Universities are supposed to be bastions of free inquiry. Increasingly, they are more interested in indoctrination – training faculty to adopt and enforce a single ideological framework.

In February 2026, the University of Alberta advanced a draft revision to its recruitment policy, proposing to eliminate references to historically underrepresented groups and remove equity-based tiebreakers when candidates are equally qualified.

Some hail these changes as signaling the end of “woke” capture, yet the ideological infrastructure driving woke/EDI orthodoxy persists across higher education: dedicated EDI offices, race-based hiring and admissions, racial segregation of events/spaces/awards, anonymous bias-reporting systems, and EDI-specific research grants.

Anti-racism training is another widespread element of this infrastructure. It is common at universities across Canada including Wilfrid Laurier, Guelph, Queen’s, McMaster, Concordia, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Dalhousie, and McGill and it further primes scholars in ideology over inquiry.

Wilfrid Laurier University’s “Anti-Racism 101” onboarding course for new faculty and staff, introduced in 2023, exemplifies this persistent machinery. Far from a dated artifact, it reveals why universities often amplify societal orthodoxies rather than critiquing them – from cultivating racial guilt and anti-Western self-loathing to the uneven response to campus antisemitism following the October 7, 2023, Hamas terror attacks on Israel.

Courses like Laurier’s contribute to this orthodoxy in two principal ways. First, they chill dissent by presenting a single interpretive lens as authoritative and morally compulsory. Second, they actively re-shape how scholars are permitted to think about prevailing ideologies – replacing the Popperian model of conjecture and refutation with an unfalsifiable doctrinal framework.

Far from an exercise in balanced scholarship, Antiracism 101 proceeds from a foregone conclusion – that systemic racism is pervasive in Canada – and employs a battery of manipulative techniques to shepherd participants toward that view. Its opening glossary installs critical social justice theory as the sole framework. It relies on hyperbole and selective historical framing to overstate slavery’s role in Canada’s past. It treats simple group differences in outcomes as proof of causation, while ignoring alternative explanations and multivariate analysis. Finally, the course steers learners toward ideological conformity through unfalsifiable claims and a guilt-entrapment structure that routes every response toward complicity.

As Jonathan Haidt warns, when dissent goes silent, institutions become “structurally stupid.” Laurier’s course embeds this risk at the faculty entry point by prescribing orthodoxy instead of promoting free inquiry. This analysis offers a lens on why reforms like Alberta’s face uphill battles – revealing the entrenched, doctrinaire machinery that sustains ideological conformity at the expense of scholarly rigour.

The university’s purpose

The legislative object of Laurier is “the pursuit of learning through scholarship, teaching and research within a spirit of free inquiry and expression.” The Act emphasizes intellectual openness because it is the indispensable condition for the Popperian process. Jonathan Rauch puts the point plainly: “you can’t have the advancement [of] knowledge, you can’t have science broadly defined without disagreement – that’s the engine of the whole thing.”

By presenting Critical Social Justice Theory (CSJT) as both morally authoritative and intellectually privileged, the course encloses inquiry within one worldview. Alternative perspectives are not engaged as legitimate competitors. Doctrinal training of this kind erects an intellectual fence: the scholar so confined cannot discover what lies beyond it and thus cannot exercise the freedom of inquiry the university is meant to protect.

The ideological framing

The course opens with a “Glossary of Terms” that initially appears to be a neutral primer defining concepts such as power, oppression, and privilege. These apparently familiar words are actually key terms in CSJT, and they establish the interpretive frame that governs everything that follows.

The glossary redefines “power” as a morally suspect distribution of advantage aligned with group benefit, echoing Michel Foucault’s concept of power–knowledge, rather than as legitimate authority. Within this framing, to dispute claims of racism is to side with “power” rather than truth. Oppression renders group identity morally decisive while making intent irrelevant. Privilege asserts inherited moral guilt, grounding the course’s claim that all Canadians “inherit the legacy of racism.” Together, these definitions displace classical moral individualism and replace it with collective moral responsibility.

