John Sailer
@JohnDSailer
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Senior Fellow at @NASorg | Investigating higher education | Words in @WSJ , @theFP , @tabletmag , @unherd
Joined May 2020
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NEW: The Texas A&M University System has ended the use of DEI statements in both admissions and faculty hiring.
“No university or agency in the A&M System will admit any student, nor hire any employee based on any factor other than merit.”
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NEW: MIT has banned the use of DEI statements for faculty hiring and promotions.
This is huge, a turning point — the policy, functionally an ideological weed-out tool, is widely unpopular in academia, but MIT is the first elite private institution to pull the plug.
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In the NYT,
@powellAtlantic
notes that UC Berkeley carried out a cluster hire—eliminating 75% of faculty job applicants based on DEI statement alone. The second photo is Berkeley's own description.
Universities around the U.S. have embraced this model.
A quick thread.
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The New York Times notes that many California universities publicly post their rubric for assessing DEI. Berkeley’s gives a low score if you say you prefer to “treat everyone the same.”
Remarkably, this rubric is used across the country. Here are just three examples.
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Actual quiz question at UT Austin: Which group is most likely to violate others' rights with "violence, deceit, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse?"
Answer: "wealthy white men."
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The term “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) is meant to sound unambiguously beneficent.
But many of the professors I spoke with understand that DEI instead implies a set of controversial political and social views.
My latest in
@TheFP
.
🧵
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Dozens of psych students signed this letter demanding UCLA not hire Dr. Yoel Inbar. After that, he didn't get the job offer he was almost certainly going to receive.
His main offense: expressing skepticism about DEI statements. In his words, "It is not clear what good they do."
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Andrew Sullivan calls for a wholesale end to DEI.
"End DEI in its entirety. Fire all the administrators whose only job is to enforce its toxic orthodoxy."
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UPDATE: After I published my article in
@WSJopinion
, Texas Tech University announced that it has ended its use of DEI statements.
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NEW: University of Utah has ended DEI statements.
The university’s president told administrators yesterday to eliminate “any type of diversity statements or similar practices” in the application or hiring process.
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BREAKING: In his testimony at the Wisconsin state house today, University of Wisconsin system president Jay Rothman announced that he’s ending the use of diversity statements in hiring throughout the system.
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We can’t understand what’s going on at universities right now without understanding what's happened to faculty hiring. I’ve become convinced that this is the crux of so many issues in academia today.
After investigating and writing on faculty hiring for over a year, I’ve found…
“Every day the universities wake up and break the law.”
That's how I began my recent seminar for Stanford's Classical Liberalism Initiative.
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THREAD: The rapid, all consuming growth of DEI is not limited to universities in progressive states. Many “Red State” universities are creating bureaucracies that entrench scholar-activism and distort the basic purpose of higher education.
The most obvious example: Texas.
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Wow! Randall Kennedy of Harvard Law School argues for abandoning DEI statements, calling them ideological pledges of allegiance.
He argues many academics feel an "intense and growing resentment against the DEI enterprise," and that DEI statements reveal the heart of the issue.
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Thread: Universities increasingly require DEI statements for not only hiring but also promotion and tenure (see below).
In many cases, the rubrics for evaluating those statements test for whether candidates display the right "values."
For example, UC Berkeley's rubric.
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NEW: The NIH is spending nearly a quarter of a billion dollars to promote the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring.
Through public records requests, I’ve acquired the DEI statement rubrics used for two NIH-funded faculty hiring programs.
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Colleges often reward job applicants for their “contributions to DEI.” Records I acquired show exactly how that worked for many departments at Ohio State.
For example, "Dr. [redacted] also identifies as 'a first generation, fat, queer scholar of color.'"
A quick thread.
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BREAKING: A university spokesperson has officially confirmed to me that MIT will no longer use diversity statements in faculty hiring—making it the first elite private institution to backtrack on the controversial policy.
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NEW: The University of Tennessee has required every school and administrative unit to produce a “Diversity Action Plan,” effectively mandating the creation of hundreds of DEI policies at every level of the university.
We have acquired those plans.
Thread:
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Last month, Duke University hosted a symposium on sexual and gender minorities.
I attended, sitting through about ten hours of sessions, and wrote about it here:
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Half the faculty jobs in history over the last three years focus on ethnic identity, 35% on African American history. And this doesn’t account for the jobs focused on social justice/equity.
