Category: DEI matters

Animal Behavior Society requires DEI statements for student grants

October 27, 2023 • 12:15 pm

This is not the only grant I know abut that requires a DEI statement, but it’s the only student grant I know that does that.  I may, of course, have missed some, but these grants from the Animal Behavior society are grants for specific research projects, and it seems wrong to me to co-opt an initiative designed to promote scientific research to also achieve specific social-justice aims as well.

And, as we all know, DEI statements must be of the right kind to help you get jobs, promotions, or money. That is, you can’t get away with using the MLK statement that “we judge people on the content of their character [read “research proposal” for “character” here] rather than the color of their skin.” Making statements like that, or saying, “I treat all students equally,” or “I do not discriminate on the basis of race or gender,” is a sure route to failure.  Thus, DEI statements are always required as either substitutes for affirmative action or to promote equity; in other words, they promote adoption of specific ideologies.

Clear to read this announcement from the Animal Behavior Society, sent by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. It gives out grants to support not just student research, but specific research projects. 

 

In one way these mimic scientific grants submitted to the NIH and NSF, in which scientists propose specific research projects, laying them out and discussing the possible results.

Bolding, except for headers, is mine; content of the announcement is indented

Important Notes:

  • Individuals may receive only one ABS research grant during their lifetime. Receipt of an ABS research grant does not preclude receipt of a Developing Nations Grant in a subsequent year, and receipt of a Developing Nations Grant one year does not preclude the receipt of an ABS research grant in a subsequent year.
  • All grant applications are required to include a Diversity Equity and Inclusion Statement that will be evaluated in the review process (see details below).
  • All Grants should be submitted online following the Guidelines listed below.

General Guidelines:

  • Give the proposed work a clear conceptual context and theoretical rationale (reviewers will assess proposals for conceptual significance and intellectual merit).
  • Clearly state the feasibility of the proposed work.
  • Obtain input from others on successive drafts.
  • Consider how you and/or your research contribute to the diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, your research field, and/or ABS
  • Before submission, it is suggested that you have a final draft of your proposal critically reviewed by established researchers, including a senior scientist.
  • Clearly state the hypotheses that you propose to test.
  • Describe the statistical analyses that you will use for the data that you collect; if your work will be based on techniques that require special statistical justification, include information that will allow reviewers to evaluate them.
  • Any pilot data that you include could strengthen the quality of your proposal.
  • Start far enough in advance of the closing date to allow time to think about your proposed work in depth, to read relevant published materials, and to obtain input from colleagues. . . .

What you have to submit:

  • Research Proposal (Pages 1-4 | 4 pages max)
    • Summary of Proposed Work
    • Introduction
    • Hypothesis(es) to be tested
    • Proposed Research
    • Predicted Outcomes
    • Importance of Proposed Research
    • Diversity Equity and Inclusion Statement  <—
    • Bibliography
  • Budget and Justification (Pages 5 | 1 page max)
  • Curriculum Vitae (Pages 6-7 | 2 pages max)
  • Animal Care Questionnaire (Page 8 | 1 page max)

And the requirements for the DEI statement, which are twice as long as the “proposed research”!

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Statement

To promote excellent science and dedication to diversity, all research grants are required to have a diversity equity and inclusion statement to highlight applicants’ communication skills, resiliency in the face of setbacks, high standards of ethics and integrity, and commitment to inclusive and equitable science that promotes diversity in the field of animal behavior.

The DEI Statement is an opportunity to describe your contributions to diversity which might fall into the following categories.

  • Reflection on educational, cultural, economic, or social experiences, that have shaped your academic journey or that influence others.

  • Past actions and future plans for active engagement (e.g., employment, service, teaching or other activities) in programs focused on increasing participation by groups that have been historically underrepresented in higher education or programs focused on educating/correcting a majoritarian group or system.

  • Past actions and future plans for personal, research, teaching, or mentorship contributions to diversity in general and specifically within ABS.

Of course they don’t tell you exactly what kind of diversity you’re supposed to promote, but it’s nearly always racial diversity (with perhaps a smidgen of gender diversity). It’s certainly not ideological or viewpoint diversity, as those don’t count as “underrepresented groups.”  Further, look at the part about “educating/correcting a majoritarian group or system”. That’s pure identity-shaming, and it’s reprehensible.

If you don’t talk about race, then, you can probably forget about that grant.  Further, the tripartite outline of the DEI statement largely mirrors the tripartite nature of what many schools (like the University of California system) require, or used to require:  a). your philosophy of diversity, b). what you did in the past to foster diversity, and c). what you will do if you get the job (grant in this case) to foster diversity.

Now I know of other grants that require DEI statements.  Our joint paper “In Defense of Merit in Science” mentions the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as grants from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC).  But neither the NSF nor NIH requres DEI statements, which would probably be deemed illegal. (I’m not sure how the DoE gets away with it.) At any rate, now our students are being roped into expressing “progressive ideology” if they want to get grants. This system, of course, appears to discriminate against those students who want to do research but disagree with the “progressive” view of DEI.

Ideology should play no role in whether or not you get money to do science.

California community colleges go off the rails with DEI

July 26, 2023 • 9:30 am

This could be a long article if I summarized all the mishigass going on in the community college system of the state of California, but I’ll try to be brief and put the items in numbered form. The upshot is that the system has thrown its hat entirely in the DEI ring, making all faculty and staff pledge fealty not just to DEI, but to the extreme Ibram Kendi-an view of DEi. And if you don’t obey they’re rules for behaving as an “antiracist”, you could be demoted, fired, or denied tenure. To me, this is a clear and wide-ranging violation of both freedom of speech and academic freedom. (Remember the community college system is part of state government and so must obey the Constitution.)

1.) A lawsuit against California Community Colleges (CCC). The editorial board of the WSJ describes a situation that some might dismiss simply because of the newspaper’s conservative op-ed column, but that would be a mistake. Why? Because the facts check out completely, even on the CCC’s website. See below. Click to read:

An excerpt:

Critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis argue he has gone too far in trying to root out “wokeness” from public universities, but look to California to see where academic groupthink is going if left unchecked. A legal complaint filed this month by a history professor in Bakersfield says that his community college’s performance and tenure reviews are being used to force faculty to adopt woke progressive values in their classrooms.

Daymon Johnson has been at Bakersfield College since 1993. As he tells it, three months ago California Community Colleges, which serves 1.8 million students at 116 campuses, amended its regulations so employees must espouse its tenets of diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility (DEIA). “Faculty members shall employ teaching, learning, and professional practices that reflect DEIA and anti-racist principles,” the regulations say. Schools must “place significant emphasis on DEIA competencies in employee evaluation and tenure review.”

A detailed baseline explanation of that last policy was soon distributed to faculty, including at Bakersfield College. “The DEI competencies provided in this document are meant to define the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that all California Community College (CCC) employees must demonstrate,” it says, according to the copy attached as an exhibit to Mr. Johnson’s lawsuit. Here are a few of the items it lists as markers of success for faculty and staff:

• “Promotes and incorporates DEI and anti-racist pedagogy.”

