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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

#111

Post by enragedcacti »

hguant wrote: post #10
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'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.

Is there a threat of legal penalty stopping a person from responding to a DEI prompt with " I wouldn't do anything to promote diversity"? A person doesn't have a right to employment with a university and the interview process is chock full of questions for which not saying the right answer is grounds for elimination.

This is of course a separate issue from whether or not the statements are a good idea, but my layman's perusal of supreme court cases around compelled speech found that this almost certainly doesn't rise to the level of a first amendment violation.

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

#112

Post by whatshisface »

lflfofodpld wrote: post #81
astrange wrote: post #62

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. He's not going to do anything about it. He's going to start a few fights to get press attention, then give up on it as soon as they stop paying attention, since he's just running your state government as PR for a presidential campaign. (Y…

[flagged]

I wish more people were citing their sources and stuff in this thread.

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

#113

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

pookha wrote: post #34
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.

Well I think the issue currently is nobody can agree on what "diversity" means, so both sides of the argument are talking past each other.

It's much easier to argue against DEI initiatives such as this when their proponents can't wield the Motte-and-bailey fallacy.

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

#114

Post by Manuel_D »

catiopatio wrote: post #58
sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like forced speech at all. Having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (as I did, or felt like I did) is forced speech. Asking a question as part of an application isn't forcing any specific speech in response. "I think many DEI initiatives are treating a symptom of a genuine problem in society and think that striving to treat every individual in a fair manner and ensuring they feel included in my lab…

The pledge of allegiance is idiotic forced speech, but it’s also meaninglessly anodyne. DEI statements have right and wrong answers, and giving the wrong answer will disqualify you from a job, and ultimately, filter anyone who disagrees out of the academy entirely. That’s very dangerous forced speech. Your example, by the way, would score very low as a DEI statement.

As as student you do not need to state the pledge of allegiance. This case went all the way to the Supreme Court, and the court ruled that students do not have to do it as it's compelled speech. Notable this ruling was made even though the US was in the middle of WWII: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Virginia_State_Board_of...

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

#115

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Manuel_D wrote: post #65
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.

Banning books from public school libraries has nearly zero effect on what students are exposed to. Did you ever check out a book from the school library? I never did, the actual municipal library had a much better selection. Harry Potter was banned from plenty of libraries for witchcraft, and it's sales demonstrate how futile it was.

> Did you ever check out a book from the school library?

Constantly. It was the only library I could get to regularly and I had a voracious appetite for reading.

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

#116

Post by nerdponx »

cmh89 wrote: post #107
edgyquant wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 Yep. There’s likely going to be a huge blowback to all of this and the supporters will write it off as the country being full of racists. At this point I no longer care. This is draconian stuff.

[flagged]

The irony is that it requires a tremendous amount of privilege and insulation from the problems of the world to vote for somebody because they happen to stand against some people that you happen to disagree with, in total disregard of all the other horrible stuff that person does and says.

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

#117

Post by sokoloff »

catiopatio wrote: post #58
sokoloff wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't seem like forced speech at all. Having to recite the Pledge of Allegiance (as I did, or felt like I did) is forced speech. Asking a question as part of an application isn't forcing any specific speech in response. "I think many DEI initiatives are treating a symptom of a genuine problem in society and think that striving to treat every individual in a fair manner and ensuring they feel included in my lab…

The pledge of allegiance is idiotic forced speech, but it’s also meaninglessly anodyne. DEI statements have right and wrong answers, and giving the wrong answer will disqualify you from a job, and ultimately, filter anyone who disagrees out of the academy entirely. That’s very dangerous forced speech. Your example, by the way, would score very low as a DEI statement.

Free speech that has consequences is not the same as forced speech or a lack of free speech.

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

#118

Post by shadowgovt »

krona wrote: post #90
shadowgovt wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF, fairness also wasn't a tenant of the old cultural revolution either. That's why these things keep happening. A free and civilized society has allowed the oppression, dispossession, and outright murder-without-consequence of far, far too many of its citizens to traipse along unquestioned.

Fairness used to be about treating individuals equally. For example, blind hiring practices. The new 'fairness' is incompatible with blind hiring or individual merit, because its ultimate aim is to make what you are more important than what you have done. You might say 'that's a good thing' but to claim these aren't polar opposite concepts of fairness or justice is disingenuous.

The ultimate aim is to give a better world to the next generation than the one the current generation inherited.

We tried, for decades, a simple meritocracy solution. It brought us deeply-embedded racism and the robber-baron era of industrial monopoly. And in the current era, we're watching technology create another gilded-age-style haves-and-have-nots divide.

Turns out a society that's as close to best for everyone sometimes needs some thumbs on some scales to work, because people are selfish and short-sighted and "meritocracy" depends heavily on where you start and how lucky you get.

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

#119

Post by josephcsible »

thwayunion wrote: post #109
josephcsible wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That answer would get the candidate immediately rejected.

Depends on the college. At other colleges, refusing to identify as a conservative Christian would get the candidate immediately rejected.

> Depends on the college.

Not really. The only colleges that wouldn't immediately reject a candidate who said something like that also wouldn't have demanded a DEI statement in the first place.

> At other colleges, refusing to identify as a conservative Christian would get the candidate immediately rejected.

Other than a seminary, can you give a specific example of one?

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

#120

Post by thwayunion »

belval wrote: post #49
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…

> 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 affluent background who hasn't done much in that sense, you might still prevail. How can you write something like that, which shows that you 100% understand that this is racism, and then f…

My DEI statement was exclusively about helping students who arrived at college without sufficient academic preparation to succeed: helping first-gen students navigate their freshman year, making sure naive students know how to think about weeder courses, volunteering at high schools to help with college prep, etc.

I'm a white straight male and my DEI statement did not mention ethnicity or gender.

I was consistently told it was one of the best DEI statements the faculty had ever read.

I have no doubt that DEI statements get used in ridiculous and stupid ways; Academia is full of ridiculous and stupid things and that's why I left. But they do get used well at some institutions.

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