John Sailer Profile picture
Nov 27, 2023 7 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Colleges often reward job applicants for their “contributions to DEI.” Records I acquired show exactly how that worked for many departments at Ohio State.

For example, "Dr. [redacted] also identifies as 'a first generation, fat, queer scholar of color.'"

A quick thread. Image
These are official recruitment reports—submitted to the college’s dean.

Some departments didn’t play along w/ the requirement. A few bemoaned the dearth of conservatives.

But many others highlighted boutique identity categories and rewarded the embrace of identity politics.

Image
Image
Image
One committee emphasized how important it was that the new hire shared the core value of social justice.

It then praises a candidate for calling for “painful conversations" that "address privilege, systemic inequality, microaggressions, and white fragility." Image
For a search in Physics, the committee notes that one candidate’s “awareness of some of the challenges facing URGs in higher education is partly informed through his marriage to an immigrant in Texas in the Age of Trump.” Image
Another was lauded for tackling "DEI issues" that included "representation of refugees, gender issues, news framing of white supremacy and the alt-right movement, and the MeToo movement.”

These DEI credentials were "an important factor" in the decision to offer an interview.
Image
Image
Much of this suggests viewpoint discrimination, if not racial discrimination. It's amazing what they put down on paper. It seems like administrators applied ample pressure.

Read the full documents at @NASorg. We'll be posting more tomorrow.

nas.org/blogs/article/…
And read my full piece on the documents in @WSJopinion.

Inside Ohio State’s DEI Factory
I obtained 800 pages of ‘Diversity Faculty Recruitment Reports.’ Here’s what I found.

wsj.com/articles/insid…

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with John Sailer

John Sailer Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @JohnDSailer

May 6
Accreditors have played a serious and underrated role in ramrodding ideological and discriminatory policies throughout higher ed.

Some examples 🧵
The problem is perhaps worst in the medical sciences, of all places.

Example 1: In 2020, the Liaison Committee for Medical Education found Oregon Health and Science University’s medial school lacking in the area of "faculty diversity." Image
OHSU responded with a mammoth DEI action plan, which promised “incorporate DEI, anti-racism and social justice core competencies” in performance appraisals.

Also, “consequences” for faculty who didn’t get on board. Image
Image
Read 10 tweets
Apr 30
Faced with outside pressure, universities continue to circle the wagons in the name of "faculty governance" and autonomy.

But for years, big donors and university administrators have blatantly undercut faculty authority—all to promote sweeping social justice projects.

🧵
Dozens of universities have embraced fellow-to-faculty hiring schemes to promote their social justice goals, as I’ve described before.

Through these programs, an admin-led team hires postdocs who are then given special favor for tenure-track jobs. Image
Turns out, this is a powerful tool for strong-arming departments.

Multiple professors have told me how deans denied or limited their departments’ funds for regular hiring, while strongly encouraging them to hire through fellow-to-faculty programs. Image
Read 13 tweets
Apr 18
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.

🧵🧵🧵
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… Image
Image
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. Image
Read 5 tweets
Apr 9
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: (🧵) Image
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. Image
Read 7 tweets
Apr 3
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.

🧵
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. Image
Image
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. Image
Image
Read 7 tweets
Apr 2
LaVelle Ridley, a professor at Ohio State, uses research to push an "anti-capitalist, prison abolitionist agenda."

Ridley’s career is worth examining. It illustrates how much cash goes toward scholar-activism—especially cash from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

🧵🧵🧵 Image
As an undergrad, Ridley was a Schomburg-Mellon Humanities Fellow, a diversity-focused research and mentoring program with a decent stipend.

Run through the New York Public Library. Funded by the Mellon Foundation. Image
As a PhD student, Ridley received the University of Michigan’s Rackham Merit Fellowship, a diversity-focused tuition and stipend program. Image
Image
Read 16 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(