These concepts are not presented as contested, nor are competing perspectives – such as classical liberal accounts – acknowledged or examined.

This framing is deepened through the land acknowledgement, which states that “colonialism is a current, ongoing process.” Residence is transformed into participation in an active structure of domination. By explaining that land acknowledgements express gratitude “to those whose territory you reside on,” the course implicitly calls into question Crown sovereignty and fee-simple ownership. Yet the course does not explain the context of these claims in post-colonial theory nor acknowledge their contested status.

Together, the glossary and land acknowledgement function as ideological priming, furnishing the learner with a vocabulary and narrative that interpret racial relations primarily through an oppressor–oppressed binary. A university onboarding program worthy of the name would disclose its theoretical commitments and expose faculty to competing interpretations rather than silently foreclosing them.

Historical hyperbole

In its section on slavery, Antiracism 101 tells learners that “slavery is one of Canada’s best-kept secrets.” The claim is hyperbolic. It is not presented as a question open to debate – but as established fact—and it rests on no contextual evidence whatsoever.

The course notes that “Between 1628 and the 1800s, 3,000 people of African ancestry who were enslaved in the United States were brought to Canada and forced to live here in slavery,” while acknowledging Canada as “also the destination for the Underground Railroad.” Yet the very next sentence pivots to examples of post-abolition discrimination: “generations of African Canadians faced overt discrimination in employment, housing, schools, churches, restaurants, etc.” By briefly nodding to the Underground Railroad’s role as a refuge only to immediately offset it with later forms of racism, the section performs a not-so-subtle bait-and-switch.

While slavery is indefensible in any form, the course downplays the historical distinctiveness of Canada’s record: in 1793, Upper Canada passed the first anti-slavery law in the British Empire; by 1833, the British Empire abolished slavery altogether – three decades before the American Civil War. Estimates suggest fewer than 8,000 people were ever enslaved in what became Canada (including both African and Indigenous captives) – a fraction of the nearly 10 million enslaved in the United States over a comparable period.

This evidentiary omission, both of Canada’s history and of its relative scale, leaves the “best-kept secret” claim unsubstantiated. Reaching a moral conclusion without evidence is poor historical analysis, beneath the standards of a university.

Ignoring alternatives

Module 2, which is derived from an Ontario Human Rights Commission training course, advances a clear hypothesis: that systemic racial discrimination remains deeply embedded in Canadian institutions. To support this claim, the course relies on univariate comparisons of outcomes between racial groups – particularly high unemployment rates for racialized youth (23 per cent vs. 16 per cent) and high poverty rates for racialized individuals (22 per cent vs. 11 per cent).

Even at the level of univariate comparison, the inference does not hold. A 2022 Statistics Canada comparison of weekly earnings for men across visible-minority groups shows no uniform pattern of disadvantage: some racialized groups earn more than Whites, others the same, and others less.

As Karl Popper observed, universal claims are tested not by the accumulation of confirming cases but by exposure to counterexamples. Even a single group that outperforms Whites is sufficient to falsify the claim that racialization, as such, produces systematic economic disadvantage.

The deeper problem is methodological. Univariate gaps do not identify causes; they merely describe group differences. After controlling for alternative explanations – such as age, education, language, occupation, and other relevant variables – there is no consistent pattern between racialization and earnings. The hypothesis of uniform racial disadvantage is rejected.

By treating unadjusted disparities as causal proof and excluding multivariate evidence, Antiracism 101 substitutes motivated reasoning for statistical inference.

The vignettes as unfalsifiable evidence

The emotional and pedagogical core of Antiracism 101 is a series of dramatized vignettes depicting interpersonal encounters in which a racialized individual experiences harm. Each vignette is followed by a knowledge-check question that permits only one answer: “Yes – this is racial discrimination.” Although presented as illustrative scenarios, they are non-random, non-verifiable, and selectively curated. As a result, they function not as pedagogical demonstrations but as evidentiary substitutes.

