Juno News - November 17, 2019Why can’t we criticize ‘Diversity & Inclusion’ dogma？ A conversation with Mark Hecht
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Summary
Mark Hecht is an instructor in the Earth and Environmental Sciences at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. Until a few months ago, he was just kind of your regular old university instructor. But then controversy hit in September of this year when Mark wrote an op-ed called, "Ethnic Diversity Harms a Country's Social Trust, Economic Wellbeing." In this episode, we talk about Mark's experience with the criticism, the support he received, and what's happening with his university now.
Transcript
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Hi, everyone. Welcome to the True North podcast. My name is Lindsay. I'm an investigative journalism
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fellow with True North. And today, my guest is Mark Hecht. Mark Hecht is an instructor in
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Earth and Environmental Sciences at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta. And until a few
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months ago, he was just kind of your regular old university instructor. But then controversy hit
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in September of this year, when Mark wrote an op-ed called Ethnic Diversity Harms a Country's
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Social Trust, Economic Wellbeing, argues instructor. So that op-ed was published in the Vancouver Sun,
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but subsequently unpublished. So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about Mark's
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experience, the reaction, the criticism, the support he received, and what's happening with his university
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now. So welcome, Mark. Thank you, Lindsay. Good to have you, or good to be here with you.
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Let's talk about your op-ed. So Ethnic Diversity Harms a Country's Social Trust, Economic Wellbeing.
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You know, why did you decide to write the op-ed? What was the process of pitching it? Can you explain
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that to us? Sure. Well, let's first of all clarify the title, because that was actually the Vancouver
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Sun that put that title in. My own personal title was Trust Requires Less Diversity Canada.
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So it went into the Vancouver Sun on Friday, September 6th, and I had pitched it about a week
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before to the editor in charge, Gordon Clark, I think it was. Anyway, I sent it in, and he said,
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looks interesting. I'll put it into the next Saturday edition or the weekend edition coming
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up, because it was a slightly longer piece. It was about 11 or 1200 words. They usually like to
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have something a little shorter, but they had space in the weekend edition. So it went up on Friday on
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the online edition, and almost immediately there was reaction on Twitter, which was pretty severe,
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I guess you could say. But it still went to the printing press and was published in an actual
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newspaper and went out to the Vancouver Sun subscribers on Saturday. So over the course of
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that sort of Friday evening to the end of Saturday, it was online for maybe all of half a day before it
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finally came down. So what kind of claims and what kind of research did you talk about in the op-ed that
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people found so questionable and worth suppressing? You know, people have asked me this quite a bit
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and said, well, if there's anything you could change, would there be anything at all? And I
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would say there's probably one word that I would have added at the end of the piece, and that's the
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word dogma. And I'd actually put it at the very beginning, and I said, this was essentially a critique
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of the dogma of diversity, tolerance, and inclusion, which is basically poking at the tenets of Canadian
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society right now. But I think a lot of people took those words, diversity, tolerance, inclusion,
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but specifically diversity, and kind of twisted it into some sort of racial thing that I was meant to
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be saying, I guess. So seeing diversity as something that was race-based, which is not at all what I was
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talking about. So you wouldn't use the word dogma? I would put dogma, sorry, I would put dogma
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at the very end, because I also put, kind of in quotes, we should say goodbye to diversity,
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tolerance, and inclusion. What I was really saying is we should say goodbye to the dogma of diversity,
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tolerance, and inclusion, just like I did at the beginning of the piece. Right, because one of the
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conclusions you came to, I suppose, was if we're going to have a very diverse multicultural society,
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either, you know, the people are going to end up in ethnic enclaves, you know, as we're seeing,
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you know, in Vancouver, British Columbia, and I suppose in Ontario, too, like the highly diverse parts
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of Canada. So either that is the result, as we've seen in other European countries, or we, if we want to
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have high social trust, we just can't have as much diversity. Was that what you were saying?
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Yeah, essentially. I mean, the research is pretty clear, and I would say it's even something we all
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know, that every society can handle a little bit of, I guess we could say newcomers or immigrants
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that will be eventually integrated into society. But if you have too much at one particular time,
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then people will tend to isolate themselves into enclaves. And then you have to deal with those kinds of,
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divisions in society. And the more divisions you have, the more you break down social trust.
