How diverse are Order of Canada appointments?

2024/06/07 1 Comment

My latest analysis (for the charts, go to the IRPP link):

In the 2015 federal budget, the Harper government announcedadditional funding of $13.4 million over five years and $2.8 million in ongoing funding for the Canadian honours system.

The objective was to enhance inclusivity by increasing Order of Canada nominations from “under-represented sectors,” such as business, and regions, particularly the West.

The funding was prompted by an Ottawa Citizen analysis that showed only 26 per cent of recipients since the Order’s creation in 1967 came from the West, compared to its 31 per cent share of the population.

In contrast, Atlantic Canada, with 11 per cent of the population, had double the representation in recipients. The study also highlighted a growing proportion of awards going to individuals in the arts, while the share for business professionals had decreased.

Nine years later, has the desired shift occurred? Did the change in government later in 2015 influence the outcomes?

I evaluated that question by delving into an analysis of more than 2,000 Order of Canada appointments made between 2013 and 2023, examining regional, background and employment-equity perspectives.

Approximately three per cent of appointments are companions (the highest rank), 22 per cent are officers and nearly three-quarters are members (the lowest rank).

It is crucial to distinguish award and recognition programs from employer-employment equity initiatives and political appointments.

Employers, whether private or public sector, have considerable levers to increase diversity. Governments have considerable latitude in their appointments, as seen in the increased representation of women, racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples under the Trudeau government.

Award and recognition programs, however, can’t do much more than encourage more nominations from underrepresented groups.

https://e.infogram.com/3383e710-d685-4697-8ae3-6a0acb642705?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2024%2Fdiversity-order-canada%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Diversity

Figure 1 explores diversity through a lens of gender, racialized minority and Indigenous perspectives, comparing the average percentage of the awards given from 2013-17 and 2018-23 with the data from 2023.

There are fluctuations between the years for all groups, but the percentages of racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples have trended upward, with a significant leap in 2023.

Racialized minorities, however, are still notably underrepresented relative to their population share, while the representation of Indigenous Peoples surpasses their demographic proportion.

Within the appointments of racialized minorities, women constitute 30 per cent, reflecting an increase to 32 from 27 per cent between 2013-17 and 2018-23.

In terms of Indigenous appointments, there is near gender parity but with a slight decline in the percentage of Indigenous women appointed, dropping to 45 from 52 per cent over the same period.

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Rank comparisons

Figure 2 presents a comparison of representation by rank. The proportion of women among companions declined notably between these two periods, whereas their representation among officers increased, along with a decrease in members.

In the case of racialized minorities, the share of companions decreased, but their representation among officers and members increased. Similarly, a shift is observed among Indigenous officers and members, marked by a significant increase in the number of Indigenous companions.

Traditional employment analysis involves assessing levels or ranks in Order of Canada terms and their corresponding representation. The conventional expectation is to observe higher representation at more junior levels, compared to senior positions. However, this general trend holds true only for women.

In contrast, there is a reversal of this pattern for Indigenous Peoples while racialized minority officers exhibit a higher percentage than members. This indicates a deliberate and conscious effort to appoint Indigenous Peoples to the more senior ranks, as illustrated in Table 1.

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Promotions to the companion level constitute 43 per cent of all recipients. However, only 4.7 per cent of officer appointments are promotions from the member level.

https://e.infogram.com/b1f57efb-f250-4da5-9698-b8d446498158?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2024%2Fdiversity-order-canada%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Regional representation

Figure 3 examines the regional balance. British Columbia appointments increased from 11.3 per cent (2013-17) to 13.3 per cent (2018-23), and Prairie appointments rose from 12.1 per cent to 14.7 per cent.

Conversely, Ontario appointments declined from 46.3 per cent to 43 per cent, and Quebec appointments decreased from 21.4 per cent to 19.7 per cent.

In 2023, British Columbia appointments exceeded B.C.’s share of the population, while the Prairies remained underrepresented. Quebec underrepresentation increased, while both Ontario and Atlantic Canada saw an increase in overrepresentation.

