David Millard Haskell social scientist and university professor on CRT in Ontario schools
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Summary
In this episode, I speak with social scientist, author, researcher, and author of a piece in C2C Journal about Critical Race Theory and White Privilege instruction in schools across the country. We talk about the dangers of anti-racism education in schools, and how it impacts students of colour.
Transcript
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You wrote a piece recently in C2C Journal, and it was basically on parental pushback in the fight
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against critical race theory coming in with the Ontario School Board. And that Ontario School
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Board has already had a few flare-ups with some kind of unusual occurrences, I guess you could
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say. They're quite something. But in the sense of critical race theory, I mean, a lot of people
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think that's just an American phenomenon, but obviously it's an issue up here as well.
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Yeah, it is. And what people don't often realize is they don't tend to use the words
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critical race theory. I mean, they've gotten on to the fact that people don't like it, that the
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United States certainly had a backlash among parents. And so here in Canada, educators who
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are in favor of things like critical race theory don't call it that at all. They'll call it things
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like anti-racism education. And part of that will also be white privilege instruction. So parents
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have probably heard about that, you know, that their kids are being taught about white privilege
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or that their kids are being exposed to anti-racism education. But what they need to know
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is that the foundation of that really is critical race theory. And it's just the practical applications
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of it. In terms of anti-racism education, for example, we've got these books out there,
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How to Be Antiracist. One was written by a fellow, he's at Boston University, his name's Ibram
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Kindy. And it essentially says that discrimination based on skin color is a good thing. He will say
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that if it is anti-racist discrimination, and it's taking on past wrongs, past historical wrongs,
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then that's a good thing. So essentially, with anti-racism education, we're actually seeing
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students being told discrimination can be a good thing. Yeah, it's kind of gone a bizarro full
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circle. I mean, I've seen that. We're just adding to division. I mean, I think the goal for initially
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when there was problems with true systemic racism and institutionalized racism was that race just
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wouldn't be a matter anymore. We'll get to a point where it's irrelevant. You know, we are treating each
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other as equal. And now we're kind of dividing each other on the basis of anti-racism. It's
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counterintuitive, but that's where this sort of theory starts to come about.
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Yeah. And I mean, where it is most insidious is this teaching of white privilege, which is seen
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across all the boards in Ontario and certainly all across the West and everywhere in Canada,
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everywhere in the US. And this idea of white privilege, just in case people aren't familiar
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with it, it essentially teaches that if you're white, many of the successes or maybe even the
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majority of your successes are due to your white skin. Now, conversely, it's equally damaging to
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students of color because it teaches that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them
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and they can't succeed. So in that, we have this subtle racism of low expectations. And the thing that
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I've pointed out in the article that you mentioned in the CDC Journal is that the research surrounding
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things like diversity education, anti-racism education, and in particular, white privilege,
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the research actually shows that it doesn't do what it intends to do. In fact, it does harm.
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Well, yeah. I mean, if somebody feels, I mean, kids are in a developmental stage at that point,
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they're very impressionable. If you're being taught at a young age that you're at a disadvantage, I mean,
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I guess for some, it would inspire people to rise above and push past that. But for others,
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it might give a sense of defeatism and actually, you know, it'd be a self-fulfilling prophecy. And
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that's not good for anybody. No, no. And you know what? You should have been a social scientist
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yourself because what you're talking about is a really well-studied phenomenon called stereotype threat.
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Now, stereotype threat says exactly what you're saying. And we've got a lot of studies
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surrounding it. It's essentially that if you keep telling students of color or people of color
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that the deck is stacked against them, then they'll begin to believe it. And then they will
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underperform. The interesting thing is when you have people of color who are immigrants to Canada,
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for example, and they don't buy into that particular false notion that the deck is stacked against
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them, they actually overperform. The latest Statistics Canada data showed that people of color
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actually have a greater chance of getting a university degree than white populations that
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have been here for decades or hundreds of years. So we're seeing that now. And really,
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it's a testament to this idea that the harder you work and also your home life, if you have two
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parents that are together and in a solid relationship, those are the things that matter.