The predetermined conclusion is secured by two core doctrines: that racial discrimination “doesn’t have to be intentional,” and that racism operates through “unconsciously held beliefs.” Once these premises are accepted, the outcomes are pre-set. If harm is experienced and the person affected is racialized, discrimination is deemed to have occurred regardless of motive, awareness, or self-understanding. This reasoning reflects the controversial disparate impact standard in equity jurisprudence, which treats univariate differences in outcomes as evidence of discrimination even in the absence of intent.

The consequence is that alternative explanations are excluded from consideration. Ordinary possibilities – miscommunication, rudeness, error, ignorance, poor training, or situational ambiguity – cannot count against the conclusion, because none is permitted to function as exculpatory evidence. This pattern is illustrated in the Shayla vignette, where plausible alternatives – such as the fact that stroke symptoms can closely mimic intoxication – are ignored, reframing the encounter as unambiguous racial profiling.

The effect is intellectually and morally corrosive: the learner is conditioned to override charitable interpretation, dismiss nuance, and rush to harsh judgment.

Beyond this exclusionary logic, the vignettes commit a fundamental category error. The course repeatedly asserts that racism in Canada is primarily systemic and structural, yet the evidence offered consists almost entirely of interpersonal anecdotes. The vignettes identify no policy, cite no rule, and specify no institutional mechanism. The leap from “a receptionist was stricter with Desmond” to “Canadian institutions are systemically racist” is asserted purely by narrative force.

Combining the claim of systemic racism with the assertions that intent is irrelevant and racism is unconscious yields a system that admits no other explanation. Imagine two customers – one White and one Black – enter your shop at the same time. Whichever customer you serve first is racist: attend to the Black one and you’re accused of presuming criminality; attend to the White one and you’re accused of centering “Whiteness.”

Heads, racism wins. Tails, racism wins. Nothing counts against the theory.

When interpersonal narratives are coupled with intent irrelevance and unconscious racism, and then presented as proof of systemic injustice, the reasoning becomes self-sealing. As Karl Popper observed, “A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific.” The framework deployed in Antiracism 101 therefore belongs to non-science, which encompasses practices such as divination, astrology, and religion.

The Kendi Binary and the Kafka Trap

Where Module 2 fails by foreclosing empirical falsification, Module 3 goes further by building a structure of guilt and complicity that leaves no possibility of moral exit.

It opens with Ibram X. Kendi’s familiar claim: “The opposite of ‘racist’ isn’t ‘not racist.’” What appears as a moral assertion functions, in practice, as the entry point to a Kafka trap.

A Kafka trap is an accusatory structure in which every possible response confirms guilt. It has four defining elements:

1. guilt is predetermined;
2. denial is treated as proof;
3. confession also counts as proof; and
4. silence or inquiry are recoded as culpability.

All four are present in Module 3.

First, the presumption of guilt is built in. The course states that “there is racism in all of us,” echoing Robin DiAngelo’s formula: “The question is not ‘Did racism take place?’ but rather ‘How did racism manifest in this situation?’” Racism is presented not as a hypothesis to be tested, but as a universal condition requiring no evidence.

Second, denial is treated as proof. Learners are told that “By saying ‘I am not racist’ is in fact denying that racism exists [sic].” Critical race theorists such as Barbara Applebaum argue that denials work to preserve White innocence.  In the New Normal video, viewers are instructed that, when called out on racism, “the thing to do is to bite back your defensive reaction. Bite back the urge to explain what you really meant.” Attempts to defend oneself simply confirm the accusation.

Third, confession offers no exit. Admission merely affirms the premise and initiates an endless process of self-interrogation. Learners are instructed to continually educate “… yourself about what Whiteness is” and to treat antiracism as “a lifelong commitment.” Confession does not lead to redemption, but rather to endless penance.

Finally, silence or inquiry are recoded as complicity. To remain silent is to “leave systems firmly in place.”  To ask questions is to impose emotional labour: “I can’t answer the same question over and over again.”

There is thus no possible response – denial, agreement, questioning, or silence – that does not reaffirm the accusation. Every path leads to a guilty verdict.

