I’m sure the ‘woke’ movement began with clean hands and an open heart.
A decade ago, too many people were kept away from the corridors of anything, let alone power, because of their gender, colour, faith and age.
But as with many revolutions, DEI has swung too far, lopping off innocent heads, silencing critics and brooking nothing less than total compliance for the deeply ironic idea of zero tolerance.
There’s a price to pay for this excess, and one far greater than having to reveal your pronouns in public.
Two examples this month reveal just how far the rot against competence has spread.
First, The New York Times reported on how the University of Michigan’s commitment to DEI ground its world-renowned arboretum and botanical gardens to a halt. The arboretum’s strategic plan “calls for employees to rethink the use of Latin and English plant names.”
Think about that for a second: every plant on earth has a different Latin name. This began in the mid-1700s via Swedish biologist and physician, Carl Linnaeus, known as the “father of modern taxonomy.” Today, Latin is the universal language of plant and animal naming, in the way that English is the universal language of air traffic control. This may feel colonial and oppressive if you’re in the control tower at Beijing International or Sheremetyevo Airport in Moscow. But you suck it up because what’s more important than any other factor in air traffic control is not national pride, but clarity and safety.
The same if you’re a botanist; you want to be sure you’re describing the thing you think you’re describing. And hey, the near-universal language of America is English. Hence, English and Latin plant names.
Setting up a new system to name the earth’s 380,000 plant species seems a bit ambitious, if not delusional, for one university’s botany department. So why are we being asked to even think about this?
Because Latin and English plant names have “actively erased” other “ways of knowing.”
The report asks us instead to (and please take a very big breath here) “… adopt a ‘polycentric’ paradigm, decentering singular ways of knowing and co-creating meaning through a variety of epistemic frames, including dominant scientific and horticultural modalities, Two-Eyed Seeing, Kinomaage and other co-created power realignments.”
But as the Times coyly noted: “Only one sentence in the 37-page plan is devoted to the biggest impediment to making the gardens accessible to a more diverse array of visitors: It is hard to get there without a car.”
The second example of DEI replacing skill with identity is Toronto Metropolitan University’s new School of Medicine in Brampton. Last week Robyn Urback raised her hand in The Globe and Mail to say that “A hard diversity quota for medical-school admissions is a terrible, counterproductive idea.”
She writes: “Of the 94 seats available for the 2025 admission cycle, the school says it expects 25 per cent will be admitted through its “general admissions stream,” and the other 75 per cent through its “Indigenous, Black, and equity-deserving admissions pathways.”
What’s more, applicants’ undergraduate degrees can be in any field at all and applicants don’t have to complete the MCAT or Medical College Admission Test.
I’m certain this will have the desired effect of producing more Indigenous, Black and equity-deserving doctors. Just as certain is, some of these medical students won’t actually make it through the other rigours of training to become doctors, and others won’t be very good doctors.
I know we have a doctor shortage. I also know that medical schools don’t discriminate the way they did in the past. Women’s College Hospital in Toronto was established in 1911 with only women doctors because until then, while women could become doctors, they just couldn’t practice as doctors. And for years, Canadian medical schools had a strict quota against Jewish applicants.
This is not that. Wokeism here is the replacement of talent as the primary factor in a profession where medical skill is often the difference between life and death.
Let me end by returning you to the University of Michigan for The New York Times most damning conclusion: “In spite of spending staggering sums of money, hiring scores of diversity administrators and promulgating countless new policies, the efforts failed. Michigan still hasn’t come close to becoming as diverse as it wants to be. Black students, for example, are stuck at around 4 to 5 percent of the undergraduate population in a state where 14 percent of the residents are Black.”
So please, can we reserve a small corner of the world of work where competence and clarity still rule?
Meanwhile…
1. Dem bones. I didn’t know that any dinosaurs get auctioned, let alone the largest ever.I also don’t know of any colonial imperialist oppressor misogynistic orchids. I need to get out more.