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And how would you define social trust? Like, what is an example of a community with high social
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trust or low social trust? Can you just kind of describe that for people who are struggling to
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There's always the wallet test. The wallet test is probably the greatest test of all for defining social
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trust. It's just how likely is it that you would feel if you left your wallet, say, at a coffee shop,
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how likely is it that you would get that back, or at least that you would perceive that you would get
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it back from a total stranger? That's probably the easiest way to define social trust. When you know
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you're going to get your wallet back, you probably live in a society that has high social trust.
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If you feel like you will never get it back, you're probably in a society that has low social trust.
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And so I saw you briefly mentioned, so your article comes out on September 6th. And then I saw it too
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on Twitter immediately, the backlash, the white nationalist, white supremacist, racist, etc. The
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various claims were just coming in hard. I was kind of following it live when that was happening.
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Um, and so some people took issue with the Gatestone Institute, which is, I suppose, uh, the
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institute that published the research you were citing. I hadn't heard of them before, but a lot of people
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were trying to discredit, uh, the research in your article by saying there was something wrong with the
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Gatestone Institute. Have you ever heard of any problems with the Gatestone Institute?
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Um, yeah, I've definitely heard of problems. And if I could change something, I would probably, okay, I would change
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the word dogma, I'd add the word dogma, and I would get rid of the Gatestone Institute. Um, and I'd probably
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use, uh, Rud Koopmans, who's a well-known researcher in this area. Um, but he essentially says exactly what
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the Gatestone Institute says, or at least what I quoted from the Gatestone Institute. Um, you know,
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was it the best choice for citation? Probably not. But their message was still the same as the sort of
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high-level researchers. Some of, I'll just give some examples of what people were saying. So
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the MLA for Delta North, Ravi Kalon, uh, he wrote in the Vancouver Sun, the article was, in short,
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racism and white supremacy, wearing a thin disguise of academic bluster. It was every kind of wrong.
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I was floored. I was angry. I was sad. I couldn't sleep. So this was the kind of, um, reaction we were
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seeing. So your article came up on September 6th and was it taken down from the Vancouver Sun website
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the same day? I think it actually came down like the middle of Saturday on the 7th. Okay. When it
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actually disappeared completely. Okay. But yeah, so it was too late for them to remove it from the
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print edition. So it is in, in the print edition of the Vancouver Sun for that day. Um, and so the only
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way to read your article now is if you have, um, a paper from September 7th, I suppose, or if you
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look on internet archives. So, you know, the Vancouver Sun completely scrubbed it from their website.
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Um, they apologized. And for the next week, we were looking at op-eds from various news outlets in Canada
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talking about why diversity is great. So what does it say that, um, they had to suppress your article
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and subsequently publish a whole bunch of articles talking about why diversity is great? Can we not
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handle one maybe dissenting or critical opinion or argument? Yeah, we're really at this point in
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society right now where we're definitely struggling with freedom of expression or free speech. Um, and this
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is a pretty good example of it. Actually, we just saw most recently Don Cherry's, um, comments being
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suppressed as well. But I mean, we're seeing it throughout the society and it's, um, it, it's a
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strange topic to be, to be sure. Um, yeah, I don't know where we are, but it's pretty bad when people
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can't even talk about simple things that in fact, what I said in the article is not anything new. It's,
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it's well-known social science data. So the fact that I'm actually bringing up social science data,
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um, and people can't even argue the basics of what's actually well-known is kind of disturbing.
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Yeah. And, and right away you're hit with accusations of, of white nationalists and,
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and white supremacist and bigot and, and hateful and all that. Even, uh, the BC human rights commissioner,
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Mr. Kasari Govinder, um, said your article was a call to hatred. How would you respond to that?
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I don't even know where to start with that. I mean, there's so much on the far left of,
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um, if somebody doesn't like something on the far left, they simply throw out, uh, the common
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statement that somebody's being hateful, which of course is pretty poorly defined. But for the most
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part, I find anybody that says this is hateful usually doesn't have an argument or a leg to stand
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on for any sort of opinion that they actually have. Um, and the fact that BC human rights
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person is saying this kind of stuff is, uh, indicative of a larger problem we have in society
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right now. Yeah. Well, I mean, in, in the criminal code, you know, we do have hate speech laws in
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Canada. So, um, incitement to hatred is in our criminal code of, of like hate speech laws,
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incitement to hatred. So I feel like calling it a call to hatred, which was the wording of the,
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the human rights commissioner. It's almost like one step away from calling it criminal hate speech,
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but without wanting to maybe go that far in case you would sue her or something. So I thought that
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was, um, a little sketchy. So, you know, all this was out in the open. This was the public reaction.