The North was slightly underrepresented. Recipients who spent part of their careers abroad accounted for slightly more than three per cent of all recipients.

https://e.infogram.com/0a683ec3-d5af-439c-a606-93a70b44561b?parent_url=https%3A%2F%2Fpolicyoptions.irpp.org%2Fmagazines%2Fjune-2024%2Fdiversity-order-canada%2F&src=embed#async_embed

Background of recipients

Figure 4 explores the diversity of backgrounds among Order of Canada recipients. Generally, backgrounds in the arts, health, business and public service dominate, with notable representation from individuals with academic, activist and scientific backgrounds.

The percentage of business-oriented recipients slightly declined. The same holds true for those with backgrounds in arts, academia and communications from 2013-17 to 2018-23. Conversely, there was an increase in individuals with backgrounds in health, activism, sports, science and philanthropy.

As for representation from the West, particularly the Prairies, there has been a small regional shift, likely reflecting an overall economic shift to Western Canada.

The Chancellery of Honours is responsible for overseeing the Governor General’s award programs. Chancellery staff met with me to discuss these findings. They also provided an update on efforts to improve representation.

The chancellery now has a statistician who tracks nominations and appointments and who validated this analysis.

This advisory council is reasonably diverse in terms of women, racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples. The Governor General and staff make ongoing efforts to encourage nominations from underrepresented groups. Regrettably, they declined to provide data on nominations, though they did indicate that more women are appointed than nominated.

In terms of employment-equity groups — women, racialized minorities, and Indigenous Peoples — underrepresentation reflects the overall pattern of society as a whole, where relatively fewer people from these groups have prominent or senior positions.

That said, the increase in racialized minority and Indigenous appointments is notable, particularly in contrast with the stagnation of appointments of women, who make up about one-third of appointments.

Note on methodology

This analysis relies on the Order of Canada appointment lists released by the Governor General in June and December. Gender details are directly sourced from names and citations, while information regarding racialized minorities and Indigenous Peoples is obtained through a combination of names, citations and, when necessary, web searches.

Provincial data is extracted from the appointment lists, with a preference for the smaller province in cases where more than one is listed (although this is a rare occurrence).

Source: How diverse are Order of Canada appointments?

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Executive Diversity within the Public Service: An Accelerating Trend 

2024/06/05 Leave a comment

My latest analysis, focussing on diversity among executives as well as an update on hirings, promotions and separations:

ee-2022-23-ex-diversity-draftDownload

Source (behind firewall): Executive Diversity within the Public Service: An Accelerating Trend 

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Blogging break for the next few weeks

2024/06/03 Leave a comment

Will, however, post some upcoming articles on Order of Canada appointments and on Diversity among the Executive Ranks.

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Aristotle Foundation: ‘Overwhelming majority of the Canadian poor are white,’ report finds [misleading use of statistics]

2024/06/01 Leave a comment

Both the article and the report misrepresent the data as it looks at number living in poverty rather than the percentage of each group who are in poverty. For example, stating that 58 percent of white people living in poverty is less than their 74 percent of the Canadian population.

The table below provides a more accurate picture by contrasting the share of the population and poverty rates by group and generation, compared to the non visible minority population. Poverty rates remain higher across generations for Blacks, Latin American and West Asians.

It is one thing to argue against the degree that race affects poverty rates or the effectiveness of specific policy approaches, another to present the data in a tendentious manner or to argue that systemic racism has no impact on poverty rates:

A new report by the Calgary-based think tank Aristotle Foundation suggests that Canada’s race-based approach to fighting poverty might be flawed, since it is based on an incorrect assumption that race, racial discrimination and poverty are tightly linked.

The paper, “Poverty and Race in Canada: Facts about Race, Discrimination, and the Poor,” analyzed recent Statistics Canada data and also looked at public policy initiatives at both the provincial and federal levels that are designed to fight poverty.

It found that between 7.4 and 10.6 per cent of Canadians are living in relative poverty, depending on how one defines the term.

At the low end, defined by low after-tax income, some 58 per cent or 1.6 million people living in poverty are white, or what StatsCan refers to as “not a visible minority nor Indigenous.” For the other figure, which measures poverty based on the cost of living, 2.5 million people or 64.4 per cent of the group living in poverty are white.

“In other words, the overwhelming majority of the Canadian poor are ‘white,’ and thus cannot receive race-based allocations from governments if unchangeable characteristics such as skin colour or ethnicity are accounted for in policy,” the group said in a press release announcing the findings.

