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.
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.”
NEW: Yale University’s department of molecular biophysics and biochemistry requires all job applicants to submit a DEI statement.
Here's the evaluation rubric, which shows the exhaustive DEI criteria for assessing any scientist hoping to work in the Yale department.
It's a remarkable document, which puts a thumb on the scale for progressive sensibilities.
Scientists get points for understanding the “challenges faced by underrepresented minorities”—likely to favor those fluent in the language of "microaggressions" and "implicit bias."
This DEI litmus test—or as some might say, loyalty pledge—evidently carries serious weight.
A presentation on the department’s hiring protocols declares that hiring committees should put “DEI at the center of every decision.”
The Washington Post Editorial Board calls for the end of DEI statements in faculty hiring.
It argues that the policy has led in practice to "ideological policing." That's a big deal—focusing on how the policy plays out in real life, not in some imagined best-case scenario.
In practice the ideological policing is impossible to deny. Here are just a few examples of how "DEI contributions" are evaluated, as shown by public records.
Here’s a wild example: At Texas Tech, a DEI evaluation of biology job candidates show one being penalized for not properly describing the difference between equality and equity.
Another job candidate was rewarded in their DEI report for giving a “land acknowledgement” at the beginning of their job talk.
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
NIH FIRST funds DEI "cluster hiring" at universities and med schools. A core requirement of the program is that every scientist hired submit a “diversity statement,” an increasingly controversial policy.
What does this look like in practice? The records speak for themselves. /2
Cornell University’s grant proposal describing how it will evaluate its hard-science job candidates: “Note that the statement on contribution to diversity will receive significant weight in the evaluation.” /3