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Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

economist.com

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Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#31

Post by jl2718 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #12
hguant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure how it squares with a university's First Amendment right to freedom of association. The short answer from the courts is - if you take money from the federal government, in any way, or have students who take money from the federal government, in any way, or distribute funds from the federal government, in any way, as a corporate entity you lose out on many of the rights entailed to a private citizen.

No doubt, but I'm unaware of which right would fall under the category "Can't have DEI statements." If anything, government money tends to include more diversity entanglements, not fewer.

Yes. Government-forced speech is the norm across the history of totalitarian regimes.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#32

Post by shadowgovt »

dtx1 wrote: post #8

These Rules and Statements always remind me of the stories I heard from the GDR and USSR Days. To get your highschool diploma or PhD in the GDR you had to recite your commitment to Communist/Marxist ideas before a panel that often didn't care about it but everyone knew it was just easiest to go through the motions anyway.

Every company I've worked for has a code of conduct we had to sign.

I didn't have to take an oath to get my diploma, but I'm not a medical doctor. I've also never had to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, etc., as I've never witnessed anything the Courts cared to interrogate me on.

There's a lot of contexts where oaths are required; they're not limited to the USSR and GDR. Oaths are just one of those tools societies use to bind together a heterogeneous people.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#33

Post by hguant »

shadowgovt wrote: post #12
hguant wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I'm not sure how it squares with a university's First Amendment right to freedom of association. The short answer from the courts is - if you take money from the federal government, in any way, or have students who take money from the federal government, in any way, or distribute funds from the federal government, in any way, as a corporate entity you lose out on many of the rights entailed to a private citizen.

No doubt, but I'm unaware of which right would fall under the category "Can't have DEI statements." If anything, government money tends to include more diversity entanglements, not fewer.

The argument is that the University, by requiring a DEI statement/commitment, is creating a situation where it's forcing speech. "Forced Speech" is one of those things the First Amendment/government get tetchy about. It's not a "right to not have DEI statements," it's a "right to not have to say things I don't believe."

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#34

Post by pookha »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #9

This will draw people on either side of the argument on whether or not this is a constructive thing to do closer to having to define what diversity actually means in any given context. Discourse will need to crystallize around whether or not it is sufficient to define diversity in terms of a couple of specific racial and gender lines. Put another way, two people, A and B, may have this dialogue: A: Evidence for my co…

I like the word "crystallize". Generally speaking cults are big on that.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#35

Post by SilverBirch »

This is such a "ugh" topic. Of course it's kind of absurd to be like "Write me an essay on how Woke you are", but it's the inevitable result of pretty low quality individuals trying to solve a real problem.

Academia has obviously been historically discriminatory, and due to the massive problems with the structure of US universities it still has all sorts of problems. The way to fix that is obviously to bring in senior leadership who have experience and understanding of the myriad complex issues facing academia today and who can create a series of changes to tackle some of the systemic underlying issues which have embedded a monoculture in most institutions. Actually doing that is really difficult though, and challenges a series of power structures that are well embedded and aren't going to change. Senior leadership at universities answer to donors, not junior staff.

So there's a push to change, but it's not going to change? What do you do? You cover your ass by making sure you meticulously document just exactly how you are making changes so you can point to stuff when people realise that absolutely nothing is changing. You say to your woke alumni "look at the great initiatives" and you say to your non-woke alumni "Psstt... I think we've got a spare space for your 85 IQ grandson"

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#36

Post by raxxorraxor »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #18
raxxorraxor wrote: post #2

I still don't understand how anyone can find such rules attractive. This is as strict as the catholic church. In the private sector it tells me that a company values show much more than their employees, which probably are treated badly and have to work in an extremely strict environment. If you have to say it... People that honestly fall for such statements are too naive to really fill out any leadership position in…

Have you ever fought a war on symbolism before? Do you believe in free speech, personal liberty, and hard work? New epistemologies have taken root and from them, derived new values. Stamping out new ideas is a very very difficult task after they've reached enough people. The new guard sees the old rules as constraining as you find the new rules. Most revolutions happen in people's minds decades before social relation…

Do people share these values? They are implemented by authority. And some new values are old mistakes that are repeated ad nauseum.

Kissing the scepter doesn't mean you love the scepter. Rejection is a strong possibility. Most ideas do die (dei?).

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#37

Post by fallingknife »

efficax wrote: post #26

DEI statements are just one factor in the hiring process for faculty. Generally they'll get scored by the hiring committee on some numeric scale (like everything else in the application). A low DEI score might not tank your application if you're in a field where everyone else has a low DEI score, or if you are absolutely outstanding in your field but have middling DEI because you're a white, male scientist from an af…

If you are absolutely outstanding in your field you should always prevail. Also, if you didn't know, hiring candidates based on race is explicitly forbidden by federal law (Title VII Civil Rights Act of 1964). The fuss is absolutely not overblown.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#38

Post by bradleyjg »

shadowgovt wrote: post #5

> Professor Halley believes these innovations are “forced speech and viewpoint discrimination in the First Amendment context” That's an interesting viewpoint and I'm not sure how it squares with a university's First Amendment right to freedom of association. After all, they're at liberty to grant tenure to whomever they think is worthy of it, by their own criteria. If they think that a tenured physics professor's vie…

The legal situation is very different between a private university and a state university.

Private entities are protected by the First Amendment while state government entities are restricted by it (technically as incorporated by the Fourteenth).

Conflating the two situations just leads to confusion.

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#39

Post by hprotagonist »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #2

I still don't understand how anyone can find such rules attractive. This is as strict as the catholic church. In the private sector it tells me that a company values show much more than their employees, which probably are treated badly and have to work in an extremely strict environment. If you have to say it... People that honestly fall for such statements are too naive to really fill out any leadership position in…

> This is as strict as the catholic church.

Much stricter: they have a well-established mechanism for reconciliation and forgiveness! In fact, several!

Re: Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

#40

Post by HerbMcM »

FormerBandmate wrote: post #16
onepointsixC wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Academia is such a brutal cutthroat battle for faculty positions, you have zero choice but to participate. An acquaintance was applying for faculty positions and every single position they were applying to required a DEI statement. It's only a matter of time till it starts bubbling out of academia to industry.

> It's only a matter of time till it starts bubbling out of academia to industry Hard disagree. This is the type of thing only colleges do, it’s the equivalent of an essay and also displays how different academia is from the professional world. No one cares about publications in industry, and people buy into this stuff much less sincerely than in academia

We're nearing a decade of academia spilling over to the real world, rocketing political polarisation at every level. "Industry" doesn't have any particulars that would render it immune.
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