The motivation for writing this piece is a job advertisement for a position with British Columbia's Office of the Human Rights Commissioner. It included the following statement:
"We are striving to build a diverse team that has LIVED EXPERIENCE WITH HUMAN RIGHTS. To complement the diversity of the BCOHRC team, PREFERENCE MAY BE GIVEN TO APPLICANTS WHO ARE Indigenous, Black or People of Colour, people with diverse gender identities or expressions, sexual orientations, and/or, people with disabilities." (1, my capitals).
The Canadian Human Rights Act states:
"The purpose of this Act is to extend the laws in Canada to give effect, within the purview of matters coming within the legislative authority of Parliament, to the principle that all individuals should have an opportunity equal with other individuals to make for themselves the lives that they are able and wish to have and to have their needs accommodated, consistent with their duties and obligations as members of society, without being hindered in or prevented from doing so by discriminatory practices based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, marital status, family status, genetic characteristics, disability or conviction for an offence for which a pardon has been granted or in respect of which a record suspension has been ordered." (2)
To be sure, historic injustices must be redressed, and diversity, equity, and inclusion measures are important instruments. That said, we must be smart about it. I see three fundamental problems.
1. THE PROBLEM OF OBSERVATION AND INFERENCE IN DISCRIMINATION INQUIRIES
The Canadian Human Rights Commission defines discrimination as "an action, behaviour, decision, or omission that treats a person or a group of people unfairly and badly for reasons linked to personal traits, such as their race, age or disability." (3)
Unfortunately, this definition muddles the steps of scientific inquiry. In science, we proceed: Facts first, causes later (4). Consequently, if the hypothesis is "Discrimination has been committed.", the two questions we must address are these:
1: Has a person or a group been treated unfairly?
2: Is the cause for the unfair treatment based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, etc.?
Unfortunately, both observation and inference are hard problems: The workplace is full of noise. The signal may be weak. The perpetrators may be unaware or uncooperative. The victim's perception may range from hypersensitive to impervious.
"Because you are [black / a woman / old], I won't [hire / promote / reward] you."
Of course, blatant discrimination is easy to detect, to infer, and to punish. But not all bigots are idiots. Consequently, they will discriminate against whoever offends their sensibilities, but will have learnt to formulate their explanations in acceptable, pseudo-objective terms (5):
"Oh, he graduated from a university in Africa and doesn't have relevant Canadian work experience (6)."
"Oh, they don't possess the appropriate people skills for the job."
"Oh, the successful candidate has much better Excel skills than she does."
Keep in mind that with very little training 80% of the jobs can be done by 80% of the people 80% of the time. And keep in mind that we have only imperfect instruments (resumes, cover letters, interviews, reference letters) to measure the often microscopic differences between applicants (7). And keep in mind that we rarely test for the 20% of expertise that will make a difference in job performance.
Honest people will be falsely accused of discrimination. Bigots will get away with real discrimination. And no amount of D.E.I. rituals will prevent that (8), but smart D.E.I. may.
2. THE PROBLEM OF UNPROTECTED PERSONAL TRAITS
I am Caucasian. I sound like Arnold Schwarzenegger. I am white. I am an atheist. I am 60 years old. I am male. I am straight. I am cisgender. I am married.
I DON'T KNOW whether one or more of these traits have ever hurt or benefitted me (9). But note that at least with British Columbia's Office of the Human Rights Commissioner these my traits may well put me at a disadvantage (1).
I am a Kantian. I am an introvert. I speak up against injustice and stupidity. I do not lie or pretend. I do not engage in bullshit activities (10).
I DO KNOW that these traits have hurt me. Because of them, I have been rejected in hiring competitions, have been ignored for promotions, have been laid off, have been sacked.
Is this discrimination? Do I have "LIVED EXPERIENCE WITH HUMAN RIGHTS" (1)?
No, the personal qualities for which I suffered injustices, society chooses not to protect (2). Of course, the problem is that you can change your introversion, your sense of justice, and your honesty about as much as you can change your being black, female, or gay. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does protect your "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression" (11), but the Canadian Human Rights Act (2) leaves you exposed when you exercise this freedom.
