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.
In 2022, a paper drawing from “critical whiteness studies" analyzed how "whiteness" shows up in Physics 101—concluding that, among other things, the use of whiteboards perpetuate whiteness in physics.
Here's what's crazy: this "research" was funded by the federal government.
🧵
2/ But first: what's Critical Whiteness Studies?
Per the article, it's a research framework that starts with the assumption that omnipresent, invisible whiteness pervades our ordinary interactions and institutions to ensure "white dominance."
3/ It's a bold starting point—with more than a hint of racial animosity. Applied to physics, it gets weird.
The article finds that the values of "abstractness" and "disembodiment" in physics ("physics values") reify whiteness and reflect human domination and entitlement.
As official policy, the Los Angeles Community College District requires faculty to complete an in-depth DEI evaluation and self-reflection.
A truly remarkable document. Quasi-religious. Take a look at some of the questions. 🧵
First, faculty have to "recognize the impact of racial and social identities in creating oppression and marginalization" and to describe their "commitment" to "anti-racist perspectives."
It's worth noting that the California Community Colleges system has been explicit about its definition of "anti-racism," which in good Kendian fashion is far from merely opposing racism.
Next, faculty in the community college district must "discuss" their "commitment to self-assessment" in anti-racism.
They're also asked to reflect on the effect of their implicit bias and—bizarrely—their understanding of racial "superiority or inferiority."
The MacArthur Foundation just announced its 2024 fellows. In addition to eight hundred thousand no-strings-attached dollars, these awardees can now flaunt the (unofficial) title of “genius.”
Two thirds won this honor for work on race, sex, or identity. (🧵)
This year’s “geniuses” (yes, I know, the MacArthur foundation doesn't like that title) include a “performer working in the cabaret tradition” who has been “at the forefront of Trans visibility and activism since the early 1990s.”
Another writes poems that “bring the reader face-to-face with violence inflicted on Black lives.”
Another’s recent book is titled “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code”
1/ Harvard and MIT ended mandatory DEI statements for hiring faculty. Yet a mirror image of the policy is gaining traction in federal grant applications.
The NIH, perhaps most notably, has begun rolling out mandatory "Plans for Enhancing Diverse Perspectives."
2/ These plans essentially require grant applicants to describe their efforts to advance diversity and inclusion as they put together their research proposal.
This is how DEI statements in hiring are typically framed. The biggest issue comes in the evaluation.
3/ That's a red flag. When UC Berkeley gave guidance for scoring DEI statements, it penalized espousing race-neutrality.
The same criteria could easily creep into PEDP scoring, as a group of scholars and scientists (including @jflier and @McCormickProf) recently pointed out.
SCOOP: The NIH is giving $250m to universities to hire medical scientists who show “an interest in DEI.”
The NIH says the program doesn't “discriminate against any group.” Public records tell a different story.
As one email put it, “I don’t want to hire white men for sure."
The NIH FIRST program funds “cluster hiring” at universities and med schools around the country.
The program follows a popular model, reasoning that universities would hire minorities as a byproduct of heavily weighing DEI statements. On paper it bars racial preferences.
But in grant proposals, for projects funded by the NIH, universities repeatedly and openly state they'll restrict who they hire on the basis of race.
Vanderbilt University Medical Center promises to hire 18-20 "Black, Latinx, American Indian, and Pacific Islander" scientists.
NEW: For hiring new professors, Columbia University recommends valuing “contributions to DEI” on par with “research.”
The sample evaluation tool also weighs DEI more highly than teaching.
That’s an especially wild default given how Columbia defines “contributions to DEI"... 🧵
Columbia provides an in-depth rubric for assessing DEI credentials. Which, of course, is pretty important if DEI might carry the same weight as research.
Take a look. The rubric gives a low score to candidates who are skeptical of racially-segregated “affinity groups.”
Here’s the rest of the Columbia rubric.
It rewards things like speaking at workshops “aimed at increasing others’ understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion.”