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Yeah, there's other social factors beyond that. And some of that does put light to it. I mean,
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we've seen a great success in Asian and South Asian populations, for example, and immigrants in most
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measures, whether it's educational or financial and such. But those factors, when you dig into it,
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tend to be. It's a strong, supportive family unit. It's a culture very much of ambition and moving
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ahead. And those are beyond. I mean, if it was just purely racial disadvantages, they wouldn't be
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able to excel as well as they have. Well, that's really true. And let me just give an example
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from my own area. So I'm in Waterloo Region, and the Board of Education is the Waterloo Region
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District School Board. And we currently have a director of education who's been pushing so hard
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to get identity to be the key focus of the Board of Education, to the exclusion of things like basic,
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numeracy, literacy. He's really focused on identity. And he's had some pushback on that from parents who
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are saying, why is this the focus? And he felt so much pressure. In fact, he had to write this op-ed
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in the local newspaper. And in it, he goes on to say that we need to focus on identity because,
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and I'm going to try and get the quote as close as possible. He says, it's no secret since the
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advent of public education, identity has been a predictor of outcome. Well, I looked at that,
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and I knew it was just completely at odds with the research, because it's simply not so. In terms of
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identity, it's one of the worst predictors, the most unreliable predictors of academic outcome.
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So I quickly shot out a letter to the editor. And among other things, I noted that in the UK,
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they'd just done the largest study of the effect of race on academic outcome. The UK Commission on
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Race and Ethnic Disparities put this out, I think it was March or May 2021. Anyway, they went on to say
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that the evidence shows conclusively family influence, socioeconomic background, culture,
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and religion have the most significant impact on things like academic achievement. And it was
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specifically, they noticed this specifically, they say, but racism was one of the least important
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factors in all of this. So anyway, I shot this out, but you'd think that research would have an effect
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on the leaders in our educational community. But I think that they're blinded by ideology.
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Yeah, and again, we just get the most worried. I think perhaps that's where it's finally getting
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this pushback, because now it's actually targeting young children. It's not even in the levels of our
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post-secondary, where we've always seen kind of some woke lunacy taking hold over the years. But
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at least those are grown, you know, people, students, and so on, who can make up their own mind. But when we
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start to bring these ideologies into the classrooms of kids at such a young age, and on theories that
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are ideologically based, as you said, I mean, it can cause a lot of damage. I feel for the
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white children who are in class, too, who are almost being shamed, you know, and called out of
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the group. And again, that's the opposite of what we should have ever done. I mean, there was shaming
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and abuse against minority children in the past, and it was terrible. But turning it around and doing it
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now with, you know, children who aren't people of color isn't helping the situation whatsoever.
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Yeah, and it cuts both ways. I mean, the students of color are also being told, you're not good
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enough. Right? I mean, it's racism both ways. And you're absolutely right to say that the effect on
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young people is significant. Again, I came before my school board, and I presented them with the
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research. And this research is detailed in the piece that I wrote in C2C Journal as well.
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So if your audience wants to take a look, they can go there. But let me just point out a few
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things. So there was a 2019 study that was done in the Journal of Experimental Psychology General,
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that was the name of it. And the researcher was lead researcher was from Colgate University. Anyway,
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he wanted to look at what effect would teaching white privilege have on the attitudes of students.
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And well, they found out that it did absolutely nothing to make people more sympathetic to poor
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black or people of color didn't do anything good. But what the researchers did find,
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and I'm going to read the quote I have up here, I left it on my screen.
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The researchers concluded learning about white privilege reduces sympathy, increases blame,
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and decreases external attributes, attributions for white people struggling with poverty. So in
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short, what they found was that teaching about white privilege doesn't do any good, but it does do harm.
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And it actually makes students more hostile toward poor whites.
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Yeah, and the division doesn't serve anybody. The later part of your article, though, does cover,
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I mean, the growing resistance to this kind of ideology. I mean, this hasn't gone unopposed in
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Ontario or in the United States, for that matter. You know, are parents finally standing back? I mean,
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standing up. And one of the problems we've had is a lot of apathy when it comes to electing school
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boards. People don't pay attention. Most people can't even name their local school trustee.
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You think there's going to be maybe more participation, people paying attention now that things are kind of
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getting a little off the rails? I know there will be. I know there will be. For example,
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I was concerned. I've got a daughter still in high school here in the Waterloo region. And I hear what
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she's being told in class. And I know that it is empirically incorrect, the things that she's being
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taught by these so-called anti-racism educators. So I took it upon myself to start a local chapter of
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the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. Now, even though that sounds kind of on the left,
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it's actually dedicated to preserving the ideas put forward by Martin Luther King Jr., that we should
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judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin. It's really about being
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pro-human. Anyway, I started this chapter of Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, or FAIR.
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And I've had hundreds of parents show interest. I've got a solid, just under a hundred who are solid
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members. And then we'll get more and more interest from just supporters. And I'm not the only, I'm not
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the only group. There's Action for Canada. There's Parents as First Educators. And each of these groups
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is searching for trustees, people who would be candidates for trustees, to bring back sanity to our
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boards. And the response has been overwhelming. And not just in Waterloo Region, but across Ontario. And I'm not
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sure what's happening in municipal or trustee elections across Canada. But I can only assume that parents for the
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good of their children are finally waking up and they're taking action.