• “Develops and implements a pedagogy and/or curriculum that promotes a race-conscious and intersectional lens.”

• “Contributes to DEI and anti-racism research and scholarship.”

• “Articulates the importance and impact of DEI and anti-racism as part of the institution’s greater mission.”

• “Advocates for and advances DEI and anti-racist goals and initiatives.”

• “Leads DEI and anti-racist efforts by participating in DEI groups, committees, or community activities that promote systemic and cultural change to close equity gaps and support minoritized groups.”

• “Participates in a continuous cycle of self-assessment of one’s growth and commitment to DEI and acknowledgement of any internalized personal biases and racial superiority or inferiority.”

Mr. Johnson opposes it all and is suing with help from the Institute for Free Speech. “Professor Johnson cannot satisfy DEIA standards based on the state Chancellor’s DEIA competencies without violating his conscience and surrendering his academic freedom,” his filing says. “Almost everything Professor Johnson teaches violates the new DEIA requirements—not just by failing to advance the DEIA and anti-racist ideologies, but also by criticizing them.”

He doesn’t want to change his “classical pedagogy that stresses the study of ‘truth, goodness, and beauty.’” He doesn’t want to engage in DEIA “self-reflection,” which “he views as religious-like and little more than neo-Marxist re-education on race.” He doesn’t want to “articulate” the antiracism credo, which he believes is “antithetical to Bakersfield College’s mission and the American national ideal not to discriminate and provide equal opportunity for all regardless of the melanin in a person’s skin.”

To see what Johnson is being asked to adhere to, follow the links given below.

2.) The CCC mission as stated on its page (click below):

These seems pretty innocuous at first, or at least in line with the stuff going on in other places, but this is extreme.

The Chancellor’s Office is equipping districts and colleges with the tools and support they need to create equity-centered, anti-racist policies and practices, including:

  • Embedding DEIA competencies and criteria into employee evaluations and tenure review processes.
  • Updating the student grievance process to provide clear steps for students to raise concerns and resolve acts of racism, microaggressions and discomfort
  • Re-evaluate and embed DEIA in district equal employment opportunity (EEO) plans to demonstrate an ongoing, action-oriented commitment to EEO and DEIA.
  • Encouraging more mentorship opportunities between students and faculty.
  • Provide professional learning resources focused on institutional bias, structural racism, and their impact on campus culture and student success.

The requirements for faculty and staff are extreme, and their success on the job rests on adhering to a strict form of Critical Race Theory.  First, here’s a 4-minute video showing a number of CCC staff discussing the new policy. It starts off innocuously, discussing the pandemic, fires, and other natural disasters. Only then does it get to the bee of DEI (0:39).

What struck me most strongly was the repeated assertion that you need to be surrounded by mentors and faculty in which they “can see themselves reflected.” What they mean is that students require an environment filled with others of their own ethnicity if they are to succeed. This shows clearly that “diversity” here means not just “racial diversity” (forget about intellectual, religious, or socioeconomic diversity), but “racial diversity that can be discerned by looking at peoples’ appearances”.

This is about as far from being “color blind” as you can imagine, but if you check the links below, you’ll see in the definition of “color blind” that Martin Luther King’s plea for ignoring skin color is immediately binned by the CCC.  The explicit assumption is that students cannot feel that they belong at a university unless they see many people who “look like them.”

3.) There is an approved glossary of terms on the CCC website. There are too many to show, but check it out. I’ll give but three. This was all distributed to the faculty and staff.

The first two are straight out of Kendi with its emphasis on the ubiquity of structural racism and the claim that if you are not actively opposing racism, you’re a racist yourself

Anti-Racist: Person who actively opposes racism and the unfair treatment of people who belong to other races. They recognize that all racial groups are equal (i.e. nothing inherently superior or inferior about specific racial groups) and that racist policies have caused racial inequities. They also understand that racism is pervasive and has been embedded into all societal structures. An anti-racist challenges the values, structures, policies, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism, and they are also willing to admit the times in which they have been racist. Persons that say they are ‘not a racist’ are in denial of the racial problems and inequities that exist.

Anti-Racism: A powerful collection of antiracist policies that lead to racial equity and are substantiated by antiracist ideas. Practicing antiracism requires constantly identifying, challenging, and upending existing racist policies to replace them with antiracist policies that foster equity between racial groups.

If you don’t do constantly engage in such activities, your denying the existence of racism and inequities, and the implication (à la Kendi) is that “if you’re not an antiracist, you’re a racist”).

Color Blindness: Is a racial ideology that assumes the best way to end prejudice and discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity. This ideology is grounded in the belief that race-based differences do not matter and should not be considered for decisions, impressions, and behaviors. However, the term
“color blind” de‐emphasizes, or ignores, race and ethnicity, a large part of one’s identity and lived experience. In doing so, it perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.

Bye, bye, MLK.  Colorblindness is said here to perpetuate racism. I don’t think they understand what “treating individuals as equally as possible” really means in academia. It does NOT mean ignoring differences in background or understanding.

I find this one offensive and patronizing, implying that nonwhite students cannot be judged by merit, but must be held to lower standards.

Merit: A concept that at face value appears to be a neutral measure of academic achievement and qualifications; however, merit is embedded in the ideology of Whiteness and upholds race-based structural inequality. Merit protects White privilege under the guise of standards (i.e., the use of standardized tests that are biased against racial minorities) and as highlighted by anti-affirmative action forces. Merit implies that White people are deemed better qualified and more worthy but are denied opportunities due to race-conscious policies. However, this understanding of merit and worthiness fails to recognize systemic oppression, racism, and generational privilege afforded to Whites.

The site also says that “race” is a pure social construct, and that “there are no distinctive genetic characteristics that truly distinguish between groups of people.”  That, of course, is a flat-out lie. The classical human races, or even ethnic groups, are not absolutely distinguishable by single genes, but using constellations of genes allows one to place both ethnicity and geographic origin with substantial accuracy, as Luana and I discuss in our paper. (Of course we deny the assertion of the CCCC that “race presumes human worth and social status for the purpose of establishing and maintaining privilege and power.”

4.) And the CCC’s vision for DEI, mandating how its employees must behave if they’re to succeed. If you look at only one thing, look at this document mandating proper behavior for employees.  If you don’t adhere, you’ll disappear.

Here’s the intro:

DIVERSITY, EQUITY AND INCLUSION COMPETENCIES AND CRITERIA The DEI competencies provided in this document are meant to define the skills, knowledge, and behaviors that all California Community College (CCC) employees must demonstrate to work, teach, and lead in a diverse environment that celebrates and is inclusive of diversity (See Table 1). During the evaluation and tenure review process, employees will be able to demonstrate they have met the DEI competencies using concrete examples based on DEI criteria provided in this document (See Table 2). As aforementioned, the subgroup participated in activities to develop the DEI competencies and criteria. In partnership with the Chancellor’s Office, the Success Center analyzed and categorized the subgroup’s responses from activities using thematic coding. Responses that shared a common theme were grouped together under an overarching thematic code, and a description was created for each thematic code. In addition, each competency and criteria was assessed as to whether it applies to faculty, staff (including administrators), or both employee types. The most common themes that emerged for DEI Competencies were Cultural Competency, Self-reflection, and Self-Improvement. The most common themes that emerged for DEI Criteria are Service, Self-assessment, and DEI Environment.

