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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

#71

Post by wonderwonder »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #48
wonderwonder wrote: post #30

This is the sort of thing that confounds me. It proports to be anti racist but it's the opposite, it treats minorities as a special lesser class that require protection from everyone else. It's the civil rights movement in reverse. It's already started bleeding into the workspace with mandatory training and verbiage that essentially says anything you do in your interactions with a minority if they accuse you of anyth…

>I worry about my kids if this keeps escalating. I dislike Desantis for many reasons but ended up voting for him specifically for this reason and a couple of other cultural issues. Considering the book banning he just enacted this seems like an extremely short sighted and poorly thought out reasoning.

He banned books? They are illegal to possess in the state? Or did he just have certain books removed from the curriculum or deemed inappropriate to teach in school? One is a serious accusation, the other is something that's done every day. You see a lot of copies of Mein Kampf in elementary school libraries? How about playboy magazines? Schools are always reevaluating what they deem appropriate, let's not blow it out of proportion and use wildly inappropriate and inflammatory words to describe it.

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

#72

Post by astrange »

adamsmith143 wrote: post #25
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…

I think we'll find a pendulum effect where schools that lean far into DEI are going to lose out on top students, grants, researchers, etc. They'll have to readjust and swing back into pedagogy because it will be very clear that if e.g. UC Berkeley is training students in DEI and not as much focus is spent on the actual subject matter their students won't start great companies, they won't get PhD's at other top school…

Do students actually learn anything that causes them to be better at starting companies, anywhere, ever?

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

#73

Post by dragonwriter »

catiopatio wrote: post #22
shadowgovt wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I'm unaware of which right would fall under the category "Can't have DEI statements." The first amendment, as originally noted. This is most relevant at public universities, which effectively are the government.

> The first amendment

Diversity statements are not viewpoint statements, they are statements of achievements and concrete plans related to organizational goals.

The first amendment does not prohibit public employers from asking for, and basing employment decisions, on such statements.

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

#75

Post by bushbaba »

SilverBirch wrote: post #35

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 senio…

The issue with DEI is that it tries to addresses discrimination with MORE discrimination

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

#76

Post by Manuel_D »

ergonaught wrote: post #52
SilverBirch wrote: post #35

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 senio…

I was asked to describe the diversity within my private life during a job interview last year. It was a relatively lower end position, not even vaguely academic, and neither the role nor the company have any particular applicability to "diversity".

Is it illegal to lie on these sorts of questions? Like, you could say you're gay, married to an indigenous trans man raising 3 URM children you've adopted. All of these things are illegal to use in hiring decisions, so the veracity of your answers would only matter if the company was engaged in unlawful hiring practices.

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

#78

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

catiopatio wrote: post #45
interactivecode wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of having to stand in a circle with all my classmates while one of us had the privilege of holding the national flag. We then in unison had to recite a pledge to that flag, the nation and god. just thinking about having to say the pledge of allegiance gives me chills.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." It’s a pointless, anodyne and unobjectionable pledge that prescribes nothing. It’s stupid, but not remotely comparable to DEI statements, or commitment to much more specific political ideals.

Disregarding someone else's objection to forced speech and saying yours is more important isn't going to win a lot of people over. Just because you can't see why it's objectionable doesn't mean it isn't.

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

#79

Post by SpeedilyDamage »

wonderwonder wrote: post #71
adamsmith143 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I worry about my kids if this keeps escalating. I dislike Desantis for many reasons but ended up voting for him specifically for this reason and a couple of other cultural issues. Considering the book banning he just enacted this seems like an extremely short sighted and poorly thought out reasoning.

He banned books? They are illegal to possess in the state? Or did he just have certain books removed from the curriculum or deemed inappropriate to teach in school? One is a serious accusation, the other is something that's done every day. You see a lot of copies of Mein Kampf in elementary school libraries? How about playboy magazines? Schools are always reevaluating what they deem appropriate, let's not blow it out…

[dead]

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

#80

Post by Pegasus930 »

interactivecode wrote: post #19
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.

Reminds me of having to stand in a circle with all my classmates while one of us had the privilege of holding the national flag. We then in unison had to recite a pledge to that flag, the nation and god. just thinking about having to say the pledge of allegiance gives me chills.

Yep. Had a flashback to when I was a kid and was forced to pledge allegiance to an empire of terror. Have been shaking and crying remembering abuses like that.
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