“Every day the universities wake up and break the law.”
That's how I began my recent seminar for Stanford's Classical Liberalism Initiative.
It's what I was told when I started reporting on faculty hiring. At the time, it sounded like an exaggeration, but my reporting has basically shown that it's true—universities operate with a profound sense of impunity.
Please consider watching and sharing the seminar, which summarizes much of my work over the last year.
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Today, the University of Arizona faculty will consider adding a minor in "Emancipatory Education."
It'll cover topics such as "Indigenous methodologies," activist approaches to research, and "Critical and postmodern (and decolonial) approaches to understanding gender."
Thread
Potential classes to complete the minor will include:
Leadership for Social Justice
Theories of Inequality, Oppression, and Social Stratification
Whiteness and Education
Activism in Higher Education
Indigenous Statistics and Survey Research
Decolonial Thinking
and more!
Here are the proposed learning outcomes.
They include applying "critical, postmodern, and emancipatory concepts," developing "praxis-based" concepts for "social-justice based" interventions, and articulating the "importance of emancipatory education."
This is an OSU search committee on its proposed finalists:
The committee was "keenly aware" of the need to hire a "visible minority," and "thus chose three Black candidates," declaring that "diversity was just as important as perceived merit as we made our selections."
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That’s from a search for a professor of French Studies focused on “Black France.” Throughout the documents I acquired—800 pages of diversity recruitment reports—casual allusions to racial preferences abound.
Here are some examples of the outcomes.
For a role in Medical Anthropology, 67 scholars applied, the four finalists include the only two black applicants and the only Native American applicant. (Note what counts as a "contribution to DEI.")
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.
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.
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."
OSU's College of Arts and Sciences made every search committee create a diversity recruitment report.
Over the next week, I'll be releasing redacted copies of these reports—highlighting aspects that raise serious questions over academic freedom and, well, academic seriousness.
The reports show the regular use of DEI litmus tests. For prospective scientists and scholars, contributions to DEI could easily make or break a job candidate.
For a search in Synoptic Meteorology, diversity statements "were considered a crucial part of the evaluation process.”
In a search for a professor of Music Theory, the report uses a key to list the reasons for not choosing candidates.
A total of four were eliminated solely because of their “Insufficient diversity statement.”
DOCUMENTS: In 2021, Utah State University launched a cluster hire, seeking scientists w/ a demonstrated commitment to “justice, equity, diversity and inclusion across disciplines.”
Via a records request, I acquired the screening tools for the searches. Here’s one for biology.
Notice how biologists were evaluated for their “knowledge & understanding” of the “dimensions of diversity.”
For a search in mathematical biology, candidates could receive a total of 20 points for “Teaching Efficacy,” 15 points for “Research Potential” and 15 points for “JEDI."
For another search—in math and stats education—the “justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion” category made up 15 out of 50 total points awarded.
A UW faculty hiring committee “inappropriately considered candidates’ races when determining the order of offers,” provided “disparate opportunities for candidates based on their race,” and ultimately used race as “a substantial factor” in its hiring decision, according to the report.
The report—issued by what is now the UW Civil Rights Investigation Office (CRIO)—shows how the Department of Psychology’s Diversity Advisory Committee pressured one hiring committee to re-rank finalist candidates on the basis of race.