The paper points to government documents that use the link between race and poverty to justify race-based remedies that it says ignore many needy people.

A federal document outlining Canada’s anti-racism strategy notes: “Anti-Black racism is manifested in the legacy of the current social, economic and political marginalization of African Canadians in society such as the lack of opportunities, lower socio-economic status, higher unemployment, significant poverty rates and over-representation in the criminal justice system.”

Ontario’s anti-racism strategic plan includes the same statement almost word for word.

What’s more, the report says, government anti-poverty programs with racial qualifiers can end up misdirecting resources to those who are not even poor.

It cites Ontario’s Racialized and Indigenous Supports for Entrepreneurs (RAISE) grant program. Using the low-income-after-tax measure, eligibility for this race-based funding would apply not only to 1.4 million low-income earners in Canada (the total low-income visible minority and Indigenous population) but also to nearly 10.5 million minorities or Indigenous who are not low income, while excluding non-minority, non-Indigenous low-income earners.

“Put another way,” the report says, “this funding would be inaccessible to 64 per cent of those who are low-income, and of those who do qualify for the funding based on race, only 11.9 per cent are low-income. This is not a sensible way to design an anti-poverty program.”

The study also found that some minority groups in Canada are as likely or in some cases less likely to be poor compared to white Canadians. These included Canadians of Japanese, Korean, South Asian and Chinese ancestry, all of whom have higher average weekly earnings that their white counterparts.

The study suggests delinking poverty from race, and says governments should strive to address the “root issues” of poverty by strengthening, or minimizing interference with, what it calls the “success sequence”: finish high school, work full time, and marry before having children. These markers, it says, predicate a non-poverty life for the vast majority of people in the U.S. and Canada.

“Systemic racism is not the cause of poverty in Canada,” says lead author and financial analyst Matthew Lau. “While some visible minority groups experience poverty in numbers disproportionate to the general population, it is also true that some visible minority groups are less likely to live in poverty, such as Canadians of Filipino, South Asian, and Latin American ancestry.”

“Poverty is colour-blind, and thus poverty policy which excludes some Canadians and favours others based on colour or ethnicity omits a vast swath of the poor in Canada, in addition to being illiberal,” adds co-author and Aristotle Foundation research director David Hunt, “The focus of anti-poverty policy in Canada should instead be focused on the individuals in need and on creating widespread opportunity for all.”

Source: ‘Overwhelming majority of the Canadian poor are white,’ report finds, Report link: https://aristotlefoundation.org/reality-check/poverty-and-race-in-canada-facts-about-race-discrimination-and-the-poor/#:~:text=In%20summary%2C%20poverty%20rates%20in,are%20truly%20living%20in%20destitution.

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Jamie Sarkonak: Liberals water down citizenship for grandkids of convenience Canadians

2024/06/01 Leave a comment

While there is a diversity of perspectives among right leaning media, Sarkonak represents the consensus:

…Applying the court’s logic to any other situation reveals the absurdity of it all. If withholding citizenship from Canadian spawn two generations removed from home is discrimination, why not three? Four? And if any rule somehow can be perceived by a judge to reinforce a negative stereotype, what else violates equality rights?

Any reasonable government would have appealed, but not our feds. This decision granted legalistic cover to hand out more passports Oprah-style, and a higher court may not have been so generous.

The PR campaign to advance C-71 has taken care to focus on the saddest, most sympathetic stories that can be found: the cases of Type-A parents whose children have high “Canadian-ness” — speak our language, participate in our culture, share our values — but can’t, for whatever administrative reasons, obtain citizenship. These individual cases could be resolved through ministerial intervention today by Miller, which he knows and admits, but his government wants a rule so broad to include all.

On the other hand, there are others who barely have a Canadian connection at generation zero. Some are passport babies, whose mothers travelled to Canada for the purpose of obtaining citizenship for their children. According to Canadian Institute for Health Information data, compiled by analyst Andrew Griffiths for Policy Options magazine, there have been more than 40,000 of such births from 2010 to 2022.

Others have obtained Canadian privileges but have returned home. This was especially apparent in 2006, when the Lebanon civil war broke out that July. Some 40,000 people in Lebanon were registered with the Canadian embassy at the time, and $94 million was spent to evacuate about 14,000 of them to Canada; by September, the government estimated that 7,000 of those evacuees had returned to Lebanon, providing the catalyst for the Harper government to tighten citizenship rules in the first place.

