Memorial University (MU) has responded to the online controversy regarding their equity job postings, calling the backlash "misinformation."The university located in St. John's Newfoundland and Labrador (NL) published different professor positions and completely different departments with one common requirement— they must be part of an "equity group."Each listing stated candidates must be a part of "one or more employment equity groups, including "women; 2SLGBTQIA+ people; Indigenous peoples; racialized persons; and persons with disabilities as per approval granted by the Human Rights Commission pursuant to Section 8 of the Human Rights Act (EDI-AR)."Reported by VCOM News, MU claims reports about the job candidate criteria have been full of "misinformation" spread through social media..The positions are funded by the feds through the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP).The CRCP has their own equity, diversity and inclusion requirements MU claims it must follow when filling positions.They state their requirements are not unique to MU and each university receiving money from the CRCP must follow equity targets and address "systemic barriers in academic hiring.”CRCP's equity targets state, "All participating institutions are required to establish equity targets."The equity targets include hiring "racialized individuals, indigenous peoples, persons with disabilities, and women and gender equity-seeking groups.".They claim to openly monitor the progress of universities in meeting their targets.If institutions do not meet these targets by the allocated deadlines, they will not be able to receive new research funds, unless the specific applicant is an "equity" candidate. If universities do not make their equity targets by December 2029 — they will see their research funds reduced, and for every equity target not met, they will lose funding for one research position. The MU positions posted were for a community health and substance use researcher, a computational biochemistry researcher, an AI-driven navigation researcher, and an Indigenous knowledge researcher.
