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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

#141

Post by rizzaxc »

astrange wrote: post #72
adamsmith143 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

why not? quality peers and staff absolutely make each student better thinker, more risk tolerant, and more likely to find suitable cofounders and/ or help during bootstrap

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

#142

Post by giraffe_lady »

wonderwonder wrote: post #124
jrm4 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clumsy for sure. Potentially dangerous in the future, I think. But I really really really need for people, like you, who are annoyed by it and whatnot to really see the bigger picture here. I have no problem turning the dial down on "DEI" as practiced if and only if we effectively address and recognize the ways in which these people actively do throw minorities under the bus in other ways; e.g. gerrymandering, r…

When forced to choose between the effects of Gerrymandering vs my kids being penalized for the rest of their lives for being white then I am forced to choose Gerrymandering every time and I hate that this is the choice I'm presented with. I'm not a fan of Desantis at all but I am even less of a fan of this woke (I hate using the term, it sounds like a caricature) movement. My kids happen to be white, heterosexual mal…

Forced to huh?

https://thenib.com/fault-right/

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

#143

Post by adamsmith143 »

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.

I probably checked out dozens. But the problem also extends to classrooms themselves where teachers have thrown out entire shelves of books.

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

#144

Post by zozbot234 »

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…

> Academia has obviously been historically discriminatory

Academia may have been historically discriminatory, but their biggest problem today is a pipeline problem. K-12 education, and especially public K-12 education, is not just historically discriminatory but has very real, ongoing discrimination against BIPOC minorities, and against female students' success in STEM subjects. That's what really needs to be addressed head-on, DEI is pointless window dressing.

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

#145

Post by willcipriano »

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]

Here are some images from books banned in Florida schools for K - 3 students by the "don't say gay" bill (censored but not safe for work): https://www.senatoraument.com/blurred-explicit-examples/

People can make their own choice if they think this is good content for nine year olds.

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

#146

Post by thwayunion »

josephcsible wrote: post #119
thwayunion wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Serious question: how many on-site interviews have you had at conservative christian colleges? Could it be that the mass media outrage machine -- this is the third or fourth article on this topic in a major outlet in the past week -- is masking what you might otherwise recognize as a blindspot in your personal knowledge?

> 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.

Nonsense. Many -- I think the majority -- of conservative religious people aren't anti-diversity, anti-equality, or anti-inclusion, even if they're anti-"DEI". And their institutions aren't just conservative talk radio echo chambers. Lots of thoughtful people are conservative and have a multitude of complex viewpoints. Intellectual/nuanced conservatism is over-represented at places like colleges and universities, as you might imagine.

Religiously affiliated institutions often ask about DEI topics at some point in the interview process; sometimes they ask to include discussion in your faith statement, other times they ask in person, and I've seen at least on place ask for both a faith statement and a DEI statement.

The answer above would work very well at those institutions.

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

It's common enough that the CUNY Graduate School includes special instructions for folks who are applying to those jobs. They also mention specific examples of institutions and letter requests in that article: https://careerplan.commons.gc.cuny.edu/blog/religious-statem...

Tons of small religiously-affiliated liberal arts colleges require the Conservative Loyalty Oath equivalent of a DEI statement. Still others use Faith Statements responsibly, the same way some responsible universities use DEI statements.

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

#147

Post by anonymouskimmer »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #123
kevingadd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some DEI policies are arguably discriminatory, many are not. If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong. Policies designed to keep your admissions closer to the general population would not count as discrimination because if everything is functioning correctly your di…

> If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong. Doesn't this ignore the fact that there actually might be biological differences between various races of humans? I mean, aren't most top runners black? I don't follow this closely, but it does seem there is bigger percentage of…

> Doesn't this ignore the fact that there actually might be biological differences between various races of humans?

Show me that we have a society in which everyone is enabled to thrive to their full potential and then make this argument. Until then biological essentialism is profoundly stupid.

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

#148

Post by adamsmith143 »

shadowgovt wrote: post #83
catiopatio wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be the outcome of explicitly de-incentivizing excellence?

How do DEI programs explicitly de-incentivize excellence?

You no longer hire the best candidate on the merits but rather the one with a sufficiently high DEI score.

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

#149

Post by eldaisfish »

gray_-_wolf wrote: post #123
kevingadd wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While some DEI policies are arguably discriminatory, many are not. If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong. Policies designed to keep your admissions closer to the general population would not count as discrimination because if everything is functioning correctly your di…

> If you know that the general population is 20% race A, 10% race B, 30% race C, and yet your admissions are only pulling in 40% race C, 5% race B and 55% race A, you know something is wrong. Doesn't this ignore the fact that there actually might be biological differences between various races of humans? I mean, aren't most top runners black? I don't follow this closely, but it does seem there is bigger percentage of…

you are walking a dangerous line with that question.

Yes, genetic advantages are a thing which is why the NBA is dominated by black people but social factors are also a thing which is why the NHL is dominated by Canadians.

Diversity programs aim to address the second factor i.e. giving a temporary boost to people who didn't have access to social and economic privilege.

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

#150

Post by Manuel_D »

hgielatan wrote: post #132
Manuel_D wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of your links are either paywalled studies, or lead to 404 pages, except for the first one. > The effect of shared ethnicity was even stronger, reducing an investment’s comparative success rate by 26.4% to 32.2%. Right, so any diversity of ethnicity - including Asians - was associated with this "diversity boost". > They find student performance most-improved when there was greater management diversity, And again,…

[flagged]

> Find it! You keep posing these questions, but refuse to do the work of arriving at the solution yourself, which you are entirely capable of doing. Go answer your own questions!

I can't find it because most of your links are either broken or paywalled. Go post the excerpts that say "we define racial diversity as...".

Here's an example of mismatch between one of your working links and our diversity policies:

> To draw an example from this study, if all of the teachers in a given district were white, the Blau index would be 0, indicating perfect homogeneity. If 25 percent of the teachers were white, 25 percent were black, 25 percent were Latino/a, and 25 percent were Asian or Native American (grouped as “other” for my purposes here), then the Blau index would be 0.75, indicating the highest level of heterogeneity achievable in a situation with four categories. As the number of categories increases, the highest possible Blau score increases.

By comparison, my company's diversity policies target equity. So Asian representation of 25% is not considered diverse, as they are only 6% of the population and thus 25% is nearly a 5x overrepresentation.

> Why are you discriminating against Asians this blatantly and obviously? It's wild, how you think this is okay.

I'm not! DEI policies are. But the research showing the benefits of diversity overwhelmingly do count Asians as diverse, hence the mismatch between the research and our DEI policies.

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