In a Macdonald-Laurier Institute report published last week, authors Eric Kaufmann, Leif Rasmussen and Jonah Davids dare to ask what seems to be, for some, a forbidden question in Canada: Does prioritizing diversity in hiring mean losing excellence?
The claim that equity leads to research excellence is made regularly. Our national research funding agencies declare that equity “strengthens research outputs and increases the overall excellence of research,” and the Canada Research Chairs program itself, which mandates diversity quotas, insists that “Achieving a more equitable, diverse and inclusive Canadian research enterprise is essential to creating the excellent, innovative and impactful research necessary to seize opportunities.”
