Racism in the Canadian University: Demanding Social Justice, Inclusion, and Equity (review)

Frances Henry and Carol Tator have published a critical reflection on racial inequality and racial injustice in Canadian universities. This work follows their 1995 publication, The Colour of Democracy, that analyses major Canadian institutions concerning such issues as mass media, health and social services, and policing. In Racism in the Canadian University, the authors aim to analyse “the impact of hegemonic whiteness and the processes of racialization that continue to function in the Canadian academy” (3).

The edited book has six chapters written by contributors France Henry and Carol Tator, Audrey Kobayashi, Patricia Monture, Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar, Carl James and Enakshi Dua, respectively, with the introduction and epilogue written by Henry and Tator. The contributors focus on a range of issues—theoretical perspectives, racialized faculty representation, curriculum content, racialized students, and university policies related to diversity and anti-racism.

In the introduction, Henry and Tator trace the history and background of the academy and provide a quick overview of three specific cases of racism in the Canadian academy. Despite this history, the authors state:

Writing now, several decades after the racial crisis at Sir George Williams University and a multiplicity of other manifestations of racism in the academy, we find we are still deeply mired in the systems and structures of racial inequities

(14).

In the first chapter, Henry and Tator document urgent questions being asked by racialized and indigenous academics across the country: “Whose knowledge counts and whose knowledge is discounted? Whose voice is heard and who is ignored?” (22). The authors highlight critical race perspectives such as racialization, whiteness studies and other conceptualizations of racism, and document the findings of their small pilot study on the manifestations of racism in the academy. Their findings include the under-representation of racialized faculty, the prevalence of Eurocentric curricula, and issues of racial “chilly climate” in Canadian universities today.

In chapters two and three, Audrey Kobayashi and Patricia Monture focus on the experiences of racialized faculty. Kobayashi documents the academy’s culture of whiteness and its result in the denigration of the work of academics of colour. She calls attention to both personal experiences of exclusion and macro, structural racialization processes. Monture also highlights the Eurocentric perspectives and assumptions in the academy:

Whiteness, as experienced in the university, is always a gendered term. Implicit in its use is maleness and the power with which being male privileges you…. It is a system of benefits, advantages, and opportunities compared to racism, which is a system of negatives—detriments, disadvantages, and denials”

(78).

In chapter four, Camille Hernandez-Ramdwar writes about Caribbean students’ experiences. Students voice their experiences of differential treatment, and administrators’ lack of perspective into students’ social context. Hernandez-Ramdwar highlights heavy debt loads, low-income families, and higher levels of violence, and connects them to the “historical legacies of colonialism and racism, legacies that contribute to the ongoing marginalization of Caribbean people” (125). This historical perspective is the silent denial that the culture of whiteness in academia has been erased.

In chapters five and six, Carl James and Enakshi Dua examine Canadian universities’ diversity and anti-racist policies. James focuses on the silence on matters of race and documents “that faculty and appointment committee members tend not to talk about the racial composition of the faculty” (141). Similarly, Dua sees university anti-racist policies as window dressing in the absence of political will and effective implementation procedures. She documents policies that, in fact, block racial equity. Dua concludes: “The challenge is to think through how to insure that anti-racist policies take hold institutionally” (193).

Frances Henry and Carol Tator have compiled and edited a pioneering book that is an accessible read for both undergraduate and graduate students. The book introduces readers to a range of explicit and structural, systemic barriers facing racialized and indigenous individuals and communities. There could have been more voices and experiences from racialized individuals...