Article content continued

When progressives talk about merit at all, they tend to put the word inside quotation marks, to suggest it is actually just a made-up construct that white men use to justify their privileges (which certainly once was true, it must be said). Or, as in the case of Dalhousie University, they redefine the concept of merit in nonsensical, self-serving ways.

As George Orwell put it: One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that

“From my perspective, there isn’t a merit argument that runs counter to this (race-based restriction on job applicants),” says Dalhousie assistant vice-president of human resources Jasmine Walsh. “In fact, this actually is the way for us to develop the most meritorious faculty and staff population … It’s critically important that students who are coming onto campus are able to see themselves reflected.”

The implicit argument here is that “merit” encompasses a person’s race — since a person of race X will help someone of race X “see themselves reflected.” This definition is so absurdly broad that it could be used, in identical form, to swallow up just about any imaginable policy that organizes humanity according to skin colour, gender or any other criterion. Certainly, this is not how anyone outside the ivory tower would define “merit.” As George Orwell put it: “One has to belong to the intelligentsia to believe things like that: no ordinary man could be such a fool.”

Modern university culture has become an unholy mash-up of MBA marketing gobbledygook and social-justice Twitter dogma

Walsh’s statement isn’t just a random act of violence against the English language. It’s also a microcosm of modern university culture — which has become an unholy mash-up of MBA marketing gobbledygook and social-justice Twitter dogma. (Amina Abawajy, president of Dalhousie’s student union, told reporters that it’s crucial the new hire “has an understanding of intersectional oppression and forms of oppression.”) And one of the culture’s effects, as this episode shows, is to protect the conscience of campus apparatchiks from the moral repercussions of their race- and gender-torqued policies.