2. How to get happier in an unhappy world. Arthur Brooks, the master of staying happy, gives a Zoom talk on Oct. 20 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. ET. Join virtually here.
And how to restore the lost art of conversation? This year’s Massey Lecture, given by Giller-prize winning novelist and poet, Ian Williams, is on Oct. 29th at Koerner Hall. Tickets from $25.
By the way, despite old evidence, happiness does rise when you make more than $75,000 a year.
And speaking of the medical risks of loneliness, they’re dire.
3. Sneakier than Toronto’s raccoons … are Australia’s cockatoos. Even more brutal?These marathon finishes. And not fat cats, but fast cats.
4. Moving pictures. Some of the best are grabbed from CCTV. Plus, a history of cinema in one minute. Plus that strange day when Alexa lost her voice. And the bigger question: should you be nice to your chatbot?
5. Old people. Julie Andrews is 89 and still getting to know us. Giorgio Armani is 90 and says he’ll retire in two or three years.
6. The angry Welshman. In 2013 James Howells dropped off his hard drive at a recycling centre. It contained what’s now nearly a billion dollars worth of cryptocurrency and its passwords. He’s trying to get it back. Town Council won’t let him look in the local dump to find it. He’s suing.
7. Trips we won’t be taking. Yes, there’s still a tour operator offering adventure trips to Afghanistan. You can even do a long weekend there. These used to be called ‘war tours’. This one feels more like ‘death tours’.
8. The perils of productivity. Tim Harford always has too many projects on the go. Trevor Noah gets depressed. Major league baseballers take out loans. Fire stations get torched. And rich people: do they lack grit?
9. Cityscapes transformed. 70% of the people on New York’s Fifth Avenue are pedestrians, but they can only use half the space. So the city is spending $350 million to make it more pedestrian-friendly as Paris did with the Champs-Élysées and London, Oxford Street.
Meanwhile, in Toronto, The Globe and Mail’s architecture critic, Alex Bozikovic, wants to close Billy Bishop Airport and turn it into an urban park.
Speaking of the teeter-totter tech world, the edtech startup, Byju’s, once worth $22 billion, is now worth zero.
10. Shocking behaviour. A cheating scandal has engulfed the World Conker Championships. It’s the British game where one child has a chestnut (a conker) on the end of a string and takes turns trying to break another one’s with it. It’s a sad day for the Empire.
[Late-breaking news! “King Conker,” David Jakins, a retired engineer, was later cleared of cheating and his name has been engraved on the trophy.]
He told The Daily Star: “ We are gentlemen at the World Conker Championships and we don’t cheat. I’ve been playing and practicing for decades…. “I admit I had the steel conker in my pocket but I didn’t play with it. I show it to people as a joke but I won’t be bringing it again.”
11. What I’m liking. The Canadian Opera Company, a troupe I’ve paid lip service to but not actually seen since before Covid. When it comes to opera, I’m a tunes and melody guy. So I got a ticket to see Verdi’s Nabucco which has lots of both. And oh boy, what a show it was! If you’re looking for an art form and a company where everything old is new again, make your way here.
Plus, how to get hooked on opera.
12. What we should all be liking. November 11 is Remembrance Day and, lest we forget, it’s time to buy our poppies. We can now create a Digital Poppy online and support The Legion National Foundation’s Poppy Fund.
13. Who I’m missing. Michael de Pencier died this month. He was 89 and ‘exemplary.’
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WHY LIMIT NEXT SUMMER TO ONE ADVENTURE HOLIDAY WHEN YOU CAN HAVE TWO?
If you’re looking for true adventure next summer, Jean and I highly recommend karibu adventures who we went kayaking with off Vancouver Island and then hiking in the Alta Valsesia in the Italian Alps.
Five thumbs up!
On Wednesday, October 30, we’re hosting an information webinar on these trips and more with karibu’s Andrea Mandel-Campbell from 6:00-6:45 p.m.ET.
Register here to attend the webinar.
Onward,
Bob