New conflicts shake out new numbers. After fighting erupted in Sudan last year, prompting Canada to evacuate 175 Canadian citizens and permanent residents, Post columnist John Ivison spoke with a government source who estimated that up to half of the evacuees were “refugees who were granted status in Canada and then returned to Sudan, with some continuing to claim welfare and child benefits.”

“Most of these people have been living in Sudan for years,” said the source. “Sometimes they never really lived in Canada and don’t speak English or French.”

And who knows what the tally in Gaza is; in November, the foreign affairs department estimated that 600 Canadians, permanent residents and family members were in the strip. Some of these no doubt include aid workers, but by news reports, they also include young families who are clearly being raised intentionally abroad.

Those children can grow up elsewhere, without learning any English or French, without becoming attuned to our ways of life, our common sense of right and wrong; without ever paying Canadian taxes. Without giving anything in return, they can turn to the Canadian state for help — rescue, health care, and so on. The same can be said for their children, who only need to spend a few years in Canada to be eligible to pass on the same to their children.

The Liberal bill would ensure that the rest of Canada — those of us who have received the Canadian tradition and intend to preserve it for our children, who have a direct interest in our state’s success, who pay income taxes throughout our lives — could be obligated to support three whole generations of convenience-citizens as if they were our countrymen the whole time. It would do so under the guise of helping a narrow group of expats who can, at best, receive help from the minister, and, at worst, have their children apply for citizenship the normal way.

Source: Jamie Sarkonak: Liberals water down citizenship for grandkids of convenience Canadians

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Départ difficile pour l’embauche de demandeurs d’asile dans l’industrie du tourisme

2024/06/01 Leave a comment

A noter. Much less interest than expected:

Québec a lancé en mai 2023 un projet pilote pour trouver un emploi dans l’industrie du tourisme à 3000 demandeurs d’asile. Un an après le début de l’initiative, seulement une cinquantaine de personnes ont été embauchées.

Le plan, accompagné d’une enveloppe de 10 millions de dollars, vise l’embauche de 1000 personnes chaque année durant trois ans. Le projet pilote a été lancé par Québec au printemps, mais il fallut attendre l’automne avant que le tout ne prenne son envol, ce qui explique en partie le bilan provisoire de 50, bien inférieur au millier d’embauches espéré pour cette première année.

« Ça ne correspond pas aux attentes qu’on s’était données. La mise en place du projet a été longue », admet Xavier Gret, le directeur général du Conseil québécois des ressources humaines en tourisme (CQRHT), qui chapeaute le projet pilote.

« Qui dit projet pilote dit essais-erreurs. Ça fait quatre fois qu’on change [les façons de faire]. Ça demande un exercice important, d’intégrer ces personnes-là. »

Ce ne sont pourtant pas les volontaires qui manquent. Environ 3200 demandeurs d’asile se sont inscrits sur la plateforme du CQRHT, dont 68 % de francophones, selon les chiffres de l’organisme. Une formation obligatoire longue de plusieurs mois ralentit l’insertion en emploi, explique par ailleurs Xavier Gret. « On les suit. C’est assez lourd. Je préfère en avoir 50 et que ça se passe bien. […] On ne veut pas vivre les histoires d’horreur d’autres endroits sur les questions d’intégration. »

Des critères ont aussi été ajoutés « au fur et à mesure » pour assurer la rétention des employés. Plusieurs demandeurs d’asile ont fini par jeter la serviette puisqu’ils ne voulaient pas travailler les soirs ou les fins de semaine ou encore devoir quitter Montréal. « Au début, on avait des emplois à Brossard pour des gens à Montréal, mais ils ne voulaient pas aller à Brossard », précise le représentant du CQRHT.

Les trois quarts de ces demandeurs d’asile ont trouvé leur place en région, notamment parce que Laval et Montréal ont retrouvé un niveau d’emploi comparable à celui d’avant la pandémie, note le CQRHT. Quelque 22 000 postes vacants demeurent tout de même à pourvoir dans l’industrie québécoise du tourisme.