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Uh, a lot of Vancouver Sun journalists getting publicly angry at their own publication. And,
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you know, as I mentioned, the, the editor in chief, Harold Monroe, he, he apologized and said,
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you know, the Vancouver Sun celebrates diversity and all that. Um, which is kind of interesting that,
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that a newspaper has a mission to celebrate something. Um, but what was your experience
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behind the scenes? So specifically within your university, Mount Royal, uh, were you getting
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support? Were you getting hate mail? Were you getting fan mail? What was going on in your inbox?
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It's been a mix. Um, in the hallways, I had a lot of people coming up to me and just patting me on
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the back and saying, thank you for saying what you said. Um, please don't use my name in any way
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though. Um, in this whole cancel culture that we have, it's understandable. Nobody wants to be
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sticking their necks out and having their heads chopped off. So I did have a lot of people in the
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hallways just saying those kinds of things. Um, and yet at the same time, I've also had colleagues
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that won't even look me in the eye in the hallway anymore. Uh, so there's the two extremes on either
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end, but internally in my own department, um, I'd say that's also been a mix. I've had the chair
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basically say he didn't agree with what I said, um, which he's entitled to that opinion,
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but I would say he overstepped his role, which is he stepped. I don't know if I should say this.
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No, I'm going to say it anyway. He came into my office and said, I don't agree with what you said,
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which I think as a leader is the one thing you shouldn't be doing as a leader. You should come
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in and say, this is what I'm doing as a leader, but I'm not bringing in my own personal opinions.
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And if I am going to bring in my own personal opinions, then I'm stating right up. This is
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just you and me discussing personal opinions. So I think the chair overstepped his boundaries in
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terms of the role he plays. Um, and in fact, I don't think he really knows what it means to be
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a leader. Um, that's pretty harsh, but anyway, that's where I stand. Um, is this, um, Jonathan Whitley?
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No, Jonathan Whitley is actually one step above the chair. So the chair often, um,
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facilitates or goes between the various disciplines to figure out who's going to get course load work
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and stuff like that. But Jonathan Whitley is actually one step higher. He's the Dean.
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So he has the ultimate control over, um, the money and the allocation of work.
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Right. And so this is the Dean that, um, canceled your field school after this controversy happened.
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So after the op-ed about, uh, what was it? A week and a half later, I had the,
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um, the first of three information sessions for the field school that I was going to run.
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And about two hours before the first one was to go, uh, I ended up in Jonathan Whitley's office and
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he said, the field school is canceled. You know, I basically said, so this is, has to do with the op-ed.
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And he said, well, it may appear that way, but that's, there were other considerations.
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Anyway, he wouldn't go much beyond that. Um, but obviously it had to do with the op-ed.
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So anyway, someone from international education actually had to come down and, um, sort of intercept
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the students as they were coming in the door and basically tell them the field school is canceled.
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Because on your, um, profile on Mount Royal's website, I mean, one of your, uh, things is
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listed as field school. So have you led them before?
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No, not, not as the lead, not as the lead hand on this. Um, I've been involved in other
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field schools, particularly through the geology side of our department. Um, but I haven't led
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my own. So this was going to be the first one that I was actually going to do myself.
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But everything was set to go before this happened. Like you had your whole syllabus
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planned out. And I noticed on your syllabus and it looks like a great, it was called sustainable
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Europe, right? Yeah. It was like an ecological, like geography field school to Europe, different
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countries in Europe. Yeah. It was mostly looking at, um, what European cities in particular
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are doing in terms of sustainability. And that had a few different themes, you know, economic,
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mobility, transportation, um, but also social, um, social considerations as well, which I think
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is where I got into the most trouble because I, one of the themes I talked about or one of
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the topics was social trust, uh, which of course is a really prominent subject in Denmark and
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the Netherlands, which is where we were going to go. Um, anyway, that's also what I talked
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about in the op-ed. So obviously having something in the field school and controversy with the op-ed
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did not please, uh, the Mount Royal administration enough that they said, okay, we're getting rid
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of this guy and we're getting rid of the field school.