These requirements apply to both faculty and staff except for the third:

Self-reflection
Theme applies to both faculty and staff.

Recommended Description

• Engages in self-assessment of one’s own commitment to DEI and internal biases, and seeks opportunities for growth to acknowledge and address the harm caused by internal biases and behavior.

 

 Self-improvement
Theme applies to both faculty and staff.

Recommended Description

 • Demonstrates a commitment to continuous improvement as it relates to one’s DEI and anti-racism knowledge, skills, and behaviors to mitigate any harm caused (whether intentional or not) to minoritized communities.

 

 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Pedagogy & Curriculum
 Theme applies to faculty.

Recommended Description

• Promotes and incorporates DEI and anti-racist pedagogy.
• Accommodates for diverse learning styles and utilizes holistic assessment methods.
•Participates in training to incorporate culturally affirming pedagogy.

 

Data
Theme applies to both faculty and staff.

Recommended Description

• Uses data to uncover inequitable outcomes measured through equity-mindedness that calls out racialized patterns in the data, policies, and practices to inform strategies to improve equitable student outcomes and success.

This is not only inapplicable to many people, but also mandates a given result: you must find “racialized patterns in the data” and then fix them. Talk about confirmation bias!

And, finally, the most invidious one.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Criteria Themes Service (e.g., service to the institution or community, or professional service)
Theme applies to both faculty and staff.

Recommended Description

• Advocates for and advances DEI and anti-racist goals and initiatives\
• Leads DEI and anti-racist efforts by participating in DEI groups, committees, or community activities that promote systemic and cultural change to close equity gaps and support minoritized groups.
• Contributes to student life on campus and supports diverse students beyond the classroom.
• Includes a DEI and race-conscious pedagogy and/or curriculum in campus activities for students, faculty, and/or staff.
• Understands and applies asset-based student-centered practices and activities that recognize students’ lived experiences, strengths, and capabilities and empowers students to take ownership of their learning experience (e.g., Competency Based Education, Credit for Prior Learning, etc.).
• Commits to the success of minoritized students by providing specific opportunities to access educational pathways and opportunities for academic and career success (including academic and non-academic advising, mentorship).
• Develops and implements student programs and activities that incorporate a raceconscious and intersectional lens and equips students to engage with the world as scholars and citizens.
• Creates an inclusive learning and working environment by valuing differences among colleagues and students and recognizing the ideological disproportionate impacts on historically minoritized racial groups.
• Contributes to DEI and anti-racism research and scholarship.

 

It’s not surprising that Daymon Johnson is suing the CCC for forcing him to adhere to these behaviors. They’re not only compelled speech, but compelled thought. That violates freedom of speech. Further, by mandating that faculty have to incorporate antiracism into their curricula in specific ways, it also violates academic freedom. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t prevail in the lawsuit.

Once again we see public colleges being transformed into instruments for Social Justice.  It seems sufficient to me to say that a school does not discriminate on the grounds of race, ability, gender, religion, and so on, and add that the college prizes diversity attained within the law.

My new college application essay, written by AI in light of the Supreme Court’s recent decision

July 22, 2023 • 11:15 am

I got this idea from a friend, whose colleague, aware that the decision to ban race-based affirmative action in college would lead to new workarounds, used Chat-GPT to generate one of those workarounds: the “adversity essay.” That is, the Supreme Court left open the option that, although you couldn’t check a box labeled “race” on your college application, nor could colleges give you a boost simply because of your race, you could still write an essay emphasizing your ethnicity, explaining how it was associated with adversity that eventually led you to become a resilient proponent of DEI. This potential way to evade race-specific admissions has led some to say that many colleges will change their entrance essays (as well as eliminating standardized tests) into questions that can be answered by explaining how you overcame adversity, giving you ample opportunity to emphasize your minority status while not violating the Supreme Court’s standards.

The essay that gave me this idea came from my friend’s colleague asking Chat-GPT this question, “Write a college essay explaining why stubbing my toe in the 4th grade gave me the desire and character to become a neurosurgeon. Make it a good essay, not too stuffy, and mention my background as a child of carnies [carnival workers] as a reason why I have overcome adversity.” The answer was funny, but I didn’t want to just reproduce that exchange.

I decided to use my real ethnicity (99% Ashkenazi Jew) and write a college essay to work around a fictional scenario, a Supreme Court ruling that colleges could not have affirmative action favoring Jews. But my question was based on a real incident: at the school-bus stop in ninth grade in Germany, a group of (American) bullies started calling me a “dirty Jew”. That precipitated the only fistfight I’ve ever been in. I decided to use that incident as the basis of a college-admissions essay. Here’s the question I asked Chat-GPT:

Write a college essay explaining why, when a group of bullies called me a “dirty Jew” in high school, that gave me the will, desire, and character to become a biologist. Make it a good essay and concentrate on how overcoming this adversity was instrumental in my success.

Title: Embracing Diversity: How Overcoming Adversity Paved the Path to Becoming a Biologist

Introduction

High school, often described as a formative period in one’s life, can present both opportunities for growth and challenges that shape who we become. My personal experience with a group of bullies calling me a “dirty Jew” during those years not only ignited a deep sense of determination but also instilled in me a fervent desire to pursue a career in biology. This essay explores how overcoming this adversity became instrumental in my success as a biologist and how it shaped my commitment to understanding the intricacies of life.

Finding Strength in Diversity

As the echoes of those hurtful words reverberated in my mind, I realized that their cruelty stemmed from ignorance and a lack of understanding of diversity. Instead of letting their words define me, I decided to use the experience as a catalyst to explore my roots, culture, and heritage. My Jewish identity became a source of strength, reminding me that embracing diversity is vital in fostering a harmonious and inclusive society. This realization not only empowered me to stand tall against bigotry but also kindled a passion for understanding the diverse ecosystems that make up our planet.

Fostering Curiosity and Intellectual Resilience

Overcoming adversity can often fuel a profound sense of curiosity, prompting individuals to seek answers to complex questions. As I faced the challenges thrown my way, I found solace in exploring the natural world. I immersed myself in biology textbooks, documentaries, and scientific journals, seeking to comprehend the inner workings of living organisms and the broader ecological systems. Each discovery felt like a triumph against the bullies’ attempts to bring me down, reinforcing my dedication to the pursuit of knowledge.

From the Depths of Discrimination to the Heights of Empathy

Experiencing discrimination firsthand cultivated empathy within me. I realized that just as I yearned for understanding and acceptance, so did countless other beings across the natural world. This empathy became the driving force behind my decision to become a biologist with a focus on conservation. By dedicating myself to preserving biodiversity and protecting vulnerable ecosystems, I could extend the lessons I learned from my own experiences to advocate for a more compassionate and interconnected world.