« Si c’est 50, c’est 50 de plus », soutient Véronyque Tremblay, p.-d.g. de l’Association Hôtellerie du Québec, qui dit avoir toujours confiance en l’importance de ce plan. De ce nombre, 35 ont trouvé un emploi dans l’hébergement, souligne-t-elle, souvent dans « des postes pas évidents à combler ».

« C’est la première année [d’un projet pilote de trois ans]. On y croit toujours », renchérit Martin Vézina, de l’Association Restauration Québec. « Pour le moment, on retient le chiffre de 50. Mais il y en a 300, dans le pipeline, qui s’en viennent. Faut nous laisser démarrer. »

Kateri Champagne Jourdain, ministre de l’Emploi et initiatrice du projet pilote, souhaite attendre davantage avant de tirer des conclusions. « L’été marque la haute saison touristique, et les organismes chargés du déploiement nous assurent qu’il y aura plus d’embauches dans les prochains mois. Nous serons alors plus à même de constater si l’initiative porte fruit », a répondu son cabinet par écrit.

Logement, productivité et paradoxe

Dans bien des endroits, le « filtre » du logement freine l’embauche de ces demandeurs d’asile, observe Jean-Philippe Chartrand, directeur du développement et du tourisme durable chez Tourisme Gaspésie. Une « minorité » d’entreprises en tourisme possèdent le luxe d’une chambre destinée à loger des employés. « Ça ne marche pas de dire : “Je t’offre un emploi ; tu te trouveras une place où dormir.” C’est pratiquement l’inverse aujourd’hui. »

Ensuite, « on n’a pas vu beaucoup de gens passer à l’acte ». Une quinzaine d’entreprises se sont montrées intéressées en Gaspésie, par exemple, mais une seule est finalement venue à la réunion d’information.

La pénurie de main-d’oeuvre cause un « paradoxe » chez les gestionnaires, ajoute Jean-Philippe Chartrand. « Nos chefs d’entreprise sont débordés à cause de la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, au point où ils n’ont plus le temps de venir aux réunions pour parler de solutions à la pénurie. »

Devant ces difficultés, ils misent de plus en plus sur l’amélioration de la productivité afin de fonctionner « avec moins de main-d’oeuvre », avance-t-il, car ce virage offrirait plus de garanties sur le long terme.

Demandeurs d’asile contre travailleurs temporaires

Les employeurs se tournent toujours davantage vers les travailleurs temporaires pour pourvoir leurs postes. Or, les demandeurs d’asile qui se trouvent déjà au pays devraient être privilégiés, a fait valoir le gouvernement fédéral un peu plus tôt ce printemps.

Depuis le 1er mai, les employeurs doivent évaluer toutes leurs options avant de recruter des travailleurs temporaires, « y compris le recrutement auprès des demandeurs d’asile ayant un permis de travail valide au Canada », indique le règlement fédéral.

Ces personnes au passé parfois difficile doivent s’adapter au marché du travail québécois, mais leur embauche ne coûte rien aux entreprises. Engager un travailleur temporaire, en revanche, peut coûter des milliers de dollars en frais d’immigration

Source: Départ difficile pour l’embauche de demandeurs d’asile dans l’industrie du tourisme

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Ukraine Introduces Citizenship Exams on Constitution and History

2024/06/01 Leave a comment

Of note:

From now on, individuals seeking Ukrainian citizenship must pass exams on the fundamentals of the Constitution of Ukraine and Ukrainian history. The Ministry of Education and Science reported this following a government meeting.

This decision was made by the Government and applies to:

  • foreigners;
  • stateless persons;
  • those who have acquired citizenship but have the right to take the exam within two years (this is due to deferment related to military service under contract, outstanding services to Ukraine, etc.).

Importantly, the implementation of the exams requires further adoption and implementation of a series of orders and provisions, organizational measures; currently, only a fundamental decision has been made.

To register, it is necessary to create an electronic account and submit an application electronically; a detailed algorithm will be published later.

The exam will consist of:

  • 20 questions on the fundamentals of the Constitution of Ukraine;
  • 25 questions on Ukrainian history.

To ensure transparency, the exam will be recorded on video.

Upon successful completion, participants will receive corresponding certificates.