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So after this happened, the Society for Academic Freedom and Scholarship, they sent an open letter,
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um, and it's on their website, SAFS.ca, S-A-F-S.ca. They wrote, wrote an open letter saying,
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you know, did this have to do with Mark's op-ed? Cause that would, uh, be kind of an infringement
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of academic freedom. Did they say anything substantial in their response to the Society
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for Academic Freedom and Scholarship? Uh, no, Jonathan Withey wrote back a letter,
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a little over a week later. And in the letter, which is also posted on the same website, it's also
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posted on my, my website as well. He essentially, of all the things he said, there was only one thing
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in there which really made a definitive statement. And that was that, um, field schools will not be led
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by part-time instructors, which is what I am. Even though this had long been approved, Mount Royal has
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always had part-time instructors do field schools. It's even had contract, um, people come in and do
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field schools for it. So suddenly this was a change in policy, like overnight, which just happened to be
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coincidental to this field school. Um, so what now at, at Mount Royal? Are you staying? Are you leaving?
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What's happening now? I will be finishing my contracts at the end of this semester. So I'm teaching three
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courses right now. Um, and then, yeah, I will be leaving. I'm moving and I'm no longer working at
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Mount Royal in any capacity whatsoever. As of, as of like December, January? Uh, yeah, end of December.
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Yeah. So did the op-ed controversy play any part in you, uh, wanting to leave? Did you not apply to have
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your contract renewed or anything like that? I've been working at Mount Royal for almost 12 years,
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and my plan was actually to, um, no longer pick up teaching contracts in the following semester,
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and I made that very clear actually in the summer of this year. Um, so I was going to move to Van,
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or Victoria, um, essentially January 1st, but I would still come back for the field school and run that
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every, every year for the next, who knows, probably five, six years, something like that.
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Um, and that was all well known. Everybody knew that. So yeah, now I'm not doing the field school
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either. So I'm completely leaving Mount Royal. I see. Um, so did you, are you kind of leaving
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Mount Royal feeling like a black sheep? Uh, I don't know if I feel like a black sheep. I probably am a
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black sheep, but, um, I'm disappointed in the leadership is what I would have to say. Uh,
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whether some of my colleagues agree or disagree with what I said is, is sort of tangential. Um,
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but clearly some of the faculty that disagree with what I've said have been, um, kind of prominent
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behind the scenes in terms of trying to influence the decisions of the administration. And I think
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they've probably been successful in, I mean, I'm only guessing, but I would say they've been
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influential, influential in, in getting the administration to remove me completely, which
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means canceling the field school. Um, so yeah, I guess overall, I'm just feeling disappointed in the
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leadership mostly, even though I've had actually a very good teaching career and enjoyed Mount Royal
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for the most part. It's been very good, but yeah, leaving, leaving on a bit of a sour note.
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Is the op-ed controversy something you kind of want to just move past or do you want to try to
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keep these issues? I keep talking about them and, and, um, keep trying to do research and work with,
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Um, you know, kind of thrown into this role and I never saw myself in this role, which of course,
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you know what this is all about. You got thrown into this role that you're now in. Um, and in a
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certain way, it's kind of, it's kind of a passion that's been thrown into me. That's like, no, we've
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got to keep talking about this and doing this. Um, there would definitely be some people who would try
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and, you know, hide in a corner for a while and hope everything would go away. But no, I think this
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is actually like inflamed me to just push forward and keep these topics going. Um, I wrote somewhere
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where I can't remember where it was now, but you basically messed with the wrong bear. The battle
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is on. So yeah, I'm definitely feeling this sense that we've got to keep doing this, keep pushing
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forward, keep the topic open. It can't be suppressed. People need to talk about these
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things. Great. And so how can we, uh, follow your work on that? Do you have a blog? Are you going
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to use social media? Are you going to write a book? Uh, there's a couple of ways. One, I do have my
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own website, uh, my own blog at www.markheck.com. And I've been writing articles there, posting every
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week that might become more formalized. I can't really say anything at this point, but it might
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become more formalized. Uh, I've also written a book, which has kind of been sitting around.
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It was almost a project of mine for a number of years. I self-published it, The Rules of Invasion,
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Why Europeans Naturally Invaded the New World. Um, which again, some people think this is a racist,
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you know, Europeans are supreme and superior and all sorts of things like that. But that's not actually
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the argument I make in the book. But the book does have a lot of topics that are pertinent to
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what we're talking about here and now, which is, you know, what are the boundaries of society? Why
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do we have certain identities? And do the patterns that we see as humans, are they kind of similar to
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the patterns you see in the natural world as well? Um, so I think that'll be officially published
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sometime soon as opposed to just self-published. So yeah, there's a few venues.
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Great. Well, we are really looking forward to following your work. Thank you so much for
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talking with me today, Mark. Thanks, Lizzie. It was a real pleasure.
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Thanks, everyone. And see you on the next podcast.