Benjamin Kucher

16/ Removing EDI from hiring policy is not a bold or brave move. It is an institutional retreat from responsibility at the exact moment when accountability is being asked for.

15/ If the University of Alberta genuinely believes in excellence, then it should be willing to defend hiring practices that recognize how uneven the academic playing field actually is, not pretend it is flat.

14/ Calling that “merit-based hiring” does not make it principled. It makes it unexamined.

13/ When universities weaken equity commitments, they are not becoming more neutral. They are choosing to protect existing hierarchies from scrutiny.

12/ But beyond governance and legal risk, here is what matters most to me:

Hiring policy determines who controls research culture.

Who supervises students.

Who decides what kinds of questions are deemed legitimate.

Who gets to define rigor.

11/ There are also public legal questions now being raised about whether removing explicit equity commitments is compatible with federal equity obligations tied to major research programs, including Canada Research Chair appointments.

This alone should make leadership pause.

10/ The General Faculties Council passed a motion opposing the elimination of EDI language from the draft recruitment policy.

That should be read as an institutional red flag, not activist noise.

9/ The claim that EDI introduces politics into hiring is ironic. Hiring has always been political. It reflects what an institution values, protects, and reproduces.

The only difference is whether those values are named and accountable, or hidden behind vague appeals to “tradition” and “excellence.”

8/ I also want to be very clear about something that often gets lost in these debates.

Equity policies do not tell committees who to hire. They tell institutions to take responsibility for how opportunity is distributed before hiring ever begins.

7/ The uncomfortable truth is this:

EDI threatens nothing about excellence.
It threatens comfort.

It forces institutions to confront how narrow their definitions of success, productivity, leadership, and scholarly legitimacy have become.

6/ If merit were truly neutral, we would not see the same demographic patterns reproduce themselves generation after generation across Canadian universities.

You do not get structural outcomes without structural causes.

5/ Removing equity criteria does not suddenly make competition fair.

It simply allows committees to rely even more heavily on informal reputation, institutional prestige, and unexamined assumptions about “fit.”

Those are some of the least transparent and most exclusionary parts of academic hiring.

4/ When people argue that EDI “lowers standards,” what they are really defending is a hiring pipeline that already privileges certain trajectories, institutions, supervisors, and networks.

That is not excellence.
That is inherited advantage.

3/ The idea that merit is neutral is one of the most persistent myths in the modern university.

Who gets mentored?
Who gets invited into projects?
Who is encouraged to publish?
Who is shielded from reputational harm?

Those advantages accumulate long before a hiring committee ever meets.

2/ EDI does not replace merit. It corrects for how merit is measured inside systems that were built long before Indigenous people, racialized scholars, disabled scholars, and many others were allowed meaningful access.

1/ The University of Alberta is moving to remove explicit Equity, Diversity and Inclusion commitments from its hiring policy.

This is being sold as a return to “merit.”
That framing is misleading, and frankly intellectually dishonest.

For too long the University of Alberta has been unduly influenced by right wing ideological bias. I am calling for institutional neutrality! We cannot let them indoctrinate our youth. Universities are places to LEARN.

I strongly urge faculty, staff, and students at the University of Alberta to bring a human rights challenge at the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Win or lose (probably win) the University and UCP would hate to have their dirty laundry aired in public. So do it.

U of A looks to remove EDI from hiring policy | CBC News The University of Alberta is proposing to eliminate Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) from its hiring policy, a year after the school initially said it was moving away from the term.

Here is the CBC News story by Emily Williams warning of this appalling decision on the University of Alberta's part. www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...

I've been saddened today to learn that the University of Alberta is going down MAGA road and wants to abolish Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.

So I've written to University President Bill Flanagan, warning him of the legal risks. Because the University may need suing.

This isn’t enough.

To support international law and democracy, we must be able to denounce its imposition on #Venezuela’s citizens by the illegal use of force.

We must oppose those who insult the rule of law & condemn those who violate the UN Charter & international laws.

Trump says U.S. will ‘run’ Venezuela after capturing Maduro in military strike U.S. President says Maduro, who faces charges along with his wife, was seized during an assault on a fortress in Caracas

For a man who claims he opposes America’s illegal war and subsequent occupation of Iraq, Trump seems remarkably eager to illegally wage war against Venezuela and now “run” it.

How did it work out the first time? 🤔

www.theglobeandmail.com/world/us-pol...

While the urge to get rid of despots by illegal means is both common and, to some extent, understandable, it is also indefensible, for the simple reasons that;

1️⃣ two wrongs never make a right, and
2️⃣ it does not make things better; history shows it makes everyone less safe.

Violations of international law must be named, especially when committed by powerful states.

If the law only applies to some, it protects no one.

Explaining context ≠ excusing violence.

Understanding history ≠ staying silent.

135 years later, Wounded Knee is not just history, it is a wound that still speaks. We remember the lives taken, the futures interrupted, and the violence of a state that feared Indigenous survival. Memory is an act of resistance. Truth is an obligation. Justice is still owed.

The Indigenous Graduate Students’ Association has released a formal statement condemning the ongoing actions by the GSA at the U of Alberta.

As a councillor-at-large, I stand in solidarity with them.

Sharing on behalf of the Indigenous Graduate Students Association at the University of Alberta:

Statement from the Indigenous Graduate Students’ Association (IGSA) concerning the Graduate Students' Association - University of Alberta December 22, 2025

Confronting residential schools denialism is an ethical and shared Canadian responsibility Residential schools denialism is harmful on many levels, and jeopardizes Canada’s ability to work with Indigenous Peoples to create a stronger future.

"Denialism is not an Indigenous problem; confronting it is a Canadian responsibility...Truth & reconciliation cannot survive if the truth is minimized, downplayed or disavowed."

Critically important piece by @seancarleton.bsky.social & @truthinthesoil.bsky.social theconversation.com/confronting-...

Earlier this week I joined @aptnnews.bsky.social to discuss residential school denialism and the need for legislative action

Listen here: open.spotify.com/episode/07MQ...