Source: Ukraine Introduces Citizenship Exams on Constitution and History

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Emigration to the U.S. hits a 10-year high as tens of thousands of Canadians head south

2024/06/01 Leave a comment

The ration of emigration to the USA to immigration has, however, remained relatively constant: under 30 percent. So while concerning, the rate of churn does not appear to have changed significantly. The respective percentages of born in Canada, born in USA or born elsewhere (the immigrant/emigrant churn) do not appear to have changed significantly even has the overall numbers grew in 2022:

Tens of thousands of Canadians are emigrating to the United States and the number of people packing up and moving south has hit a level not seen in 10 years or more, according to data compiled by CBC News.

There’s nothing new about Canadians moving south of the 49th parallel for love, work or warmer weather, but the latest figures from the American Community Survey (ACS) suggest it’s now happening at a much higher rate than the historical average.

The ACS, which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau, says the number of people moving from Canada to the U.S. hit 126,340 in 2022. That’s an increase of nearly 70 per cent over the 75,752 people who made the move in 2012.

Of the 126,340 who emigrated from Canada to the U.S. that year, 53,311 were born in Canada, 42,595 were Americans who left here for their native land, and 30,434 were foreign-born immigrants to Canada who decided to move to the U.S. instead.

That Canadian-born figure is notably higher now than it has been in the past. It’s up roughly 50 per cent over the average number of Canadians born in Canada who left for the U.S. in the pre-COVID period.

United Nations data compiled by Statistics Canada and shared with CBC News shows the U.S. is by far the most common destination for Canadian emigrants.

There were about 800,000 Canadians living in the U.S. as of 2020, eight times more than the 100,000 who live in the U.K., according to the latest UN figures.

A number of Facebook groups have popped up to help Canadians make the move. Recent arrivals use them to share tips on how to secure a visa or green card, where to live and what to do about health insurance.

One group called “Canadians Moving to Florida & USA” has more than 55,000 members and is adding dozens of new members every week.

The real estate agents and immigration lawyers who help Canadians make the move say the surge is being driven partly by a desire for a more affordable life.

But there are also people who say they have lost faith in Canada under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s leadership and want to pursue the American dream instead, these agents and lawyers said.

Marco Terminesi is a former professional soccer player who grew up in Woodbridge, Ont. and now works as a real estate agent in Florida’s Palm Beach County with a busy practice that caters to Canadian expats.

‘I hate the politics here’

Terminesi said his phone has been ringing off the hook for the last 18 months with calls from Canadians wanting to move to sunny Florida.

“‘With Trudeau, I have to get out of here,’ that’s what people tell me. They say to me, ‘Marco, who do I have to talk to to get out of here?'” Terminesi told CBC News.

“There’s a lot of hatred, a lot of pissed-off calls. It was really shocking for me to hear all of this.

“And I’m not sure all of these people are moving for the right reason. People are saying, ‘I hate the politics here, I’m uprooting my whole family and moving down,’ and I say, ‘Well, that problem could be solved in a year or two.'”…

Source: Emigration to the U.S. hits a 10-year high as tens of thousands of Canadians head south

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Jen Gerson: The right to disengage from the Omnicause

2024/05/31 Leave a comment

Valid commentary on the nature of meaningful citizenship. Certainly, political activism is also meaningful but needs to be sustained, well-thought out, and reasonably consistent between all the various injustices in the world and society:

…Look, I’m not saying that it’s wrong to engage in political and social activism. But I suspect we risk harming young people with still-forming identities when we encourage them to hyper-fixate on problems that they have neither the emotional maturity, life experience or practical skill sets to meaningfully address. 

Further, we’ve all fallen into the habit of reducing the concept of citizenship into a narrow axiom of activism, and stripping that word of the very social context that makes it effective. The purpose of an education can’t be to churn out an army of well-intentioned activists, throwing their bodies and minds at every passing injustice. Rather, we should be trying to create well-rounded citizens; people who meaningfully contribute to their local communities through their families, employment, volunteer work, spiritual lives, and hobbies. If activism of a more radical sort is one pillar of a rich and well-grounded social life, all the better, but to reduce the concept of “civic society” to activism at the expense of all the other pillars not only risks creating unbalanced individuals, it will, paradoxically, make such individuals far less effective at creating the social changes they wish to enact. 

Hence the choir quip. Or field hockey. Or drama. Pick an extra-curricular, really. (And I would, here, encourage all education ministers to appreciate the importance of activities too often and too easily cut in the budget for being considered frivolous or expendable. They’re not.)