Channeling Adversity into Advocacy

My encounters with prejudice taught me the importance of being an advocate for change. As a biologist, I saw the opportunity to not only study and research but also to contribute to larger societal conversations about diversity, inclusion, and environmental conservation. Through my scientific endeavors, I aimed to educate others about the interconnectedness of all life forms and the significance of cherishing our shared environment. In this way, I could transform my own painful experiences into a catalyst for positive change on a broader scale.

Conclusion

In retrospect, the bullies’ derogatory comments were a crucible that forged my character and led me on a path towards becoming a biologist. The adversity I faced taught me to embrace diversity, foster curiosity, and develop intellectual resilience. It instilled in me a profound sense of empathy and ignited a passion for advocacy and conservation. The lessons I learned from those challenging times have not only shaped my career choice but also motivated me to strive for a world where understanding and compassion prevail.

As I pursue my journey in biology, I remain committed to using my knowledge and experiences to build bridges of understanding, promote diversity, and contribute to the betterment of our global community. I firmly believe that it is through overcoming adversity that we discover our true potential and, in turn, find the strength to make a meaningful impact on the world around us.

Isn’t that great? Even I couldn’t have thought of this angle!

Conor Friedersdorf on why mandatory diversity statements for academic hires are both wrong and hypocritical

July 9, 2023 • 11:00 am

Several readers sent me the article in The Atlantic below by Conor Friedersdorf, who regularly criticizes woke statements and initiatives in that popular magazine, and is thus on the road to being demonized as an alt-righter or even a Nazi. But, as usual, he takes a heterodox but eminently reasonable stand on an issue regarded as almost taboo: requiring academics to produce “diversity statements” (“DEI statements”) when applying for jobs or promotions. Click the screenshot to read, though it might be paywalled:

Friedersdorf begins by mentioning the case of John D. Haltigan, which I’ve discussed twice before (here and here). Haltigan wanted to apply for a job in the psychology department at the University of California at Santa Cruz, and, represented by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation, argued that the required DEI statement at UCSC would violate his First Amendment right as it would be compelled speech.  Haltigan is asking the courts for an injunction that would allow him to apply without a DEI statement, knowing that his own statement would render him unhire-able from the outset. I wrote this before:

As I wrote in a previous post, Haltigan didn’t actually apply for the job, because he realized that his own statement would never pass muster with the faculty. But he did write and publish the statement that he would have used had he applied. It wouldn’t have passed muster, though, because it included stuff like this:

I believe that the use of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements in evaluating candidates for positions in higher education and academia are anathema to the ideals and principles of rigorous scholarship, and the sound practice of science and teaching.

As Friedersdorf notes, this “is the first major free-speech challenge to a public institution that requires these statements.”  He muses about what would happen were it upheld by courts: everybody would require one, and they aren’t a violation of the Supreme Court’s ban on affirmative action for college admissions. But I think that if this case works its way up to the Supreme Court, DEI statements would be banned as violations of free speech. And that would be a good outcome, for I think that DEI statements are indeed a violation of free speech. As Freidersdorf argues, they act by “chilling” speech—by forcing applicants to hew to a particular interpretation of DEI, and that interpretation is not a King-ian “colorblind one”. (For more information, see my colleague Brian Leiter’s article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed, “The legal problems with diversity statements.”

What surprised me about Friedersdorf’s piece were two things. First was the pervasiveness of DEI statements in American college hiring:

UC Santa Cruz’s requirement is part of a larger trend: Almost half of large colleges now include DEI criteria in tenure standards, while the American Enterprise Institute found that 19 percent of academic job postings required DEI statements, which were required more frequently at elite institutions. Still, there is significant opposition to the practice. A 2022 survey of nearly 1,500 U.S. faculty members found that 50 percent of respondents considered the statements “an ideological litmus test that violates academic freedom.” And the Academic Freedom Alliance, a group composed of faculty members with a wide range of political perspectives, argues that diversity statements erase “the distinction between academic expertise and ideological conformity” and create scenarios “inimical to fundamental values that should govern academic life.”

Second, I was surprised that the University of California system is still using DEI statement to weed out applicants before evaluating their academic credentials. Some colleagues at UC schools have told me that this is no longer the case, but I presume Friedersdorf checked the data before writing the following:

Perhaps the most extreme developments in the UC system’s use of DEI statements are taking place on the Davis, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and Riverside campuses, where pilot programs treat mandatory diversity statements not as one factor among many in an overall evaluation of candidates, but as a threshold test. In other words, if a group of academics applied for jobs, their DEI statements would be read and scored, and only applicants with the highest DEI statement scores would make it to the next round. The others would never be evaluated on their research, teaching, or service. This is a revolutionary change in how to evaluate professors.

This approach—one that is under direct challenge in the Haltigan lawsuit—was scrutinized in detail by Daniel M. Ortner of the Pacific Legal Foundation in an article for the Catholic University Law Review. When UC Berkeley hired for life-sciences jobs through its pilot program, Ortner reports, 679 qualified applicants were eliminated based on their DEI statements alone. “Seventy-six percent of qualified applicants were rejected without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history, their potential for academic excellence, or their ability to contribute to their field,” he wrote. “As far as the university knew, these applicants could have well been the next Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students’ lives.”

At UC Davis, 50 percent of applicants in some searches were disqualified based on their DEI statements alone. Abigail Thompson, then the chair of the mathematics department at UC Davis, dissented from its approach in a 2019 column for the American Mathematics Society newsletter. “Classical liberals aspire to treat every person as a unique individual,” she wrote. “Requiring candidates to believe that people should be treated differently according to their identity is indeed a political test.”

People at Berkeley and Davis have told me that disqualification based on DEI statements is no longer used, but perhaps they were referring to their own departments. It’s odious, though, to prioritize these statements above everything else, and Friedersdorf says why.  The statement about doing other stuff to help society rang true to me because I spent a great deal of time as an associate and full professor being an expert witness testifying in criminal trials about the use of DNA evidence, helping public defenders—one of the great institutions of our justice system—and working for free.  I could have doubled my income taking cases (some people offered me $400-$500 per hour), but I always did it for free (except for airfare and hotel fees), so that my views could not be challenged on the grounds that I was profiting from them.  And I never worked for the prosecution, because public defenders need to be supported as the only bulwark poor people have to get justice.

But I digress: here’s why DEI statements are “anti-pluralistic”:

Mandatory DEI statements send a message that is anti-pluralistic. I believe that diversity and inclusion are good. I do not think that universities should reward advancing those particular values more than all others. Some aspiring professors are well suited to advancing diversity. Great! The time of others is better spent mitigating climate change, or serving as expert witnesses in trials, or pioneering new treatments for cancer. Insofar as all academics must check a compulsory “advancing DEI” box, many will waste time on work that provides little or no benefit instead of doing kinds of work where they enjoy a comparative advantage in improving the world.