Based on what I’ve seen, this is a good picture of what’s going on throughout academia.
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This is totally brazen and on its face a ridiculous thing to say. And here the professor is making students say it for quiz credit.
"Hint: They also happen to hold the most social power and because of that can get away with the most wrongdoing."
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NEW: At Texas Tech, each search committee in the biology department was required to submit a report on how they evaluated job candidates’ diversity statements.
Through a records request, I’ve acquired these reports. I explore them
@WSJopinion
.
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NEW: The University of Houston System has ended the use of DEI statements in hiring and promotion.
"[W]e will not support or use DEI statements or factors in hiring or promotion anywhere in the University of Houston System."
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In this new Crimson piece, several Harvard students are quoted saying, basically, that Claudine Gay has to go.
One said she was initially sympathetic to Gay, but now thinks her plagiarism embodies “the opposite” of “the values of Harvard College.”
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NEW: The University of Missouri System will no longer use diversity statements in faculty hiring.
In an email on Friday, President Mun Choi also said that the Mizzou would no longer use its "diversity faculty hiring rubric."
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REPORT: White Coats for Black Lives is a medical student organization, boasting more than 70 chapters at medical schools around the country.
Its goal: to inject identity politics into medical education. And it has succeeded. I explain in
@cityjournal
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Across the country, new faculty jobs increasingly require a narrow specialization in race, identity, social justice, and critical race theory.
And of all places, Ohio State University might be the worst offender in the nation.
🧵
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This is blowing up on MedTwitter.
An academic medical center would never publicly endorse an even watered down version of this statement. Many make enormous efforts to do the exact opposite. Yet, because one person holds the wrong opinion, academic medicine is "not safe."
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A large number of student protest groups have now used this image. Paragliders like these were used to massacre innocent people in Israel.
The image comes from the National Students for Justice in Palestine's "Day of Resistance Toolkit"—itself a highly disturbing document. 1/
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@powellAtlantic
For a 2021 cluster hire in psych, Vanderbilt University's received over 400 job applicants. The search team cut the pool to 50-60 based on DEI statements alone.
They used Berkeley's rubric—the one that penalizes candidates who for saying they want to "treat everyone the same."
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This is the way to do it. Other university systems should take note.
“Today’s System-wide directive standardizes faculty and staff applications, limiting them to a cover letter, curriculum vitae, statements about research and teaching philosophies, and professional references.”
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@powellAtlantic
Here's a full writeup
@unherd
. I conclude:
As a consequence of these measures, trust in higher education will likely continue to fall, owing in part to a sense that some views are simply not tolerated.
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This is an OSU search committee on its proposed finalists:
The committee was "keenly aware" of the need to hire a "visible minority," and "thus chose three Black candidates," declaring that "diversity was just as important as perceived merit as we made our selections."
🧵
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Notre Dame's School of Architecture has bulked up its DEI efforts, hiring a new DEI director.
When one grad of the school tweeted criticism of those efforts, the dean of the school sent a letter accusing that alum of racism and sexism, and calling for a large scale denunciation.
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A University of Minnesota professor went on a digression denying that Hamas committed rape, suggesting the idea is rooted in a racist trope, in a talk that was a part of her application for a dean of DEI position.
NEW
@J_Insider
via
@HaleyCohen19
:
”University of Minnesota professor who denied Hamas atrocities on Oct. 7 a candidate for school’s top DEI job”
“Sima Shakhsari attended an on-campus rally, where she was seen chanting, ‘Globalize the Intifada’”
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NEW: University of Washington violated non-discrimination policy, according to an internal UW report acquired by the National Association of Scholars.
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Thread: An understated trend in higher ed is the influx of faculty jobs that focus on race, gender, identity, and critical theory. These have become the hottest areas, the specialties most likely to land a job.
Here are a few from the first page of the MLA's job board.
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NEW: On May 12, I was going to speak on DEI at the Medical College of Wisconsin, alongside Sen. Ron Johnson and State Rep. Dave Murphy.
Last night, the president of the college announced he has "rescind the use" of the its facilities for the event, citing disruptions and safety.
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NEW: The Idaho State Board of Education, which oversees Idaho's state universities, has just banned the use of "diversity statements" in faculty hiring.
