Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
A Heterodox Conversation™ with Stephen Reich and Lilach Marom on what equity, diversity, and inclusion are doing to universities today. Stephen, a former lawyer and current PhD student at the University of Toronto, argues that contemporary EDI frameworks clash with the classic liberal mission of the university: truth seeking, merit, and open inquiry. Lilach, an assistant professor of education at Simon Fraser University, defends equity, diversity, and inclusion as tools for widening participation, surfacing hidden barriers, and expanding whose histories and experiences are taken seriously in higher education.
Together, they explore how to understand equity beyond headcounts, what diversity really means, whether land acknowledgements clarify or cloud our view of history, and what genuine inclusion looks like for students and faculty now. This conversation doesn’t settle for slogans. It asks hard questions about when EDI helps, when it harms, and how universities can remain places where people with deep disagreements still learn from each other.
A Heterodox Conversation™ with Stephen Reich and Lilach Marom on what equity, diversity, and inclusion are doing to universities today. Stephen, a former lawyer and current PhD student at the University of Toronto, argues that contemporary EDI frameworks clash with the classic liberal mission of the university: truth seeking, merit, and open inquiry. Lilach, an assistant professor of education at Simon Fraser University, defends equity, diversity, and inclusion as tools for widening participation, surfacing hidden barriers, and expanding whose histories and experiences are taken seriously in higher education.
Together, they explore how to understand equity beyond headcounts, what diversity really means, whether land acknowledgements clarify or cloud our view of history, and what genuine inclusion looks like for students and faculty now. This conversation doesn’t settle for slogans. It asks hard questions about when EDI helps, when it harms, and how universities can remain places where people with deep disagreements still learn from each other.