And mandatory DEI statements send the message that viewpoint diversity and dissent are neither valuable nor necessary—that if you’ve identified the right values, a monoculture in support of them is preferable. The scoring rubric for evaluating candidates’ statements that UC Santa Cruz published declares that a superlative statement “discusses diversity, equity, and inclusion as core values of the University that every faculty member should actively contribute to advancing.” Do academics really want to assert that any value should be held by “every” faculty member? Academics who value DEI work should want smart critics of the approach commenting from inside academic institutions to point out flaws and shortcomings that boosters miss.

This is a long article, which not only recounts the history of DEI statements but suggests ways that they might even be made acceptable. But I don’t think they should ever be used, and in the end I think the author agrees, claiming that the free-speech costs are higher than the benefits of diversity statements (does any research show that candidates with higher DEI statements make better professors?):

The costs of mandatory DEI statements are far too high to justify, especially absent evidence that they do significant good. Alas, proponents seem unaware of those costs. Yes, they know that they are imposing a requirement that many colleagues find uncomfortable. But they may be less aware of the message that higher-education institutions send to the public by demanding these statements.

And here are five of the costs (words are Friedersdorf’s). The first one probably encompasses the biggest mistake that people are making with respect to all aspects of college. Increasingly, colleges are no longer a place to learn, to teach, and to get excited about learning, but a place where you are molded into a person who will improve society. That of course will change depending on which authorities define what is “an improved society”!

1.) Mandatory DEI statements send the message that professors should be evaluated not only on research and teaching, but on their contributions to improving society.

2.) Mandatory DEI statements send the message that it’s okay for academics to chill the speech of colleagues. 

3.) Mandatory DEI statements send a message that is anti-pluralistic. I believe that diversity and inclusion are good. I do not think that universities should reward advancing those particular values more than all others. 

4.) And mandatory DEI statements send the message that viewpoint diversity and dissent are neither valuable nor necessary—that if you’ve identified the right values, a monoculture in support of them is preferable. 

5.)  Demanding that everyone get on board and embrace the same values and social-justice priorities will inevitably narrow the sort of people who apply to work and get hired in higher education.

So why, in the title, does Freidersdorf say that mandatory diversity statements are hypocritical? Because they are supposed to promote diversity, and presumably diversity of viewpoints and ideologies, yet are being used to create conformity and stifle dissent. Or, as the author says,

. . . mandatory DEI statements are profoundly anti-diversity. And that strikes me as an especially perilous hypocrisy for academics to indulge at a time of falling popular support for higher education. A society can afford its college professors radical freedom to dissent from social orthodoxies or it can demand conformity, but not both. Academic-freedom advocates can credibly argue that scholars must be free to criticize or even to denigrate God, the nuclear family, America, motherhood, capitalism, Christianity, John Wayne movies, Thanksgiving Day, the military, the police, beer, penetrative sex, and the internal combustion engine—but not if academics are effectively prohibited from criticizing progressivism’s sacred values.

Professor loses job offer at UCLA after grad students object to his views about DEI statements

June 29, 2023 • 9:15 am

I’m not sure why the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote such a long story about this issue, but probably because it instantiates an ongoing controversy in higher education. Actually four controversies, the last of which isn’t mentioned in the article:

1.) Should candidates be required to submit “DEI statements” when they apply for a job at a university?

2.) Should those statements be vetted against a given “correct” ideological position by the university or department?

3.) Should the candidate be denied a job if their DEI statements aren’t ideologically correct?

4.) Is it legal to require these statements (especially at a state university) since they may violate the Constitution by being loyalty oaths and subject to “viewpoint discrimination?”

In the case of psychologist Yoel Inbar, a professor at the Unversity of Toronto who applied for a joint hire with his partner at UCLA’S Department of Psychology, UCLA’s answer to the first three questions was, respectively, yes, yes, and yes.  He didn’t get the job. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), however, thinks the answer to #4 is “no,” and is investigating the issue.

Click to read:

There are a lot of twists and turns here, and I won’t describe them, as they’re in the article. The short take is that Inbar was probably going to be offered the job, but lost it after a bunch of grad students in the department objected to his take on DEI—a take expressed in a five-year-old podcast. From CHI:

A psychologist spoke out this week about what critics see as a job offer gone awry over an ideological spat about diversity statements.

Yoel Inbar, an associate professor at the University of Toronto, was up for a job at the University of California at Los Angeles. But the psychology department there decided not to proceed after more than 60 graduate students in the department signed an open letter urging the university not to hire him.

At issue, the students wrote, were Inbar’s comments on his podcast expressing skepticism about the use of diversity statements in hiring, as well as about other efforts intended to make the academy more inclusive.

In the letter, which circulated on Twitter, the students wrote that Inbar’s hiring “would threaten ongoing efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds” and that Inbar “prioritizes advocating for those he classifies as political minorities in academia” over fostering inclusivity. In a meeting with graduate students, the letter continues, Inbar’s answers to questions about diversity, equity, and inclusion were in some cases “outright disconcerting.” (Inbar shared his account on a podcast episode released on Tuesday, and spoke with The Chronicle on Wednesday.)

You can also see students’ letter here. This was one of those incidents that go viral on Twitter, though since I’m told that (or am sent tweets), I haven’t verified that for myself.

But what’s clear is that Inbar is a liberal, and that he’s not against departments promoting diversity. His objection was to mandatory DEI statements, an objection that repelled the students. There’s also another twist; the students think that, as a psychologist studying “moral and political ideology”, Inbar’s work wasn’t sufficiently imbued with issues of race, gender, and other work about discrimination. In other words, they objected as much to his lack of ideologically-infused research as to his objection to DEI statements, statements that he considers aren’t efficacious but which serve only to flaunt virtue.  From CHI:

The story began, Inbar said Tuesday on the podcast Very Bad Wizards, when his partner received a job offer from the UCLA psychology department. When she inquired about the possibility of bringing Inbar on as a partner hire, the department was receptive, Inbar said. During a campus visit in late January, faculty members seemed enthusiastic about him as a candidate.

But he told the hosts of Very Bad Wizards that his meeting with the diversity-issues committee was one of several “strange things” that happened while he was on campus. At the end of the meeting, in which the committee asked standard questions about his approach to diversity in his teaching and research, Inbar said he had been asked about a December 2018 episode of Two Psychologists Four Beers.

In that episode, Inbar said that diversity statements “sort of seem like administrator virtue-signaling,” questioned how they would be used in a hiring process, and suggested “it’s not clear that they lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups.”

The committee asked: Was he prepared to defend those comments now?

“To be honest, I wasn’t, because this episode is like, four and a half years old,” Inbar said on Very Bad Wizards. But he explained his current stance: “The very short version is, I think that the goals are good, but I don’t know if the diversity statements necessarily accomplish the goals.” (One host of Very Bad Wizards, David A. Pizarro, a professor of psychology at Cornell University, said he’d let Inbar’s comments on the podcast speak for themselves.)

