Aaron Sibarium Profile picture
Nov 8, 2021 16 tweets 4 min read Read on X
New research finds that 1/5th of academic jobs require DEI statements; that the statements are significantly more common at elite schools than non-elite ones; and that jobs in STEM are just as likely as jobs in the social sciences to require DEI statements.freebeacon.com/campus/study-d…
The last finding surprised James Paul, one of the study's co-authors. He'd hypothesized that the more empirical a field, the less likely it would be to use "soft" criteria when evaluating applicants. But when he actually ran the data, that hypothesis collapsed.
"The most surprising finding of the paper is that these requirements are not just limited to the softer humanities," Paul said. "I would have expected these statements to be less common in math and engineering, but they're not."
DEI statements have grown more routine in recent years, especially on the West Coast. Between 2018 and 2019, for example, most schools in the University of California system mandated DEI statements for all faculty applicants. academic-senate.berkeley.edu/sites/default/…
This swift march has not gone unopposed. City Journal‘s Heather Mac Donald has blasted DEI requirements as an assault on meritocracy, quipping that Einstein’s groundbreaking research had nothing to do with diversity, equity, or inclusion. latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/…
Paul agreed, saying it was "concerning" that DEI has begun to "take precedence over merit." The study notes that at UC Berkeley, more than 76 percent of applicants to a life sciences post were eliminated on the basis of their DEI statements. ofew.berkeley.edu/sites/default/…
Others, like the American Enterprise Institute's Max Eden, see the requirements as ideological litmus tests, loyalty oaths to a "woke" worldview in which equity matters more than education and free thought.
"Universities are conditioning employment on fealty to an ideology that is inherently hostile to the university's traditional mission," @maxeden99 said.
"If colleges started asking prospective faculty about their patriotism or commitment to American ideals, you can bet there would be a mass outcry about academic freedom."

Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, echoed Eden's concern.
"The idea that someone looked at the current crop of professors and said, ‘There's just not enough political homogeneity' is remarkable to me," @glukianoff told the Free Beacon. "I fear that higher education has become a conformity engine."
The study suggests that DEI litmus tests are not aberrational. They are now common at both public and private universities—especially the elite ones, which the study found were 18 percent more likely than non-elite schools to require diversity statements.
Paul speculated that the market power of such schools lets them be extra ideological. If elite universities get more job applicants, he reasoned, they may "be able to prioritize this ideology without sacrificing anything in quality."
The 19% stat is likely a low-ball estimate. For one thing, the study only used the terms "diverse" or "diversity" to identify jobs that require DEI statements; postings that eschewed that language in favor of "equity" or "antiracism" weren't counted under the coding scheme.
For another, the study only looked at job postings, not job applications. If some applications required diversity statements that weren't advertised in public postings, the results could be a significant undercount.
Komi German, a research fellow at FIRE, argued that the proliferation of DEI statements could ultimately backfire, constraining not just ideological but racial diversity.
"Hiring committees may emphasize the political and ideological components of DEI statements to make them more palatable to progressive white scholars," German said. "After all, being white won't count against them if they can pledge strongly enough their allegiance to DEI."

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More from @aaronsibarium

Jun 30
SCOOP: The Duke Law Journal sent a secret memo to minority applicants with tips on how to ace the journal's personal statement.

The memo told students they'd get up to 15 extra points for indicating their "membership in an "underrepresented group."🧵 Image
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The packet also included four examples of successful personal statements. Three of those essays referenced race in the first sentence. For example: "as an Asian-American woman and a daughter of immigrants, I am afforded with different perspectives, experiences, and privileges." Image
A fourth student waited until the last paragraph to disclose that she was "a Middle Eastern Jewish woman," an "intersectional identity" she said would "prove useful" in a "collaborative environment." Image
Read 18 tweets
Jun 19
NEW: The Harvard Law Review axes 85% of pieces using a rubric that asks about "author diversity." It even axed a piece by an Asian scholar after editors complained that there were "not enough Black" authors.

We analyzed 500 new documents from HLR. What we found was shocking.🧵 Image
The law review has insisted that it "does not consider race, ethnicity, gender, or any other protected characteristic as a basis for recommending or selecting a piece for publication."

But it screens out the vast majority of submissions using the following rubric: Image
40% of editors since 2024 have cited protected characteristics when lobbying for or against articles—at one point killing a piece by an Asian-American scholar, Alex Zhang, after an editor complained that "we have too many Yale JDs and not enough Black and Latino/Latina authors."
Read 49 tweets
Jun 6
NEW: The Harvard Law Review retaliated against a student for allegedly leaking documents to yours truly—and demanded he request their destruction in the midst of three federal probes.

Now the journal is being accused of illegally interfering with a government investigation.🧵 Image
The Justice Department told Harvard on May 13 it was investigating reports of race discrimination at the journal. A week later, the law review instructed a student who was cooperating with the DOJ investigation, Daniel Wasserman, to round up the documents he’d allegedly shared.
The journal told Wasserman to "[r]equest that any parties with whom you have shared Confidential Materials … delete or return them to The Review."
Read 22 tweets
Jun 2
NEW: The Harvard Law Review put out a "factsheet" last week claiming the journal complies with Supreme Court precedent and does not select editors based on race.

We've obtained a trove of new evidence that casts doubt on both claims.🧵 Image
The factsheet quotes from what it claims is the current policy for editor selection, which cites "Supreme Court guidance" and bars the consideration of race.

But when we showed this policy to three current and former editors at the journal, none of them were familiar with it. Image
The journal claimed the new policy had been adopted "this year." But as recently as May 4, HLR's online application packet said that the journal considers "all available information," including "racial or ethnic identity," to select editors from "a diverse set of backgrounds." Image
Read 22 tweets
May 13
NEW: 44 of the nation’s largest law firms were hit with a discrimination complaint on Monday alleging that they use an outside staffing agency to hire interns based on race.

These are some of the same firms that pledged to end DEI hiring as part of their deals with Trump.🧵 Image
The complaint, filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, targets Sponsors for Educational Opportunity (SEO), a nonprofit that places minority students at elite firms the summer before their first year of law school.
The paid internship often leads to a return offer the following summers, giving recipients an extraordinary leg up on their white peers.
Read 19 tweets
May 12
EXCLUSIVE: The EEOC is investigating Harvard's faculty hiring practices after the school boasted online that it had increased the number of ‘women, non-binary, and/or people of color' on faculty—and decreased the number of white men.

The probe is based on Harvard's own data.🧵 Image
Image
The EEOC is sixth federal agency to launch a probe of Harvard. The investigation is based on materials from the school's website—many of them now deleted—in which Harvard bragged about increasing the number of "women, non-binary, and/or people of color" on faculty. Image
The largest increase was in the share of non-white tenure-track faculty, which rose by 37 percent between 2013 and 2023.

The majority of those new hires, Harvard noted in a 2023 report, had been made in the past year. Image
Read 10 tweets

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