A grad student in the shoes of David Austin Walsh might think they have the right formula: even if you’re a white guy, just specialize in the right things, then you'll have at least a shot.
That is verifiably incorrect.
Universities very explicitly say these race/identity/social justice jobs exist to target specific groups. They get very close to openly declaring their intention to discriminate in the hiring process.
I've repeatedly found search committees openly admit to using racial preferences.
Ohio State sought a professor of French studies with a "specialization in Black France."
The search committee stated that hiring a “visible minority” was a key priority—so they only invited black candidates for on campus interviews.
The University of Washington conducted a search for a professor focused on diversity.
A white woman was the search committee's first choice.
A diversity committee member objected on the grounds of race.
They then re-ranked the candidates.
Here's the University of Washington diversity advisory committee member noting that it's "optically-speaking" a bad look that the offer to go to a white woman.
This is the goal of "cluster hiring," hiring multiple candidates at once w/ a focus on DEI, increasingly popular in academia.
In the sciences, that means heavily weighing DEI statements. But in the humanities, it commonly involves hiring w/ a race/identity/social justice focus.
A professor friend recently told me that everyone in his university system acts like cluster hiring is just a legal form of racial quotas.
But again, we don't have to rely on rumors. Administrators have literally said that's exactly what they're doing.
Our universities contort entire academic disciplines, narrowly focusing on social justice, applying de facto ideological weed-out tools like diversity statements—all for the sake of achieving (or masking) racial preferences.
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NEW: The National Science Foundation is currently giving $10 million to implement a DEI-focused hiring program at universities in Maryland, Texas, and North Carolina.
Exclusive docs show how this fellow-to-faculty scheme discriminates by race/sex—and favors scholar-activists 🧵
Run through the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC)—and named “Re-Imagining STEM Equity Utilizing Postdoctoral Pathways,” or RISE UPP—the program was designed to foster “recruitment, engagement, and transition to faculty roles for minoritized postdoctoral scholars."
Through the program, a team of administrators led by UMBC aims to spread the fellow-to-faculty model to new university systems that participate through sub-grants.
VIDEOS: The University of California System spearheaded a special side-door hiring scheme for scholars committed to diversity.
But at UC Riverside, multiple professors raised serious concerns about the model—namely, that it pushes an ideological agenda. 🧵🧵🧵
In 2023, Douglas Haynes, a UC System vice provost, appeared on aUC Riverside panel on the President's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program.
In Q&A, several professors raised the issue. “What I wonder about is whether there is an ideological litmus test," said Steven Brint.
Philosopher John Fisher followed up more forcefully.
“There are rules that are written down and there are unwritten rules, and it seems to me that one of the unwritten rules is an ideological litmus test."
NEW: The University of California's "President’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program" serves as a faculty hiring model for universities around the country.
It also creates big problems for academic freedom, and professors have increasingly sounded the alarm. 🧵
David Turner is an assistant professor in UCLA’s school of public affairs.
In his spare time, Turner does community activism, having co-founded the “Police-Free LAUSD Coalition,” a group that calls for wholesale police abolition.
That activism shows up in Turner's scholarship.
In an article for Abolition: A Journal of Insurgent Politics, for example, Turner praises Black Lives Matter student activists for the way they reject capitalism and adopt a “Black queer feminist lens.”
1/ UC Davis is still investigating Jemma Decristo for these ⬇️⬇️ comments.
My reporting shows: UC Davis recruited Decristo through a postdoc program that gives special favor to scholar-activists.
Here are a few other beneficiaries of the vast scholar-activist pipeline. 🧵🧵🧵
2/ Here’s how it works: these fellows are 1) hired through a less-competitive process focused on diversity and then 2) heavily favored for a tenure-track jobs at the conclusion of the postdocs.
Its a side door into the faculty lounge—very convenient for admin pushing an agenda.
3/ Kyshia Henderson examines “how White Americans ignore, dismiss, and distort historical truths in ways that promote white supremacy.”
Hired at the University of Chicago through the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship which promises all recipients a tenure-track job.
NEW: Days after the 10/7 Hama attack, UC Davis professor Jemma Decristo posted threateningly (⬇️⬇️) about "zionist journalists."
It rightly sparked outrage. But an even bigger story is how Decristo was recruited to a tenure-track job at UC Davis in the first place 🧵
Today I’m introducing a series of investigations (@CityJournal) on the scholar-activist pipeline.
For years, universities, private foundations, and federal agencies have furnished a well-funded career pathway for scholar who hold an activist vision for higher education.
@CityJournal When Decristo expressed sympathy for overt violence, UC Davis’s chancellor publicly condemned the comments—saying they were inconsistent with the university's commitment to social justice.
But ironically, Decristo was hired precisely because of that commitment.
NEW: Louis Galarowicz (@nasorg) and I have acquired a trove of records from University of Colorado, Boulder, that show how the entire university coordinated to advance a system of brazen race-based hiring.
The receipts are pretty astonishing... 🧵
@NASorg We acquired the approved/successful proposals for the university's large-scale diversity hiring program. Here are a few examples:
The College of Engineering & Applied Sciences said its cluster hire had “the goal of doubling our underrepresented faculty in the college.”
@NASorg Another example:
The Renewable And Sustainable Energy Institute proposed a specific candidate—who it noted was “an outstanding BIPOC scholar” who would increase the program’s “domestic Faculty of Color...”