Obviously, I’ve been stewing over this idea since the encampments demanding various universities divest from Israel began to pop up on North American campuses. Police also appeared to move rather quickly to arrest protestors who were beginning to set up an encampment on the road in front of Parliament this week. For a moment, I want to reserve my judgment on what appears, to me, to be a clear example of a highly contagious social phenomena. That is, I don’t want to turn this column into an opinion piece about whether or not these protestors are right or wrong about Palestine and Israel. In principle, I don’t really have a problem with protestors setting up encampments to make their point, except insofar as this form of protest has a tendency to create serious safety problems over time, both for the participants, and for the surrounding communities. 

Rather, I’d confine myself to observing that these protests and encampments appear to be only the latest manifestation of a series of highly charged political movements that rapidly attract followers, engage in mass shows of support, and then fizzle out and move on to the next seemingly existential crisis. 

Coastal Gas, MeToo, Black Lives Matter, trans issues, COVID, anti-COVID, Ukraine, now Israel. Others have recently labelled it “The Omnicause.” Social activism that is ever present. Ever urgent. Ever crucial. Put the morality of any specific issue aside for just a moment, and it’s hard to ignore the bandwagoner effect. This is absolutely no different to the kind of energy that gets stirred up when a city’s sports team hits the playoffs. 

I often get the impression not of a real commitment to a cause, but rather a desperate flailing for meaning and society by people who are doped by the certainty of being on the right side of history. Righteousness is a high, man. …

You have the right to deeply interrogate your own beliefs, emotions, and motives, and from that state of introspection, to decide how you wish to spend your limited time and energy. You have a right to confine yourselves to the things that serve you. 

You don’t have to do things that serve your peer group; you don’t have to be or appear to be virtuous; you don’t need to go along to get along, nor to acquire status; and you sure as hell don’t need to let your will be hijacked by social media algorithms that profit by fuelling perpetual social movements and outrage cycles. 

And if that process of conscious examination returns a positive result — “yes, this does actually matter. I do care about it” — then know that you will be radically more effective as an activist or political actor if you can raise awareness or cash or volunteers within established and durable social networks; again, family, school, employment, social hobbies, spiritual community, and the like. It’s great to attend a protest, but real, effective and durable change most often finds itself in these quiet and unglamorous foundations of real civil society. Developing a fulfilling and healthy life isn’t an abrogation of our duty to do good in the world. Rather, I think that it’s by being healthy and engaged people that we start to become the change we wish to see in the world around us. 

Source: Jen Gerson: The right to disengage from the Omnicause

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Paul: And Now, a Real World Lesson for Student Activists

2024/05/31 Leave a comment

Yep. Money quote: “The toughest lesson for this generation may be that while they’ve been raised to believe in their right to change the world, the rest of the world may neither share nor be ready to indulge their particular vision:”

The encampments have been cleared, campuses have emptied; protester and counterprotester alike have moved on to internships, summer gigs and in some cases, the start of their postgraduate careers.

Leaving aside what impact, if any, the protests had on global events, let’s consider the more granular effect the protests will have on the protesters’ job prospects and future careers.

Certainly, that matters, too. After all, this generation is notable for its high levels of ambition and pre-professionalism. They have tuition price tags to justify and loans to repay. A 2023 survey of Princeton seniors found that nearly 60 percent took jobs in finance, consulting, tech and engineering, up from 53 percent in 2016.

A desire to protect future professional plans no doubt factored into the protesters’ cloaking themselves in masks and kaffiyehs. According to a recent report in The Times, “The fear of long-term professional consequences has also been a theme among pro-Palestine protesters since the beginning of the war.”

Activism has played a big part of many of these young people’s lives and academic success. From the children’s books they read (“The Hate U Give,” “I Am Malala”), to the young role models that were honored, (Greta Thunberg, David Hogg), to the social justice movements that were praised (Black Lives Matter, MeToo, climate justice), Gen Z has been told it’s on them to clean up the Boomers’ mess. Resist!

College application essays regularly ask students to describe their relationship with social justice, their leadership experience and their pet causes. “Where are you on your journey of engaging with or fighting for social justice?” asked one essay prompt Tufts offered applicants in 2022. What are you doing to ensure the planet’s future?