The Idaho State Board of Education has followed our recommendation to ban coercive “Diversity Statements” in public universities.
The board passed a resolution “Prohibiting…diversity statements from candidates applying for employment at Idaho’s four-year public universities.”
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DOCUMENTS: Through a records request, I have acquired the University of Missouri's rubric for evaluating diversity statements.
As usual, the rubric proves the critics' point: DEI evaluations invite viewpoint discrimination.
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NEW: The UNC Board of Governor's Committee on University Governance just passed a motion preventing compelled speech in admission and hiring. The motion will be taken up by the full board next month.
This policy will considerably limit or even prohibit diversity statements.
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NEW: The UNC System is going to vote on repealing its DEI policy.
The current policy mandates DEI officers at every UNC institution. It would be replaced by a new rule emphasizing academic freedom/nondiscrimination, which will lead to "reductions in force and spending."
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An article on DEI cluster hiring quotes one university dean, who describes the process in detail.
Her response to the charge that she was hiring based on race: "I absolutely am!"
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@TheFP
In a short time, DEI imperatives have spawned a growing bureaucracy that holds enormous power within universities.
The ranks of DEI vice presidents, deans, and officers are ever-growing. Princeton has more than 70 administrators devoted to DEI.
Ohio State has 132.
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DOCUMENTS: The Ohio State University’s College of Engineering requires diversity statements for jobs in computer engineering, architecture, and even nuclear engineering.
Conveniently, it lists a rubric for evaluating these statements right on its website.
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That’s the University of South Carolina, the University of New Mexico, and the UMASS Chan School of Medicine — all using or adapting the Berkeley rubric.
As I explain today
@unherd
, what happens in California rarely stays in California.
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@powellAtlantic
The NIH is funding DEI cluster hiring at universities around the country—to the tune of $241 million. For every job created through the grant, DEI statements mandatory and heavily weighed.
When I FOIAed the DEI statement rubrics used by two of the grantee institutions, I…
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Thread: For faculty seeking promotion and tenure, the UNC School of Medicine requires both "positive contribution(s) to DEI efforts" and a DEI statement.
The school has tried to downplay these requirements, but its own P&T documents reveal the obvious compelled speech issues.
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Evaluating faculty for their commitment to DEI is just an intuitively bad policy, and very unpopular. I predict many more universities—even private institutions and colleges in deep blue state—will follow MIT’s example.
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@BillAckman
@Harvard
Universities across the country now heavily prioritize DEI in faculty hiring, establishing litmus tests the likely violate the first amendment. It’s a scandal, and the key to understanding what happening in higher ed right now.
We can’t understand what’s going on at universities right now without understanding what's happened to faculty hiring. I’ve become convinced that this is the crux of so many issues in academia today.
After investigating and writing on faculty hiring for over a year, I’ve found…
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NEW: Here's the email from University of Missouri President Mun Choi announcing the end of diversity statements.
"We’ll also no longer use the diversity faculty hiring rubric that was developed in 2018."
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My thread includes a job ad for an archeologist whose research "promotes social justice" and emphasizes decolonization, queer theory, and critical race theory.
Would you say this counts as even slightly politicized, or still no?
Examine these examples, and tell me if you agree that they amount to "politicized hiring." I don't. It seems when people disagree with something, they are quick to label it politics.
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Today CNN did a segment on Texas Tech's decision to stop using diversity statements in faculty hiring, citing my report.
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@powellAtlantic
In 2020, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center lead a cluster hire—noting its commitment "to ensuring that all candidates hired share our commitment to diversity, antiracism, and inclusion."
The guidelines for writing a DEI statement notes that that might including…
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At OSU, many faculty searches made DEI an explicit criterion in their evaluations—often on par with teaching and research.
In a search in astrophysics, “the DEI statement was given equal weight to the research and teaching statements.”
Similar for biological anthropology.
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NEW: A Utah legislator just introduced a bill that would end the use of “diversity statements” for university hiring.
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OSU's College of Arts and Sciences made every search committee create a diversity recruitment report.
Over the next week, I'll be releasing redacted copies of these reports—highlighting aspects that raise serious questions over academic freedom and, well, academic seriousness.
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NEW: The Association of American Medical Colleges released official Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies.
They provide a blueprint for infusing identity politics—“intersectionality,” “microaggression,” “allyship”—into medical education.
