Two universities are advertising faculty positions that screen out qualified applicants based on race or gender, adding to the never-ending list of identity-restricted academic jobs.
York University is recruiting for a Canada Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence and the Arts exclusively from a pool of applicants who identify as women and those who “self-identify as women or gender non-conforming (e.g., genderfluid, nonbinary, Two-Spirit, trans man, trans woman)”.
Meanwhile, Simon Fraser University is seeking an assistant professor in Black Literature and Cultures, but only Black applicants are eligible.
To apply, applicants must complete a self-identification survey. SFU links the recruitment to its intention to hire at least 15 Black faculty members by 2028.
Both universities justify the restriction as necessary to enhance equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Juno News and True North have been documenting exclusionary hiring under the guise of “equity” for some time, and it shows no signs of stopping.
Here’s a shortlist of some of the previous instances we’ve found:
Last year, Simon Fraser University restricted a philosophy faculty position to Black applicants.
Brock University reserved a nursing position for a Black scholar, and a University of Lethbridge genomics research chair was restricted to “racialized” applicants.
The University of Toronto limited a data science position to “women, genderminorities [sic], Indigenous peoples or persons with disabilities.”
The University of Waterloo restricted six science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research chairs to applicants identifying as women or as part of a “gender equity-seeking group, which is defined to include individuals who self-identify as women, transgender, gender-fluid, non-binary, or Two Spirit people.”
We also documented faculty jobs at the University of British Columbia to “qualified black scholars” and “Indigenous (First Nation, Métis, Inuit) Peoples, multi-racial persons, persons with disabilities, women, and/or members of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.”
The University of Calgary advertised a faculty position “only open to qualified Black scholars,” giving Black Pioneer, African, and Caribbean as examples.
But the expansion of identity-restricted recruitment has come under fire from researchers.
A September Macdonald-Laurier Institute study led by Buckingham University’s Eric Kaufmann examined Canada Research Chairs between 2016 and 2025, using publication and citation records to assess research impact.
They found that equity, diversity, and inclusion hiring requirements had reduced the programme’s research productivity.
The researchers estimated this cost taxpayers approximately $18 million annually in lost research productivity associated with identity-restricted hiring, alongside another $18 million allocated to what they described as “scholarly activism.”
Combined, that’s a whopping $36 million annual bill, representing roughly 12 per cent of the research chair’s $300 million annual budget.