MacKinnon served for 13 years as the President of the University of Saskatchewan, and he is horrified by its mandatory DEI training:
It is a propaganda module in which scholarly expertise and balance will not be found. It does not appear that the instructor has a university academic post and the program’s ideological hue is revealed in the two required readings, one by Idle No More co-founder Sheelah McLean whose theme is that the success of Saskatchewan’s white people is built on “150 years of racist, sexist and homophobic colonial practices.” . . . One participant, a law professor, was invited to leave after 30 minutes because he did not lend his voice to its purpose and orientation; he revealed that he was present because it was required. The purpose of the program is indoctrination and there is no room for dissent.
I’ve found it next to impossible to transmit to people why I find these trainings to be incredibly humiliating. People see how much I read and write, how many languages I speak. And still they don’t get why having to listen to these momentous stupidities smugly delivered by individuals with zero intellect is crushing.
Clarissa's Blog 
Prof. Clarissa, just out of curiosity, which languages do you know at this point? I enjoy language learning and would be interested to know.
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Well, define “know”, you know? In my Twitter feed, I have sources in 8 languages, and I mostly don’t notice when I switch from one to another. In daily life, I exist in 4 languages. These are the ones where I’m completely fluent. In French, I can read very easily and understand every word when Emmanuel Macron speaks. But I never get a chance to speak, so my knowledge is passive. My German is getting increasingly better. I’m reading my first book of adapted German stories.
But completely fluent, have dreams in the language type of knowing, only four. I don’t know how one can have the time to maintain more than that because you need to do something in a language every day and how is it possible?
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I am a graduate of the U of S, (BSc. ADV 1979) and I will remember this when the alumni association calls and asks for donations
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Oh, how cool! That’s why I love this blog. Whenever I mention anything, there are always people who are very familiar with the subject.
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LOL, the U of Sask, Regina campus is where I had my very, very brief “consciousness rising” back in the late 60’s ;-D
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LOL raising
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Better late than never I guess, but… where was he for the last 13 years?
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Exactly. Self-preservation is the only guiding principle in their lives. Now that it’s ok to call DEI out, he pretends to be horrified by it.
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The only thing he can be congratulated for here, is having a better nose for the direction of the wind than the weasels running Harvard.
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And he’s the President of the fucking university, talking as if it’s a disinterested observer. You literally presided over all these changes, you fucking worm. The bare minimum honorable response to this should be taking responsibility for it and resigning.
“I failed at upholding the values of the university, it is time for someone better to take over and restore the image of the institution I have helped destroy.”
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Not a seppuku culture.
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There’s something to the idea that the Iran-Contra scandal marked a turning point in american political accountability, and it’s trickled over to other spheres of american life too. The failure of Reagan to resign or face any consequences signaled a decline in the culture of resignation and honor. People just don’t fucking resign anymore! And historically speaking, this is a very recent change in america.
Survival now is about managing the media fallout of your fuckups rather than honoring norms or principles.
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Also, I think seppuku culture is different. It’s driven by shame instead of guilt (which presumes an internal moral compass). Japanese executives doing those 90 degree bows in front of the public only do it after they’re caught, in other words, only after they bring shame to their families/company. It was all fine until they were found out.
By contrast, the west’s notion of honor is based on guilt. You step down because what you did was wrong. That’s it.
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He was president of the university until 2012.
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Oh.
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That makes a lot more sense!
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The really sad part is that the Chancellor of my university (he of the “physics is outdated like typewriter repair” fame) can neither think nor write at this level at all. One can’t hold a discussion with him and debate the points. The intellect isn’t there.
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Your “hourglass” post about it is the most articulate explanation of why this is humiliating that I have ever come across. I’ve sent that post to countless people. I seriously think you should consider sending it to an some magazine or publication because it needs to be disseminated far and wide. If I had the money I’d rent planes and rain pamphlets down on every college campus in the country. Thank you!
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Guess what? I will be teaching the hourglass theory next semester! I’m very excited.
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Amazing. Could you please post the syllabus here when you teach the class? I want to read the material you assign to the class. Thanks!
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For what it’s worth, I worked at USask for a couple of years right before Covid (left for TT job elsewhere, but that’s a different story). So here’s my three cents.
1. As far as Canadian universities go, USask is (was?) probably a bit less wacky than the rabidly DEI-obsessed schools in BC or Ontario, especially those in the Greater Toronto Area. On the other hand, it’s like academia anywhere, completely detached from reality and pushing all kinds of virtue-signaling such as pronouns and land acknowledgements (we had to start every department meeting with one of those—every time I wanted to say “Amen” at the end of the recitation.) So, it’s still a university so you are bound to find all kinds of wokest nonsense here. So I don’t think that the Canadian academia is changing direction in any meaningful way.
2. For me the really sad part is the professor’s reaction. I haven’t read this article, but the story was originally reported in the same paper (by Tristin Hopper, I think). And the professor at the centre of this story described the people running the workshop as “well-meaning.” Dude, they literally told you that you were shit because you are racist, Indigeno-phobic, white, privileged or something. And he still thinks they are nice people.
3. The really really sad part is that completing that stupid unconscious-bias workshop is mandatory if you want to serve on a search committee. Read: if you want your career to advance, shut up and get on with the program. Which Clarissa knows better than anyone.
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Thank you so much for this great, detailed comment! When I told about land acknowledgements on one of my shows in Ukraine, people really couldn’t get over it. This gave rise to its own brand of humor about the new American religion. You can’t even explain this idea to anybody remotely normal. It’s so insane. But we are somehow letting it happen.
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Well, was hesitant to react yesterday because I had never heard of a Dr. Sheelah McLean. She apparently believes that Critical Race Theory and Feminist Theory somehow helps inner city aboriginals, but suspect that she knows sweet bugger all about their current lives, and even less about their history. Worse, in doing so she deliberately betrays the memories of her own families’ harsh travails to further foist an imaginary history of the Canadian prairies. A historian, she is not ;-D
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Enough to make a tough guy weep:
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