U of A’s proposed removal of EDI hiring policies sparks legal threats

Following the release of a CBC article about the University of Alberta’s proposed elimination of equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) hiring policies, Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, emailed President Bill Flanagan, warning about legal action.

Attaran and Flanagan have known each other for at least a decade, as they are both academic lawyers working for Canadian universities.

In the email, Attaran stated that the U of A is a recipient of Canada Research Chairs, which is under a legal settlement that requires all universities to have EDI criteria when hiring their members. Currently, the U of A has 115 Canada Research Chairs.

This agreement, reached in 2021 by the Canadian Human Rights Commission and Attaran with the federal government, states that failure to employ EDI will lead to universities losing their federal funding.

“Broadly speaking, there are two things that universities must do. One is they must have an EDI policy, and they must, when they’re recruiting for chairs … make it clear that they’re following their EDI policy,” Attaran said.

“Then separately, there [is] an outcome requirement, which is by 2029, if [a] university has not fully complied with the [EDI] targets, [they] lose [federal] funding,” Attaran added.

U of A could lose federal funding

The federal government has a legal obligation to enforce EDI on universities. “If they don’t, they are in breach of a court order,” Attaran said.

“So all I have to do … and I’ve actually already done it this morning, is contact people I know in the federal government who are responsible for the chairs program and say ‘Hey, there’s a problem at the U of A,’” Attaran added.

According to Attaran, he is confident that the federal government will enforce the policies on the U of A.

This will not occur overnight. The federal government will have some dialogue with Flanagan, “and his obviously fairly lacking people,” giving them the choice to “scupper EDI, likely because of political pressure from [Premier] Dainelle Smith,” or lose their federal funding, Attaran stated.

“So that’s my enforcement, and that’s what I already have done, and what I’m going to continue to do in the next few weeks and months,” Attaran said.

“I think U of A students and faculty should do as I did and sue,” Attaran added.

“This should be a career-ending move by him,” Attaran says

Flanangan has stated that the language of EDI has become polarizing, requiring the creation of a different framework and terminology: access, community, and belonging (ACB).

According to Attaran, “you have to be either morally lost, or intellectually dishonest, or Flanagan, [who] combines both of those two, to decide that EDI does not have a place at the U of A.”

“I think the goal should not only be to save EDI, but to get rid of your lousy president, to be very frank. This should be a career-ending move by him,” Attaran said.

The university’s proposal to remove EDI and replace it with new ACB policies is a refusal to comply with federal equity laws, Attaran stated.

The university says it remains in compliance with EDI expectations when conducting research

In a post on The Quad, Carrie Smith, vice-provost (access, community, and belonging) and Verna Yiu, provost and vice-president (academic), stated that the U of A remains in compliance with all the research funding requirements, including EDI expectations enforced by major funders.

Some of these funders are Canada’s federal Tri-Agencies, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and the Canada Excellence Research Chairs Program.

According to Attaran, the U of A cannot remove EDI language in the hiring of research chairs while maintaining it in other areas to avoid legal actions.

“I mean, it’s kind of an impossible, no-win situation the university has worked its way into,” Attaran said.

U of A is likely legally protected monetary boycott by the provincial government, Attaran says

Attaran believes that it would not be legal under the statute of the Alberta Human Rights Act and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for the provincial government to cut funding because a university adheres to EDI policies.

Recent policy resolutions at the United Conservative Party annual general meetings have shown support for withholding public funding for organizations that promote EDI.

“If you were to abandon EDI, you certainly run a very significant risk of losing chair funding. If you were to maintain EDI, you may … lose some provincial funding,” Attaran added.

According to Attaran, U of A has a “less known, more nebulous, more, I suppose, speculative risk coming from Danielle Smith and her team.”

So, “[they] can’t approach the problem in terms of just the numbers and the dollar signs. [They] have to approach it as what it truly is, which is a moral problem, an ethical problem,” Attaran said.

“As president, do you want to be on the side of defending your students, your faculty, your workers … or do you want to abdicate that role? I think anyone with a sound mind and heart would find this a very easy choice. The question we have to see answered is whether Flanagan possesses a sound mind and heart,” Attaran added.

The Gateway requested a comment from Carrie Smith and the U of A. Neither Smith or the U of A provided comment.