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Well, that's it. And I mean, I kind of like the naming, whether it's left, right, it doesn't matter.
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You know, I mean, the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, because that's what the ideologues will
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always throw back. If you question it, you're immediately labeled as a racist. Well, a racist. I mean,
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if you oppose our anti-racist view, it means you thus must be pro-racist. Well, no. And it's a lazy way to frame
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a debate or a way to shut one down. And, you know, we need to have rational discussion on this.
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We do. And I think that they've overplayed their hand. And now parents who typically have a lot more
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common sense than the people who have been indoctrinated through education programs, they're
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seeing what is actually going on. And they're saying, your definitions simply do not make sense.
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You know, because we, in our hearts, we all know that discrimination based on skin color is a
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terrible thing. And we almost got rid of it. We were so close. And then suddenly, we have these
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woke activists who are coming back and saying, no, you know what, actually, let's bring back
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discrimination based on skin color. Well, this is just playing with fire. And again, I'm all about the
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data. I want to know what actually will do the most good in our society to bring unity. And the
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things that they're promoting under the guise of anti-racism education or critical race theory or
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white privilege, it doesn't do good. It does harm. Well, that's it. And being about the data, I mean,
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we're seeing examples. We've seen, you know, places where this has been brought in. I mean, hey,
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if we saw great successes and these graduates coming out that are unified and functional and happy and get
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along with each other, then great. Well, let's carry on. But there really hasn't been any evidence
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of that. Again, and as far as I can see, it's actually adding to division, no matter what they
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may say the motivations are. Oh, for sure. And again, the data is just so ample. If these people who
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are running our education systems would just allow it to be presented to parents. I'll give you another
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example. So this is a great one. There's a professor at Princeton. Her name is Elizabeth Paluck,
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P-A-L-U-C-K. And she did a 2001 study. It was published in the Annual Review of Psychology,
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which is one of the top psychology journals in the world. And so she does this meta-analysis of
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400 existing studies. And what she wanted to see is what good does diversity training do? Now,
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keep in mind that things like anti-racism education and white privilege, these are the core modules of
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diversity training. Whether it's done in a business or in a school, it's the same stuff.
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So they're trying to look at these 400 studies that have already said what's being done with diversity
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training. And this is what they came up with. So after looking at these 400 papers, they saw that
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the bold claims that were being made were completely false. Because in terms of this kind of instruction,
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the average impact, and again, I'm giving the data completely from this paper, the average impact of
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diversity, equity, and inclusion training is zero. The impact is zero. It doesn't change you.
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It doesn't help. But then you've got other people like Frank Dobbin, who's a sociologist at Harvard.
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He said, yep, that's true. But he did his own studies. And what he looked at was, well,
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it doesn't do good, but does it do harm? And he says, yeah, it does. In fact, this kind of diversity
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training, whether it's white privilege or anti-racism education, it has a fairly good chance.
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I can't remember the percentage he gave, but a fairly good chance of making people more prejudice.
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So it won't do good, but it can do harm. And this is what we're promoting in our schools and in our universities.
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It's terribly unfortunate. Well, I'm glad to see efforts are being made to call it out and hopefully bring it to
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account. I mean, there are democratic means to change some of these school boards. Universities, that's going to be a much
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bigger and harder task. But at least, you know, to keep the kids just sticking to their, I would think,
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a rational curriculum and trying to keep, you know, things on the up and up there until they can grow old
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enough to sort some of those things out would be really important. So I appreciate you calling it out
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in your article and coming on to talk to us today. Where do we find more information about what you're
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So I would encourage people, first of all, to go to the article in C2C. And one of the, it's about CRTC.
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I can't remember the title, but it's Parental Pushback, I think is the subtitle. And it's in
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C2C Journal. And that actually has links in the actual article to the organizations, the grassroots
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community organizations that are pushing back against some of this stuff. So that's a place to
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go. Another place to go would be to the main website for the Foundation Against Intolerance and
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Racism. And look for the local chapter. There are now chapters across Canada. And find your local
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Great. Well, yeah, it was in the C2C Journal, which is C and then the number two C for folks
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Googling it. It was Parental Pushback, the Fight Against Critical Race Theory by David Millard Haskell.
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So if you search that out, you'll find, as you said, that the article has a lot of links and background as
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well for all the rest of that. So thank you again for coming on to talk about it today. And then let's hope we
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can return some productive rationality to our education system.