🧵
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My article for
@TheFP
exposes the scope and perils of university DEI programming.
Over the next two months, I’ll build on that work—publishing a series of articles that further highlight how DEI has crept into every corner of American higher education.
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@TheFP
In June of 2020, UCLA lecturer Gordon Klein made the news after being (briefly) removed from his position — following his blunt response to a student asking him to grade black students more leniently.
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Coming soon: Diversity statements for undergraduate admissions.
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A dean at OSU's College of Arts and Sciences—where, until recently, every search committee had to get dean approval on extensive "diversity faculty recruitment reports" in order to move forward with job interviews—laughs at the idea that admin pushes politicized hiring.
To put it mildly— this is most definitely NOT how it works. To buy into this trope you need to ignore a lot of how universities work and the cases that need to be made to secure hiring authority. Appeals to a “politically-charged DEI boogeyman” are disappointing and untrue.
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And here’s one of Crimson’s editorial editors:
“It's hypocritical for the university to apply one standard to students and another standard to faculty - and perhaps even a third standard to
Claudine Gay.”
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In the long run, DEI initiatives could have an enormous effect not just on university curricula—but also on scientific and medical research.
No better case study exists than that of UC San Francisco. My latest in
@tabletmag
.
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An interesting point made in The Atlantic by
@Tyler_A_Harper
. Many departments create politicized faculty jobs (e.g. "classics with a focus on race, gender, and decolonization") out of necessity, as these are the jobs administrators will approve.
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@TheFP
“I find it abhorrent for the University to encourage faculty members to classify and prioritize students based on their group identities," he wrote in part.
His past teaching evaluations were sterling, but the merit raise one was declined. (He’s now suing UCLA.)
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This is big: Utah Governor Spencer Cox decried mandatory DEI statements as "bordering on evil," and promises that he'll get rid of the policy.
"I can assure you after this legislative session, it will not be happening here."
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THREAD: Since the UNC Board of Governors proposed (effectively) ending diversity statements, a few critics have made arguments either in favor of DEI statements or DEI more broadly.
Some have argued that I’m overstating my case. For clarity, I want to lay out what I’ve said.
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A thread of threads.
It’s been an interesting year. My writing primarily focused on institutional capture in higher ed. Put simply, DEI.
Now more than ever, the issue is front and center.
So consider this both a highlight reel and list of (self) recommended pieces.
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@TheFP
The struggle between Klein and UCLA illustrates a major shift in the basic mission of higher education in America.
The concepts of DEI have become guiding principles in higher education, valued as equal to the most basic function of the university: the pursuit of truth.
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Another victory! The Kansas Board of Regents, which governs the state’s universities, just banned mandatory DEI statements for hiring, promotion, and admissions.
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UPDATE: The Texas State University System has officially ended its use of DEI statements in hiring (see screenshot).
Meanwhile, the University of North Texas System is pausing all DEI “policies, programs, and trainings” and conducting a review of its hiring practices.
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NEW: Northern Arizona University, which enrolls almost 29k students, will soon require each of its students to take four “Diversity” courses. One in each of these categories: “U.S. Ethnic Diversity,” “Global Diversity,” “Idigenous Peoples,” and “Intersectional Identities.”
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A UW faculty hiring committee “inappropriately considered candidates’ races when determining the order of offers,” provided “disparate opportunities for candidates based on their race,” and ultimately used race as “a substantial factor” in its hiring decision, according to the…
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NEW: I acquired 800 pages of Ohio State University's "Diversity Faculty Recruitment Reports."
OSU employs 141 DEI officers. These documents show what that investment looks like in practice.
My latest in today's
@WSJopinion
.
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@WSJopinion
This is troubling given how the department evaluated DEI contributions.
One search committee, for example, penalized a candidate for espousing race-neutrality in teaching.
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Now—as requested by the dean of the college—the alumnus is getting hate messages.
A mob initiated by university leadership. Shame on Notre Dame.
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@TheFP
Even after being reinstated, his encounters with what UCLA calls “Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion” were far from over. Less than a year later, he was up for a merit raise.
For the first time in his career, he was required to write a diversity statement. Klein objected.
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“Every day the universities wake up and break the law.”
That's how I began my recent seminar for Stanford's Classical Liberalism Initiative.
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NEW: The UNC-Chapel Hill Board of Trustees just passed a resolution codifying its commitment to institutional neutrality.
