University of Saskatchewan Stamp
CBC News reports the following (original article):
The University of Saskatchewan has turned down a $500,000 offer to endow a scholarship because the donor wants the money to be spent only on non-aboriginal students.
According to the university, a 57-year-old graduate of the Saskatoon-based university offered the money, with the stipulation linked to race.
Heather Magotiaux, vice-president of advancement for the university, told CBC News that setting up such a scholarship would violate human rights legislation.
“We do make exceptions where those exceptions have been identified by the human rights legislation,” Magotiaux said about other scholarships that target minorities such as aboriginal students and students with disabilities. Outside of those categories, she said, “our core position is that scholarships should be made available to students regardless of race.”
Magotiaux said the university would take the money if the race-related clause was dropped
She said, however, that the potential donor was adamant.
“It became evident that that was a criterion that the donor insisted on, and therefore, we had to decline the gift,” Magotiaux said.
Universities routinely accept donations that seek to serve under-represented populations. Can the reverse be justified?
First, universities aren’t just institutions of learning, but corporate entities that have to adhere to legal obligations. Indeed, U of Sask. would face considerable difficulty if it tried to offer a scholarship that was denied to one specific racial/ethnic group.
However, were the University free of such obligations, could an institution that values academic freedom accept such a donation? No. Academic freedom comes with the responsibility to base your argument on legitimate research and based upon a methodology. It’s not the right to think and say any foolish thing you wish.
Support for under-represented groups is based upon a desire to expand participation in higher education amongst all citizens. Aboriginals have the lowest participation rate in higher education of any group in Canada. Therefore, to offer support to all but aboriginal students, would be to offer assistance to all but those who need it most. Academic freedom cannot abide this and an institution of higher education could not accept such an offer.
I’m doing my best to remain high minded, Liam, but the lesser Matt is tempted to say that such a scholarship might be justified if it were the case that aboriginal students already received ample educational incentives and opportunities, perhaps at the expense of non-aboriginal students on the cusp of being able to afford college. This would be compounded if it were the case that schools lowered admissions standards for aboriginal students, or were required to meet some quota.
However, the fact that the donor’s stipulation is selectively exclusionary rather than selectively inclusive is disturbing. Had he/she mandated that the money only fund, say, men of European descent, that seems more tolerable than the requirement that it NOT go to aboriginal students. The former seems structurally similar enough to existing help for minorities to possibly pass muster, especially in light of the potential compounding factors (potential existing privileges that I can neither confirm nor deny, since I’m out of the Canadian loop). But targeting a group for exclusion just sounds especially malicious and mean-spirited–the sort of thing a university certainly should turn down.