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.
As it turns out, Mizzou routinely uses diversity statements in hiring.
According to its Inclusive Excellence Plan, the College of Arts and Science has expanded its use of the statements. The college of agriculture has committed to using them for “all faculty applications.”
Mizzou’s Division of Biological Sciences (why is it always biology?) heavily weighs diversity statements.
Its website advertises its “equal weighting of the research, teaching, and inclusion and equity statements" in the first round of faculty job application reviews.
Meanwhile, Mizzou’s training on “Best Practice for Inclusive Excellence in Faculty Hiring” encourages hiring committees to assess job candidates’ contributions to DEI using a pre-established rubric.
Again, the Mizzou rubric I obtained through a FOIA request perfectly illustrates how diversity statement policies invite viewpoint discrimination.
Though innocuous-sounding, the phrase “diversity, equity, and inclusion” doesn't imply a set of neutral values.
In practice, it implies a set of controversial views about race, gender, and social justice. Again and again, this is demonstrated by university DEI initiatives.
By now, it should be obvious that diversity statements will inevitably function as ideological litmus tests—and huge failures of priority.
Unfortunately, they’re alive and well at the University of Missouri.
Read the full story, and take a look at the rubric, at @MindingCampus. Through top-quality research and reporting, we're documenting the ways that DEI has invaded higher education to the detriment of our public and private universities.
As huge NIH funding cuts become a real possibility at places like Harvard, it's worth putting the agency's role in perspective.
Put simply, the NIH is biomedical science in the US. Private money will not be able to pick up its tab.
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2/ This year the NIH requested a fiscal year budget of $50 billion, and in years past its been close to that amount.
The top ten medical schools by NIH funding all get more than half a billion dollars annually.
Let’s put that in perspective…
3/ The top philanthropic funder of the medical sciences, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, happens to also be the second largest charity in the country behind the Gates Foundation.
It’s endowment is $27 billion, just a little more than half the NIH’s total budget.
Princeton President Chris Eisgruber argues: Trump’s demands violate academic freedom, the admin is using science funding to influence policies that have nothing to do with science (e.g. admissions policies).
It's hard to take this completely seriously. Here's why: (🧵)
The federal government constantly uses its funding “clout” to elicit university policies. Most recently, this has come in the form of heavy handed diversity requirements, which of course involves admissions policies.
As far as I know, Eisgruber has never raised the issue. 2/
To give just one example: at the NIH, large scale training grants (T32s) have long required applicants to submit special plans on enhancing diversity, which have to meet a certain scoring threshold for the project to be funded.
Trump is hurling earth-shaking threats at America’s universities. The response from elite opinion leaders has been fascinating, if you read between the lines.
The pattern is: denounce Trump’s actions, but also, in a way, vindicate them. The New York Times is a good example.
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The NYT editorial board declares: now is the time for universities to defend themselves.
But also, universities have valued ideology over truth-seeking (i.e. their basic mission). They've silenced debate. They've ostracized political outsiders.
David Leonhardt says: Trump is borrowing from the Modi/Putin/Erdogan playbook.
But also, universities (even community colleges!) have acted in a way that’s “inconsistent with their mission." Editor Patrick Healy adds a story about required campus orthodoxies.
NEW: A scholar pushing a "prison abolitionist agenda." A "neuroqueercrip" student studying decolonization. A working group on "tribal critical race theory."
Each is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation—a driving force behind the scholar-activist pipeline.
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2/ Andrew Mellon made his mark on American politics a century ago as Treasury secretary.
In my latest, I describe how today his foundation injects identity politics into our universities and—most notably—bankrolls the career development of activist scholars.
3/ Throughout this series, I’ve shown how fellow-to-faculty hiring schemes are especially clever because they help administrators bypass normal hiring procedures.
As dozens of documents show, this is a favored tool of the Mellon Foundation.