Thread by @TheFIREorg

DEI initiatives are trending in higher ed as universities debate how to best serve their students. But what if faculty were told there’s a certain way they 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 to talk about, teach, and promote DEI — or else? It’s happening now @uoregon. 🧵 /1

FIRE is calling on the University of Oregon to stop requiring current and prospective faculty to submit statements endorsing and demonstrating how they’ve advanced the university’s narrow, politicized conception of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” /2

UO is “committed to antiracism and other forms of anti-oppression” — but the First Amendment protects faculty from being forced to to promote any political framework — whether its anti-communism, individualism, patriotism ... or, yes, DEI. /3

UO’s policies go beyond the laudable and necessary goal of preventing discrimination. They impose an ideological litmus test on faculty applicants and faculty seeking promotion or tenure. /4

Let’s look at how UO evaluates DEI statements: They give low scores to applicants who oppose “outreach or affinity groups aimed at underrepresented individuals because it keeps them separate from everyone else, or will make them feel less valued.” /5

bit.ly/3C1hQME

High scores go to candidates who say DEI is a “core value” that all faculty should actively advance and who intend “to be a strong advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion.” That’s viewpoint discrimination. /6

The policies coerce faculty whose academic interests may lie elsewhere — but who wish to maximize their chances of obtaining employment, tenure, or promotion — to reorient their teaching and research to conform with UO’s ideological aims. /7

The requirements even reach beyond the classroom, selectively rewarding faculty who engage in DEI-related activism, such as “[e]mbedding equity, inclusion and diversity into a professional organization’s mission, programming, fundraising, etc.” /8

bit.ly/3bTeTDl

FIRE would not object to UO simply recognizing applicants’ and faculty members’ 𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗮𝗿𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗰𝗵𝗼𝘀𝗲𝗻, 𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗲𝘃𝗮𝗻𝘁 teaching, research, and service activities and accomplishments that might happen to be characterized as DEI contributions. /9

But the existing policies establish a means to discriminate against faculty who disagree with — or whose track record reflects insufficient dedication to — UO’s positions on matters of public and academic concern. /10

FIRE is concerned that scholars with minority, dissenting, unpopular — or even nuanced views — on DEI will face a marked disadvantage in seeking employment, promotion, or tenure. /11

Besides threatening faculty members’ #FirstAmendment and academic freedom rights, this push for ideological conformity undermines UO’s “basic commitment to advancing knowledge and understanding.” /12

We don’t discover knowledge by entrenching an orthodoxy on issues of political or academic concern; we do it by giving scholars freedom to inquire and dissent. /13

Any mandate that faculty rally around an ideological cause is unacceptable, whether that cause is DEI, or any other ideology. As FIRE has said before, “Academia is a place to test ideas, not scholars’ loyalty to them.” /14

bit.ly/3Qli85k

In pursuing #DEI, universities must not forsake the values that underpin their missions of producing knowledge: academic freedom, critical thinking, open-mindedness, intellectual humility, and diversity of thought. /15

We asked the University of Oregon for a response to our letter by August 24. Stay tuned. /16

thefire.org/fire-letter-to…

Are you a faculty member affected by similar policies at your school? We’d love to hear from you. /17

thefire.org/alarm