The College Fix

Criticism of diversity quotas is coming from an odd place: an editor of a Canadian newsweekly.

The University of Manitoba is set to institute a quota system that reserves 45 percent of slots in its “faculty of education” – which certifies teachers – for “self-identified diversity categories” starting in 2017, Maclean’s Editor-at-Large Peter Shawn Taylor writes in the National Post:

Native candidates are to be awarded 15 per cent of all spaces in Manitoba’s largest teachers’ program. Non-whites get a 7.5 per cent share. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual, two-spirited [?!] or queer receive another 7.5 per cent. Persons with disabilities, 7.5 per cent. Disadvantaged persons another 7.5 per cent. If this last category sounds somewhat vague, the university explains it includes those who have “experienced systemic barriers and/or inequalities on the basis of their religion, creed, language or state of social disadvantage.” That is to say, anyone who’s ever complained about someone else’s privilege.

Taylor says the program is completely missing the real minority among teachers:

As is common at teachers’ college across the country, there’s a distinct lack of men at the University of Manitoba. Enrollment in the faculty of education is 72 per cent female, and has been that way for decades. Across the country, 75 per cent of all education degrees are earned by women. If teachers’ colleges are meant to mirror society, it can’t be overlooked that half the population is male, especially given the well-established importance of male role models in combating high drop-out rates among boys.

This is how the university justifies the gender gap:

In explaining away its complete lack of interest in correcting a massive gender imbalance within its walls, the faculty of education’s website claims, “While classroom teachers are predominantly female, those in positions of power within the teaching force (principals and superintendents) remain predominantly male.”

The only place left for men is science, technology, engineering and math, and that’s under attack:

Countless scholarships, outreach programs and other special programs aim to lure, cajole and frog-march more female students into STEM degrees in the name of greater diversity. At the University of Waterloo, renowned for its high-tech success, administration has endorsed a United Nations Women campaign called HeForShe that aims to boost female enrollment in STEM subjects by, among other things, requiring “mandatory gender sensitization programs for first-year students;” male students will thus be informed they’re to blame for a lack of women in their courses.

Read the op-ed.

h/t #RepealVAWA

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