So Inbar is in favor of promoting diversity, but said that he didn’t think that DEI statements were the way to do that; that they are “virtue-signaling”.  I agree with Inbar, and diversity statements are not allowed at the University of Chicago precisely because, I believe, they violate freedom of speech and are a form of compelled speech when vetted compared to desired “rubrics.”

Here are the graduate students objecting not just to his views on DEI statements (it’s not enough that he’s in favor of the statements’ goals), but also to the insufficiently “minoritized” character of his academic work:

Then Inbar met with some of the graduate students. Both parties recalled the meeting as unusual. The students wrote in their letter that Inbar had told them that his “work does not really deal with identity,” which they found problematic. Inbar studies morality and political ideology, the students wrote, so “it was deeply troubling to hear that he does not believe identity (i.e., individual background as it pertains to race, gender, sexuality, class, or ability) has bearing on these research questions.”

But Inbar said the graduate students had never asked him directly about the podcast episodes mentioned in their letter. “To be honest, it wasn’t entirely clear what they were getting at” in the meeting, Inbar told The Chronicle; if they had asked more-direct questions about, for instance, his approach to mentoring students from diverse backgrounds, he said he could have answered them.

It seems to me that calling for Inbar not to be hired because his work isn’t centered on “identity” constitutes a violation of his academic freedom. Inbar is a highly respected scholar, and here we have students saying “you’re working on the wrong thing” when in fact they offer no critique at all of his research.

In the end the department, rattled by the graduate students’ statement, convened an unusual special committee to re-evaluate Inbar’s application. The committee went along with the students and Inbar he didn’t get the job.

I think FIRE’s take on what happened seems accurate (read the students’ letter):

Meanwhile, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression has requested from UCLA documents related to Inbar’s case, including the committee’s report; the university denied that request in March and an appeal this month. Alex Morey, director of campus rights advocacy at FIRE, told The Chronicle that her organization is preparing a second appeal, arguing that the records are a matter of public interest.

“What we suspect may be happening here is that because Professor Inbar allegedly did not parrot the correct views on DEI and some students objected to that, he may have been discriminated against because of his views in the hiring process,” Morey said. That’s not allowed at a public university, she said: “They can hold faculty to viewpoint-neutral type of criteria, objective standards, but they can’t say, ‘If you don’t pledge allegiance to our particular view on diversity, you can’t have a job.’”

They’re right: there is strong evidence here for viewpoint discrimination. What’s odd is that the very views held by Inbar—that the goal of increasing diversity is good but mandatory DEI statements for applicants are not—is the very goal of schools like the University of Chicago, which tries to preserve freedom of speech and academic freedom while seeking a diverse student body.  DEI statements should not be required for application, and if that’s the case then questions #2 and #3 above become superfluous.

In 1972, the University of Chicago issued the Shils Report, which lays out the criteria for hiring, retention, and promotion within the University. Here are the four criteria listed in the report (my bold):

Any appointive body must have a standard by which it assesses the merits of the alternative candidates before it. Academic appointive bodies in general, and at The University of Chicago in particular, must have clearly perceived standards which they seek to apply to particular cases. They must seek to choose candidates who can conform most closely with these standards in their most exigent application. The standards to be applied by any appointive body should be those which assess the quality of performance in (1) research; (2) teaching and training, including the supervision of graduate students; (3) contribution to intellectual community; and (4) services. Distinguished performance in any one of these categories does not automatically entail distinguished performance in the others. For this reason, weighting of the various criteria cannot be avoided by appointive bodies. The Committee thinks that the criterion of distinction in research should be given the greatest weight.

It’s understood that “services” means “services to the University,” like serving on committees and the like. You’d be hard pressed to shoehorn “correct ideology towards diversity in there,” and, as I understand it, the powers that be here have decided that requiring DEI statements violates the Shils criteria. (This is my interpretation from what I’ve heard, so don’t take it as an official policy of the university.)  At the same time, the University is dedicated to maintaining diversity, including diversity of thought. We have a strong policy to that effect. It seems to me that our own policy, which promotes diversity while insisting on freedom of expression and academic freedom, expresses the very views that cost Inbar his job.

This is not a “cancelation,” but only the failure to offer a job, and Inbar is being sanguine about it:

Meanwhile, Inbar is not asking for sympathy. His partner received a one-year extension of her job offer from UCLA, which he told The Chronicle was “spectacular,” and the couple may consider moving to Los Angeles if Inbar can find a job in the area. “I don’t want people to cry over this for me,” he said on Very Bad Wizards.

In the past, he added, he’s urged faculty members to speak up about potentially controversial topics they believe in. His recent experience has changed his mind.

“Is there a cost to opening your mouth about this stuff? Absolutely, there is,” he said. “Would I advise a junior person to take any sort of heterodox position on this publicly? Absolutely not, because you only need to piss off a few people. It just takes one or two to sink you. Just stay out of it.”

That last paragraph shows how institutional policies requiring or promoting a specific ideology (in this case, one construal of DEI) can chill speech. And that’s why we don’t have such policies.

A few tweets. Below is Matt Yglesias laying out what happened, and then Sean Carroll apparently misunderstanding Yglesias’s tweet, which includes part of the students’ statement and a link to it.  The actual beliefs at issue are, in fact, part of what Yglesias said.

Jesse Singal then weighs in, saying that Carroll apparently missed what Yglesias was writing about.

FIRE has been trying to get UCLA’s records about the Inbar decision, records that should be public since UCLA is a state school. They have a series of ten tweets about it; I’ve put three below.  I doubt that this will lead to a lawsuit against UCLA, but it’s time that required DEI statements be adjudicated as possible violations of the First Amendment.

Berkeley, DEI, and FIRE

June 20, 2023 • 10:45 am

A while back (I’m too lazy to look this up), I reported on the University of California at Berkeley’s requirement for all job applicants to submit a DEI statement with their application. The statement was to cover three areas: the applicant’s knowledge of about DEI, track record in advancing DEI, and plans to advance DEI at UCB were they hired.  I also recall that the statements were given numerical scores on these areas, and if the total number was below a certain cutoff, the application was ditched without being further considered.

I am opposed to mandatory DEI statements because I think they’re illegal: a form of compelled speech that, at least in state schools like Berkeley, violates the First Amendment. There are other reasons to oppose them, including the possibility that really good candidates might have spent their time doing other non-DEI but useful activities like writing books, giving lectures to the public, and so on. (Or, just doing good science, which doesn’t seem enough these days.)  Further, candidates often have worked so hard during their postdocs and Ph.D.s (jobs are hard to get, and you need a good record), that even if you’re sympathetic to the aims of DEI, you have no time to compile a record. I think it’s sufficient for the university to post a statement that they do not discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, disability, or other protected characteristics. In other words, they should simply say that there is no discrimination in hiring (or in student applications)

Moreover, there is ample opportunity to game the system: you can copy statements of successful candidates, make stuff up, and even pay someone to write your diversity statement for you! This, perhaps, is why Berkeley didn’t want its scoring system revealed, but, under law, it had to do so. Now all candidates can use it to write high-scoring statements.

