Content warning: This article contains material that relates to sexual violence.

On January 10, the University of Southern California (USC) held a conference titled “Censorship in the Sciences: Interdisciplinary Perspectives,” at which theoretical physicist and author Lawrence M. Krauss delivered a presentation claiming that U of T, alongside other Canadian universities, censors prospective applicants in academic hiring. 

Specifically, he referred to U of T’s Canada Research Chair (CRC) positions — for which candidates are now limited to those who self-identify as women or gender minorities, racialized individuals, persons with disabilities, and Indigenous peoples. 

Krauss was previously accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women. For this, he was suspended at Arizona State University, from which he later retired. Krauss also had connections with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whom he continued defending after Epstein’s 2008 conviction.

The Varsity interviewed U of T’s current CRC on the school’s CRC selection process, where they shared the importance of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives in ensuring representation and addressing gaps in academia.

Krauss’ speech

The three-day USC conference focused on the issues of academic freedom, institutional policies, and political influence within academics. The list of speakers featured professors, researchers, and clinicians from top postgraduate institutions such as Stanford University, Harvard University, Yale University, Cornell University, Columbia University, and UC Berkeley. 

This comes in light of US President Donald Trump’s new executive order to end affirmative action in federal contracts and put all federal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) staff on paid leave and eventually be laid off. 

On the first day of the conference, Krauss delivered his presentation titled “Living in Fear: Censorship, Ideology and Cancellation and its Broad and Deadening Impact on Science and Scholarship in the West.” 

He discussed the American Physical Society “imposing woke political bias” by endorsing the 2020 Strike for Black Lives — a mass walkout in the wake of George Floyd’s death, protesting police brutality and anti-Black racism — and that the peer-reviewed, multidisciplinary academic journal Science “has promoted the notion that science is systematically racist and sexist… without clear evidence.” 

Under the topic he titled “Imposing Politics in Hiring,” he discussed how adhering to the DEI principles and policies can lead to censorship. 

To prove his point, Krauss presented CRC job postings from various science departments of several Canadian universities, including U of T, the University of Waterloo, the University of Guelph, and Toronto Metropolitan University.

In 2018, the CRC Program’s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Action Plan started to require academic institutions to set equity targets for each of the four designated groups under the Employment Equity Act: racialized individuals, Indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and women and gender minorities — including those who identify as trans, non-binary, gender fluid, or Two-Spirit. 

The plan required the targets to be met through deadlines leading up to December 2029 — at which the institution’s proportion of chairs from the four designated groups must correspond with that of Canada’s 2016 census. Institutions that do not meet their equity targets by the December 2029 deadline will see their total allocation of Chairs reduced until the following allocation cycle.

In line with these requirements, U of T has created guidelines and initiatives dedicated to increasing the representation of the designated groups in CRC holders. According to U of T’s Guide to CRC Nominations & Renewals, as of October 2023, the university has been requiring all externally recruited chairs in engineering, dentistry, medicine, and other disciplines to be from one or more of the designated groups to meet the 2029 targets.

As of July 2024, 94 Tier 2 Chairs at U of T are women or members of gender equity-seeking groups, 69 are racialized individuals, 13 are persons with disabilities, and six are Indigenous — which surpasses all of the university’s December 2025 Tier 2 equity targets. 

While both Tier 1 and Tier 2 positions are renewable once, the former is tenable for seven years while the latter is for five years. U of T receives $100,000 annually for each Tier 2 Chair, and $200,000 annually for each Tier 1 Chair. First-term Tier 2 Chairs also receive a $20,000 annual research stipend.

In response to these initiatives Krauss said, “In Canada, where I now live, it’s legal to censor people on the basis of gender or colour.” 

“White males are not allowed to be considered for Canada Research Chairs,” said Krauss. “[Academic] merit does not matter as much as gender anymore.”

The Canadian Human Rights Act establishes that “It is not a discriminatory practice for a person to adopt or carry out a special program… to eliminate or reduce disadvantages that are suffered [by] any group of individuals when those disadvantages would be… related to the prohibited grounds of discrimination, by improving opportunities respecting… employment [amongst other things] in relation to that group.”

According to a 2019 Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion report by Universities Canada, approximately 40 per cent of full-time faculty positions at Canadian universities were held by women; 21.8 per cent were held by persons with disabilities; 20.9 per cent were held by racialized people and only 1.3 per cent were members of Indigenous groups. This means full-time faculty positions at Canadian universities were predominantly held by white men.

“Positive and necessary”

The Varsity spoke to the current Canada Research Chair holders, Dr. Crystal Clark, the Canada Research Chair in Reproductive Mental Health, and Dr. Janine Farragher, the Research Chair in Life Participation and Kidney Disease, who shared their thoughts on U of T’s CRC selection process.

Clark — an associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry, a scientist at Women’s College Research Institute, and the associate head of research at the Women’s College Hospital — wrote in an email to The Varsity that “the University of Toronto’s policies to promote diversity and equity in the Canada Research Chair appointment process is a positive and necessary initiative.” 

“These efforts are crucial to ensuring that the academic environment is inclusive and reflective of the diverse society we serve,” she wrote. “I also believe that diversity and inclusion can and should be considered alongside academic achievement.”

Clark’s research aims to address a gap in psychiatry by exploring the experiences, risks, and optimal treatments for parental mental health among Black people, Indigenous people, and people of colour, emphasizing the importance of understanding why EDI policies are essential in academia.

“DEI initiatives aim to address and mitigate the effects of historical and systemic inequities, as well as implicit biases, ensuring that talented individuals from underrepresented backgrounds have the opportunity to excel and contribute meaningfully to academic spaces,” Clark wrote. “In fact, DEI policies enhance the integrity of meritocratic systems by fostering environments that are more inclusive, representative, and effective.” 

Farragher — a registered occupational therapist and chronic kidney disease researcher — also provided her insights regarding the necessity of DEI policy in academia.

In an email to The Varsity, she wrote, “Until all people have equal access to resources, supports and opportunities throughout their life that enable them to succeed, the concept of a meritocracy without consideration of DEI is fundamentally flawed. To ensure we are actually capturing and including the diverse range of highly capable people that exist in our society, we need to implement DEI-sensitive selection processes in education.”

Editor’s note (February 3, 5:56 am): An earlier version of the HED focused on “U of T’s EDI policies,” when the focus is on U of T’s Canada Research Chair (CRC) appointments and EDI’s involvement; the HED has been updated to reflect this. Previous mentions of “research chair holders” have been updated to the specific “Canada Research Chair holders.” The guide to CRC Nominations has been included, and that Dr. Crystal Clark and Dr. Janine Farragher are the sole U of T CRC holders of their respective research has been clarified.