This structure is not merely rhetorical. In the summer of 2020, Laurier’s president announced an action plan to address “systemic racism … at our university.” In response, David Haskell and I co-authored an open letter grounded in classical liberal principles – challenging the uncritical embrace of CRT, calling for a clear definition of racism and methodologically rigorous, quantitative evidence, and pressing for public dialogue with competing scholarly voices.

Our critique was swiftly framed as moral failure through a coordinated social-media campaign (#wluchangeisdue). A statement declared that “Wilfrid Laurier University has open racists on its faculty in tenured positions.” Follow-up posts demanded tenure renegotiation, investigations, and accountability. The student newspaper amplified the attacks, questioning whether tenured professors could be fired for “inflammatory” views and likening our critique to Holocaust denial. Despite the letter’s scholarly tone, our dissent was taken as evidence of complicity and answered with calls for professional punishment.

Module 3 engineers an inescapable system of guilt in a manner alien to scholarly disciplines. Math may leave you feeling foolish, but it never makes you question your moral worth.

Critical Theory’s challenge to liberalism

This critique reflects a fundamental conflict of principles between classical liberalism and CSJT. Liberalism affirms the primacy of the individual and holds that each person should be judged by the content of their character. CSJT elevates group identity as the primary moral category. The course’s assertion that “As a Canadian, you inherit the legacy and history of racism of generations who came before you” exemplifies this doctrine of group-based moral guilt.

The conflict extends to epistemology. Classical liberalism encourages disagreement and debate as the means to truth; it accepts the correspondence theory of truth (statements are true if they accurately describe reality) and welcomes criticism – even of itself. CSJT, by contrast, rejects these as mechanisms that reinforce dominant discourses, a stance reflected in the course’s treatment of dissent as defensiveness rather than inquiry.

The question, then, is which philosophical tradition better aligns with the university’s aspirational goal expressed in its motto Veritas Omnia Vincit? Liberalism honours this ideal with its built-in truth-seeking mechanism; critical theory rejects it, insisting there are many truths shaped by values and power. On the university’s own terms, Antiracism 101 betrays the ideal expressed in its motto.

Conclusion

A university is a collegium of scholars, with academic authority resting in the faculty, whose role is to safeguard academic judgment from external pressures – ideological, political, or economic. Collegial governance works only if faculty remain autonomous thinkers – free to dissent without pressure to conform to prescribed doctrines. A faculty onboarding course incorporating only one ideological lens is inconsistent with the collegial model, as it threatens intellectual independence.

A genuine university response to racism would treat claims of discrimination as testable hypotheses, evaluated through evidence, debate, and counter-argument.

Antiracism 101 rejects this methodology. It assumes the existence of systemic racism rather than treating it as a testable hypothesis, and it embeds that assumption in a non-falsifiable framework. Empirically, it treats unadjusted group disparities as causal proof while excluding multivariate analysis, and it uses interpersonal narrative, rather than institutional evidence, to support the claim of systemic racism. The course’s underlying philosophy recasts scholarly disagreement as moral failure. The result is an ideologically closed system engineered through inescapable guilt to enforce conformity.

Recent history illustrates what happens when skepticism is treated as moral failure. In 2021, the announcement of unmarked graves at the Kamloops, BC, residential school triggered national mourning – yet, more than four years later, no bodies have been excavated, and the evidentiary basis of the initial claims has gone largely unexamined in mainstream discourse. As Haidt has observed, when institutions silence dissenters, they become “structurally stupid” – not because individuals lack intelligence, but because the system discourages the open inquiry needed to test claims against evidence. A university that trains its faculty in a single ideology and forecloses criticism will become structurally stupid. To avoid that fate, Wilfrid Laurier University should remove Anti-Racism 101, and universities across Canada should follow suit.

William J. McNally is a professor of Finance at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario.