Finally, the use of these statements is designed to turn universities into ideological juggernauts, with professors conforming to the preferred narrative of the university (there are many ways to be in favor of diversity and inclusion). The job of a professor is to teach, promote learning, and advance knowledge by doing research. If you want to save the world, that’s fine, but, as Stanley Fish said (it’s a book title), save the world on your own time.

Required statements are particularly invidious when, like the ones used at UC Berkeley (see below), they are given scores, and candidates are rejected right off the bat if their DEI scores are too low.  Think of all the famous and accomplished professors that wouldn’t make the cut today! If you answer, “well, Einstein should have been doing diversity work,” then I don’t know what to say.

While we knew that Berkeley was requiring DEI statements for its science faculty, and that they scored them numerically as the first cutoff for applicants, we didn’t know what the scoring rubric was.  Now we know, thanks to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), which filed a request for Berkeley’s records (it’s a public school and must disclose these) and for its scoring rubric.

Berkeley sat on its hands for more than TWO YEARS before complying. And it’s no wonder, because the rubric and scoring system really is embarrassing. It’s also embarrassing because candidates are rejected if their statements aren’t up to snuff, no matter how great their scientific work has been. (These statements will probably also become illegal after the Supreme Court bans affirmative action.) Only a diehard DEI proponent would not cringe at seeing how the three areas are scored.

First, see FIRE’s new report by clicking on this screenshot:

Below: some stuff from FIRE.  Note that the rubric that Berkeley sent is from 2018-2019, but I suspect they’re still using it, as are other UC campuses (though I don’t know whether they use cutoff DEI ratings).

The University of California, Berkeley used diversity statements to weed out candidates for faculty positions, according to public records the university finally released more than two years after FIRE requested them.

Many universities now require or invite current or prospective faculty to demonstrate their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion — often through written statements that factor into hiring, research, evaluation, promotion, or tenure decisions.

As FIRE explained in a public statement last year, these diversity statement requirements can too easily function as ideological litmus tests and cast a pall of orthodoxy over campuses.

Berkeley is no exception. The university expects all new faculty hires to “be committed to advancing diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging[.]” During the 2018-19 academic year, Berkeley’s life sciences departments launched an initiative to advance faculty diversity. As part of the initiative, applicants for full-time faculty positions were required to submit statements on their “contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion,” including information about their “understanding of these topics,” “record of activities to date,” and “specific plans and goals for advancing equity and inclusion.”

These statements informed the hiring committee’s first round of review: If applicants’ contributions to DEI did not meet a high standard, they were eliminated from consideration.

On Berkeley’s dilatory behavior:

FIRE wanted to know more. So in March 2021, we filed a public records request seeking information related to how, exactly, the university was using and evaluating these diversity statements.

And then we waited. And waited. And waited.

Two years later, Berkeley still hadn’t handed over the records.

California’s Public Records Act requires that public agencies make records “promptly available.” Berkeley finally produced the records in May 2023 after FIRE sent a demand letter threatening legal action. It took Berkeley 795 days to comply with its duty under the act. Hardly prompt.

I have no explanation for a delay of nearly 800 days save that Berkeley was doing everything it could to NOT turn over its records, and, given that it had to under the law, delayed and delayed and delayed.

And now the rubric, which was required for all five life science departments at the University. Click below to see how each of the three areas was scored.

Here’s FIRE’s summary:

According to the rubric the hiring committee used to evaluate the statements, candidates who “discount the importance of diversity,” or who don’t feel personally responsible for advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, received lower scores. As would anyone who “[d]efines diversity only in terms of different areas of study or different nationalities, but doesn’t discuss gender or ethnicity/race.” The rubric even penalizes candidates who “state that it’s better not to have outreach or affinity groups aimed at underrepresented individuals because it keeps them separate from everyone else, or will make them feel less valued.”

But read for yourself. Each of the three areas—knowledge, track record, and plans to advance DEI—are scored on a scale from 1 to 5, so the minimum score is 3 and the maximum 15.  No cutoff point is given here.

I’ll quote the rubric from only one of the three areas: the candidate’s track record:

TRACK RECORD FOR ADVANCING DIVERSITY, EQUITY, AND INCLUSION

These will get you the low scores of 1-2:

• Participated in no specific activities, or only one or two limited activities (limited in terms of time, investment, or role).

• Only mentions activities that are already the expectation of faculty as evidence of commitment and involvement (for example, “I always invite and welcome students from all backgrounds to participate in my research lab, and in fact have mentored several women.” Mentoring women scientists may be an important part of an established track record but it would be less significant if it were one of the only activities undertaken and it wasn’t clear that the candidate actively conducted outreach to encourage women to join the lab.

• Descriptions of activities are brief, vague, or describe being involved only peripherally. Or the only activities were oriented toward informing oneself (for example, attended a workshop at a conference)

This will get you a bit higher score: a 3

• May have participated extensively in a single activity. Less clear that there is an established track record.

• Limited participation at the periphery in numerous activities, or participation in only one area, such as their
research to the exclusion of teaching and service.

• In describing mentoring of underrepresented students, mentions specific strategies used for effective
mentoring, or awareness of the barriers underrepresented students face and how to incorporate the ideas into
their mentoring,
“
• Membership in a student or professional organization that supports underrepresented individuals

And if you want the highest score, between 4 and 5, you have to have done these things. 


• Describes multiple activities in depth, with detailed information about both their role in the activities and the
outcomes. Activities may span research, teaching and service, and could include applying their research skills or
expertise to investigating diversity, equity and inclusion.

• Consistent track record that spans multiple years (for example, applicants for assistant professor positions can
describe activites undertaken or partcipated in as an undergraduate, graduate student and postdoctoral scholar)

• Roles taken were significant and appropriate for career stage (e.g., a candidate who is already an assistant
professor may have developed and tested pedagogy for an inclusive classroom and learning environment, while a
current graduate student may have volunteered for an extended period of time for an organization or group that
seeks to increase the representation of underrepresented groups in science).

• Organized or spoken at workshops or other events (depending on career stage) aimed at increasing others’
understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion as one aspect of their track record.

• Served as a leader in a student or professional organization that supports underrepresented individuals. 

In other words, to get a high score you must have a record in DEI activity showing that it was a major priority during your doctoral or postdoctoral work, and must have spent a lot of tim—over multiple years— engaged in such activities. Merely saying that you treated all students fairly and equally regardless of their ethnicity, gender, disability status, and so on will get your application rejected.

It’s no surprise that Berkeley wanted to sit on these requirements. If they were proud of them, or even not ashamed of them, why the long delay?

Texas and Arkansas deep-six DEI offices in colleges and universities

June 17, 2023 • 11:20 am

The pushback to affirmative action is already beginning, even before the Supreme Court has handed down its decision—probably one that will end race-based school admissions. Two states, Texas and Arkansas, are already dismantling their DEI programs, the former by law and the second by “choice.”

The article below, from the Dallas News, notes the passage of a bill in Texas (promoted by Republicans and fought tooth and nail by Democrats) that will get rid of all DEI offices and programs in higher education. It’s been signed into law by Republican governor Greg Abbott.