The resolution cites the Kalven Report. Essentially, this prevents the university from "expressing opinions on the political or social issues of the day."
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Imagine looking at this—which Emory University has used to screen out applicants in fields like biology—and thinking "ah, yes, this is just necessary to make sure our professors can teach diverse student populations without creating a hostile learning environment."
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The NIH funds DEI-related hiring in the biomedical sciences through multi-million dollar grants to universities around the county.
I've acquired hundreds of records related to this program—which I discuss in-depth in today's WSJ. A thread to highlight a few of those records. /1
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@TheFP
How has this shift taken place? Gradually, then all at once. Starting around the 1980s, following the Bakke decision, diversity became a rallying cry for college administrators.
By the 2010s, this commitment often came backed by bureaucracies with flowery titles.
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"I write to you today to ask you, as alumni, to join me in denouncing these hateful comments by fellow alums of the School."
Of course, the doesn't specify the comments, because they boils down to totally legitimate and accurate criticism of university DEI programming.
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Recently, biologists at Emory University conducted a job search, afterward noting: “We equally valued Research, Teaching, and Actions toward [DEI] as supporting the Excellence we were seeking in candidates.”
In my latest at
@MindingCampus
, I explain.
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@WSJopinion
One document shows the department’s overall scoring matrix, which allots a large portion of points to the candidates’ diversity statements.
In other words, a diversity statement could easily make or break a biologist’s job prospects.
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DOCUMENTS: Last fall, San Diego State University conducted a search for a cancer biologist.
The university required each applicant to fill out this form, which I acquired via a records request, describing their contributions to “inclusive excellence.”
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Here's the second page, which castigates Inbar for criticizing the Society for Personality and Social Psychology's controversial DEI criteria for *conference submissions.*
It also criticizes him for saying that orgs like the SPSP shouldn't take stances on issues like abortion.
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There is absolutely no reason to commend UMN unless it apologizes for the oath and commits to basic institutional neutrality.
The med school cured our concerns, assuring us that no student would face repercussions for refusing to say a political oath at its white coat ceremony.
FIRE commends
@umnmedschool
for taking its students’ First Amendment rights seriously.
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@TheFP
Institutions are explicit about how they prioritize DEI.
Summarizing its hiring practices, for example, UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering declared that “excellence in advancing equity and inclusion must be considered on par with excellence in research and teaching.”
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@TheFP
While interviewing more than two dozen professors for this article, I was told repeatedly that few within academia dare express skepticism about DEI.
Many professors who are privately critical of DEI declined to speak even anonymously for fear of professional consequences.
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Here's a comment from a University of Washington search committee member, editing an official hiring report.
"I advise deleting the statement below as it shows that URM applications were singled out and evaluated differently than nonURM applications (which is not allowed...)"
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Much of this suggests viewpoint discrimination, if not racial discrimination. It's amazing what they put down on paper. It seems like administrators applied ample pressure.
Read the full documents at
@NASorg
. We'll be posting more tomorrow.
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In 2020, the department of biology at Texas Tech adopted a motion promising to “strongly weight a diversity statement from all candidates” during the hiring process.
This amounts to a striking statement of priorities, as I explain for
@CityJournal
.
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Today, the University of Arizona faculty will consider adding a minor in "Emancipatory Education."
It'll cover topics such as "Indigenous methodologies," activist approaches to research, and "Critical and postmodern (and decolonial) approaches to understanding gender."
Thread
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D.C.’s top schools now require every corner of their institutions—from chemistry classes and athletic departments to boards of trustees—to demonstrate fealty to “antiracism.”
I write about the DEI takeover in DC's private schools here.
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@WSJopinion
To my knowledge, these documents are the first evaluations of prospective faculty DEI contributions to be made publicly available. They essentially prove what critics have been saying.
And above all, they represent a failure of priority.
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THREAD: Ohio State University recently released the report from its "Task Force on Racism and Racial Inequities," which recommends far-reaching changes throughout the university.
Those changes will very likely be adopted. In fact, many are already happening at OSU.
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UC Irvine is hiring a professor of genitourinary cancer. One requirement for applying is an "Inclusive Excellence Activities Statement."
Per UCI's search policies, the statement will be a factor in determining the shortlist and finalists. Again, for a cancer researcher.
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