Consequently, while the Canadian workplace has become diversified in terms of traits defined under the Canadian Human Rights Act (2), it has also remained uniform, conformist, and intolerant. Yes, everybody looks different, but everybody mostly thinks the same (12) and mostly acts the same (13).
And society is paying the price. Serious problems remain unaddressed and unsolved.
3. THE PROBLEM OF PRIVACY
The Canadian Privacy Act states:
"The purpose of this Act is to extend the present laws of Canada that protect the privacy of individuals with respect to personal information about themselves held by a government institution and that provide individuals with a right of access to that information." (14)
It is a weak statement. It should be stronger.
If you are not jeopardizing the human rights of somebody else (15), your private life is nobody's business, not the government's, not anybody's.
Which brings me back to the original job advertisement: "PREFERENCE MAY BE GIVEN TO APPLICANTS WHO ARE ..." (1) What if you are indigenous, and gay, and have a disability that doesn't affect your work, but you prefer not to disclose any of those preferred traits?
You are confronted with a dilemma: Either you stand by your right to privacy and potentially be disadvantaged. Or you abandon it. No institution should ever force you to make this choice.
When all is said, shouldn't we judge each other, not on the traits we did not choose and cannot change, but on the merits that are due to our efforts? It's an old idea. It's called meritocracy.
That said, if applied thoughtlessly, meritocracy also has its downsides (16).
NOTES AND REFERENCES
(1) https://bchumanrights.ca/about-us/careers/career/manager-research-aug-2025/: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(2) https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/h-6/fulltext.html: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(3) https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/individuals/human-rights/about-discrimination: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(4) T. C. Chamberlin (1890), The Method of Multiple Working Hypotheses. Science (old series) 15: "Laudable as the effort at explanation is in itself, it is to be condemned when it runs before a serious inquiry into the phenomenon itself. A dominant disposition to find out what is, should precede and crowd aside the question, commendable at a later stage, "How came this so?" First full facts, then interpretations."
(5) Whether we like it or not, all we all have prejudices, and we are a good at hiding them, often even from ourselves.
(6) According to 2025 World University Rankings, Morocco's Mohammed VI Polytechnic University ranks 401 - 500, the same rank as Canada's University of Guelph, University of Manitoba, and York University (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025).
(7) In my life, I chaired 19 hiring committees. For ten of them, I adopted Kahenman's candidate selection procedure, which is as close to objectivity as you can get. See: D. Kahneman (2011), Thinking, Fast And Slow: 232.
(8) In 1997, when I was a Ph.D. student at the University of British Columbia, I served on a search committee for an endowed chair at the Department of Earth and Ocean Sciences. One female applicant was invited for no other reason than to satisfy the ideas of U.B.C.'s Equity and Inclusion Office. I was furious and for two reasons: First, because of the disrespect shown towards the person (the female applicant) and the group (women). Second, because of the injustice inflicted upon the fourth-ranked candidate.
(9) We all have only limited access to the physical world.
(10) H. G. Frankfurt (2005), On Bullshit.
(11) https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(12) I. L. Janis (1971), Groupthink. Psychology Today (Nov 1971): p. 44: "The main principle of groupthink, which I offer in the spirit of Parkinson's Law, is this: The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups."
(13) E.g. S. Asch (1951), Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. In Groups, Leadership and Men: Research in Human Relations: 177 - 190. S. Milgram (1963), Behavioral Study of Obedience. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 67: 371 - 378. D. Lovallo and D. Kahneman (2003), Delusions of Success. Harvard Business Review (Jul 2003): 56 - 63. D. Kahneman, D. Lovallo, and O. Sibony (2011), Before You Make That Big Decision. Harvard Business Review (Jun 2011): 50 - 60.
(14) https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/P-21/page-1.html#h-397177: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(15) https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights: Accessed: 10 Sep 2025.
(16) M.D. Young (1958), The Rise of the Meritocracy.