Click to read

The Texas bill does more than just close DEI offices; it also eliminates any DEI training (usually conducted by those offices) and the use of mandatory DEI statements in hiring.   The newspaper doesn’t quote anybody favoring the bill, but does quote two opponents of the bill:

This is a sad occasion for all students at Texas’ public universities,” Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said in a statement. “By dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and offices at these institutions, Texas lawmakers have chosen to prioritize a political agenda instead of the success of these students.”

Academic quality is enhanced and not diminished by DEI programs, she said. ”Even if diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and offices are dismantled, our nation is diverse and diversifying, and diversity on Texas campuses will not disappear,” she said.

”The passage of [this bill] sends a strong message to current and prospective faculty and students that Texas does not welcome a strong, diverse, empowered higher education community,” Pat Heintzelman, president of the Texas Faculty Association, said in a statement. “We are already losing good people as a result of this legislation for no good reason. Texas is now less competitive in higher education than it was just months ago.”

And they quote the President of UT Austin, who isn’t explicit about the bill but clearly was against it given his statements favoring diversity initiatives:

UT-Austin President Jay Hartzell is one of the few college leaders to make a public statement about the bill prior to the governor signing it in early June.

He asked for the community’s patience while his team works to understand “the contours of the new legal framework and how the UT System will implement its oversight under the new legislation.”

“What will not change is our University leadership’s commitment to attracting, supporting and retaining exceptionally talented staff, faculty and students with diverse backgrounds and perspectives, and fostering and celebrating diversity across our community,” Hartzell wrote.

The Texas legislature also tried to pass a law completely eliminating tenure (a way to get rid of professors who don’t say the right things, teach the right things, or behave the right way), but that one failed. They did, however, make explicit the criteria under which professors could be dismissed:

Currently, tenure policies indicate professors can only be terminated for a justifiable cause or under extreme circumstances, such as program discontinuation or severe financial restraints.

Under the new law, universities will now be able to dismiss professors for exhibiting “professional incompetence” or “moral turpitude;” neglecting duties or professional responsibilities; failing to complete post-tenure reviews; violating laws or policies of a university or institution; being convicted of a crime; or engaging in unprofessional conduct.

In most places I know of, you can already be dismissed as a tenured professor if you’re guilty of many of these things, but “engaging in unprofessional conduct” is slippery and subjective.

The Arkansas Advocate reports a similar decision by the state’s flagship campus in Fayetteville. Click to read:

This initiative, which will close down the DEI offices and relocate the employees, wasn’t in response to a state law but was apparently the initiative of the University itself, probably anticipating the Supreme Court decision. Further, the University was already under criticism by Republican state officials, including Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Sanders has already issued an executive order banning “indoctrination” of secondary-school students with views like Critical Race Theory.  The legislature, though, had previously failed to “end state-sponsored affirmative action programs.’

There are two ironic things about Arkansas’s decision. The first is that it was announced by Charles Robinson, the first black Chancellor at the University of Arkansas. The second is that Robinson (unless he really approves of the ban) is trying to make the best of it by pretending, along with the school’s director of media relations, that it’s was done simply to improve the University. It may well do that, but it’s probably not the reason they’re taking this pre-emptive action. They want a system in place that can do an end-run around the Supreme Court decision without violating the law. Look at this gobbledygook:

UA Director of Media Relations John Thomas said in an email to the Arkansas Advocate that all DEI office employees will have the opportunity to be reassigned to a new position in a different unit focused on student or employee recruitment and success.

The goal of this restructure is to further the university’s mission, Thomas said.

“Aligning resources directly to the ‘front lines’ of our support for student success and employee recruitment and development will provide direct access, achieve measurable results and help us better fulfill our land-grant mission for which we are accountable to the people of Arkansas,” he said.

In Wednesday’s email, Robinson said he wanted to share a progress report on the university’s strategic planning process, which he said “has affirmed that supporting equal opportunity, access and belonging are critical to our land-grant mission and university values.”

“It is my belief based on my experience as having served as Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Provost — and now as Chancellor — that we can accomplish better outcomes by reallocating resources into these essential areas,” he said. “We must strengthen our ability to achieve measurable results that enhance opportunity for all Arkansans.”

In general, I’m not in favor of big DEI offices or programs in universities, as they’re usually intrusive, helping the university skirt the Bakke that forbade quotas (look at what Harvard did!), fostering and sometimes requiring patronizing diversity and equity training, promoting the quashing of free speech (as recently happened at Stanford), and sucking up an enormous amount of resources with very little to show for it. UC Berkeley, for example, pays 400 people: 150 employees and 250 students, to maintain DEI programs, all requiring $25 million a year. To me that is a program far too bloated, and using up tons of money that could support teaching and learning.

DEI programs also participate, in some places, in promoting requirements or requests for “diversity statements” of job applicants, something I see as illegal: compelled speech that violates the First Amendment. They are self-perpetuating, with a palpable interest in maintaining DEI programs, and the jobs of those involved by constantly supporting a narrative that involves racism and racial divisiveness.

Their overall effect seems to me negative, and in net inimical to free speech and academic freedom. At Harvard, the DEI mentality clearly was involved in discriminating against Asian students, using the ruse that they had lower “personality scores”, which I find ludicrous and unconvincing. And that is one of the two cases the Supreme Court is taking up.

Still, I think there’s room for a few diversity experts in universities—just not whole offices and huge university-wide initiatives. Genuine experts in discrimination can protect entire groups of students from discrimination: not just blacks and Hispanics, but first-generation students as well as religious groups like Muslims and Jews who argue that they often face discrimination. Somebody with expertise has to adjudicate these cases.  And perhaps a few DEI people can help construct ways to widen the net for attractomg students without lowering admissions standards, making sure that all prospective students are reached so they can have equal opportunity for admission.

Arkansas is shifting its DEI resources into other channels, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing:

Beginning in the fall, existing resources and personnel currently assigned to the DEI Division will be incorporated in Student Success, Student Affairs, Human Resources, the Office of Equal Opportunity and Compliance and University Advancement “so that these areas can expand programs around access, opportunity and developing a culture of belonging for all students and employees,” Robinson wrote.

Additionally, the Office of Equal Opportunity & Compliance will be “formally aligned” with Human Resources while also maintaining a direct reporting line to the chancellor’s office.

The decision to reallocate the DEI Division’s resources comes at a time when initiatives addressing topics like diversity and race are facing pushback nationwide.

UA Director of Media Relations John Thomas said in an email to the Arkansas Advocate that all DEI office employees will have the opportunity to be reassigned to a new position in a different unit focused on student or employee recruitment and success.

Now this may be a distinction without a difference, but surely all schools are going to have to make big changes when the Supreme Court rules out race-based admissions.  Many schools, of course, have declared diversity to be a top priority, almost coequal with education, and it will be interesting to see how they deal with the overthrow of the 1978 Bakke decision, which will come any day now.

h/t: Mark