “settler-colonial apartheid state” and wrote a piece denouncing the Freedom Convoy as a “fringe minority group.”

The publication says it gets its funding through mandatory student fees. McGill’s undergraduates are required to pay $4.00 per semester to support The Tribune, while post-graduates pay $1.50 per semester.

The Tribune did not return True North’s request for comment in time for publication.