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These may be necessary, if painful, adjustments. Universities need to stay relevant and efficient. But what exactly is being prioritised in these restructuring and rationalisation moves? Academic merit, research excellence and ability to teach the content that students will need? Or is it part of an effort to fundamentally rewire the university to serve different agendas? Could this even be a way to silence staff who have spoken out in support of science, academic freedom and free expression? The procedures and criteria set out in recent staffing reviews raise questions.

Look at the Faculty of Education and Social Work document at the bottom of this post. For some reason they don’t seem keen for the world to see it. We’re interested in the criteria for deciding whether an individual academic is safe – getting a green light on their traffic light system. For example, getting a “green” rating on research requires an output far beyond what is usual for even high performing social scientists (20 scholarly articles in two and a half years). What this means is that research performance effectively drops out of the criteria – almost no staff will be “green” on research. So other criteria will come into play. Such as “Contribution to the faculty’s expertise in Mātauranga Māori “. Take a look at appendices E and G.

Professor Elizabeth Rata, who has spoken and written publicly in defence of science, was among many staff in the old Faculty of Education and Social Work who recently received notice that their positions were “in scope” in a staffing review. We reproduce the letter sent by the Free Speech Union to the Dean of her faculty in response:

30 July 2024

Prof. Mark Barrow

Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Work

m.barrow@auckland.ac.nz

Academic Staffing Review – Prof. Elizabeth Rata

Good morning, 

1. The Free Speech Union is a registered trade union with a mission to fight for, protect, and expand New Zealanders’ rights to freedom of speech, conscience, and intellectual inquiry. We believe that freedom of speech is not only a legal principle, but a social good that allows for people in modern liberal democracies to peacefully, freely advocate for the causes they care about without risking unjust retribution.
2. The Free Speech Union represents Prof. Elizabeth Rata, a sociologist of education and a professor in the School of Critical Studies within the Faculty of Education and Social Work (“the faculty”) at the University of Auckland (“UoA”).
3. It has been brought to our attention that the faculty is currently undergoing a restructure, more specifically, an ‘Academic Staffing Review’ (“the review”). Following the faculty’s release of the outcomes of Phase One of the review, Prof. Rata was informed that her position is ‘in-scope’ and may be disestablished. 
4. Of concern to us is how data relating to ‘strategic contributions’ will be used by the Selection Committee to recommend whether positions be disestablished or not. One of these ‘strategic contributions’ is contribution to the faculty’s expertise in mātauranga Māori. As you will be aware, there is significant public debate as to whether mātauranga Māori constitutes science – a debate sparked by a letter signed by seven UoA professors (including Prof. Rata) to the New Zealand Listener in July 2021.
5. Under section 267(4) of the Education and Training Act, UoA staff have the right to academic freedom which includes freedom “within the law, to question and test received wisdom, to put forward new ideas, and to state controversial or unpopular opinions stipulates academic freedom in relation to a university.” In performing its functions, the UoA must give effect to this by preserving and enhancing academic freedom and autonomy. Underpinning this is the requirement for institutional neutrality.
6. The role of mātauranga Māori in our education institutions is a controversial political issue. Considering an employee’s contribution in this area as part of a restructure process discriminates against employees who do not share the UoA’s institutional view of the role and status of mātauranga Māori in education. Setting aside the fact universities should remain apolitical and neutral, the UoA is in clear breach of its obligations under the Education and Training Act as it is requiring its staff to adopt a specific view on mātauranga Māori. 
7. Further, the Selection Committee’s consideration of ‘strategic contributions’, specifically, contribution to the faculty’s expertise in mātauranga Māori, may be in breach of the Employment Relations Act, namely:
   1. Section 4 (Good Faith)
   1. Section 104 (Discrimination)
8. To be clear, this letter is not notice of a Personal Grievance. Rather, we wish to bring to your attention our concerns with the unlawful nature of the ‘strategic contributions’ and invite your comment on whether the consideration of contribution to expertise in mātauranga Māori will be withdrawn in light of the above.
9. We look forward to hearing from you.

And here’s the Faculty document:

Cover Photo by Khashayar Kouchpeydeh on Unsplash

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