Across the curriculum, from the social sciences to the humanities, courses are steeped in social justice theory and calls to action. Cornell’s library publishes a study guide to a 1969 building occupation in which students armed themselves. Harvard offers asocial justice graduate certificate. “Universities spent years saying that activism is not just welcome but encouraged on their campuses,” Tyler Austin Harper noted recently in The Atlantic. “Students took them at their word.”

Imagine the surprise of one freshman who was expelled at Vanderbilt after students forced their way into an administrative building. As he told The Associated Press, protesting in high school was what helped get him into college in the first place — he wrote his admissions essay on organizing walkouts, and got a scholarship for activists and organizers.

Things could still work out well for many of these kids. Some professions — academia, politics, community organizing, nonprofit work — are well served by a résumé brimming with activism. But a lot has changed socially and economically since Boomer activists marched from the streets to the workplace, many of them building solid middle-class lives as teachers, creatives and professionals, without crushing anxiety about student debt. In a demanding and rapidly changing economy, today’s students yearn for the security of high-paying employment.

Not all employers will look kindly on an encampment stint. When a group of Harvard student organizations signed an open letter blaming Israel for Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks, the billionaire Bill Ackman requested on X that Harvard release the names of the students involved “so as to insure (sic) that none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” Soon after, a conservative watchdog group posted names and photos of the students on a truck circling Harvard Square.

Calling students out for their political beliefs is admittedly creepy. But Palestinian protests lacked the moral clarity of the anti-apartheid demonstrations. Along with protesters demanding that Israel stop killing civilians in Gaza, others stirred fears of antisemitism by justifying the Oct. 7 massacre, tearing down posters of kidnapped Israelis, shoving “Zionists” out of encampments and calling for “globalizing the intifada” and making Palestine “free from the river to the sea.”

In November, two dozen leading law firms wrote to top law schools implying that students who participated in what they called antisemitic activities, including calling for “the elimination of the State of Israel,” would not be hired. More than 100 firms have since signed on. One of those law firms, Davis Polk, rescinded job offersto students whose organizations had signed the letter Ackman criticized. Davis Polk said those sentiments were contrary to the firm’s values. Another major firm withdrew an offer to a student at New York University who also blamed Israel for the Oct. 7 attack. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law urged employers not hirethose of his students he said were antisemitic.

Two partners at corporate law firms, who asked to speak anonymously since other partners didn’t want them to talk to the media, told me that participating in this year’s protests, especially if it involves an arrest, could easily foreclose opportunities at their firm. At one of those firms, hiring managers scan applicants’ social media histories for problems. (Well before Oct. 7, students had keyed into this possibility, scrubbing campus activism from their résumés.)

Also, employers generally want to hire people who can get along and fit into their company culture, rather than trying to agitate for change. They don’t want politics disrupting the workplace.

“There is no right answer,” Steve Cohen, a partner at the boutique litigation firm, Pollock Cohen, said when I asked if protesting might count against an applicant. “But if I sense they are not tolerant of opinions that differ from their own, it’s not going to be a good fit.” (That matches my experience with Cohen, who had worked on the Reagan presidential campaign and hired me, a die-hard liberal, as an editorial assistant back in 1994.)

Corporate America is fundamentally risk-averse. As The Wall Street Journal reported, companies are drawing “a red line on office activists.” Numerous employers, including Amazon, arecracking down on political activism in the workplace, The Journal reported. Google recently fired 28 people.

For decades, employers used elite colleges as a kind human resources proxy to vet potential candidates and make their jobs easier by doing a first cut. Given that those same elite schools were hotbeds of activism this year, that calculus may no longer prove as reliable. Forbes reported that employers are beginning to sour on the Ivy League. “The perception of what those graduates bring has changed. And I think it’s more related to what they’re actually teaching and what they walk away with,” a Kansas City-based architectural firm told Forbes.

The American university has long been seen as a refuge from the real world, a sealed community unto its own. The outsize protests this past year showed that in a social media-infused, cable-news-covered world, the barrier has become more porous. What flies on campus doesn’t necessarily pass in the real world.

The toughest lesson for this generation may be that while they’ve been raised to believe in their right to change the world, the rest of the world may neither share nor be ready to indulge their particular vision.

Source: And Now, a Real World Lesson for Student Activists

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