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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

#171

Post by dragonwriter »

kyleblarson wrote: post #70

What are the odds Dr Martin Luther King would have been hired at Berkeley? "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."

> What are the odds Dr Martin Luther King would have been hired at Berkeley?

Zero, because his dedication to his objective of replacing the American system of capitalist oppression with a just economic system free not only from direct racial discrimination, but from economic and other oppression (which also crystallizes the effects of past racial discrimination) would not really compatible with university (or state more generally) employment.

Have you read literally anything of King’s besides the Right’s favorite sentence to quote out of context?

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

#172

Post by wonderwonder »

tyre wrote: post #170
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.

Genuinely curious, do Desantis voters think this ends without suppression of speech? Desantis is banning books. Yes, these culture wars are bad. Stupid. But it feels like there is drift into both-sidesism. That side of the right is most certainly not for free speech any more than Elon Musk is when taking over Twitter.

If I am punished for using racist words to describe a minority is that suppression of my freedom of speech? It is illegal to discriminate against minorities, it should be illegal to do the same against whites and Asians. It's that simple, any effort to paint it as anything else is just misdirection and hyperbole.

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

#173

Post by xyzzyz »

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]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the state banning books from public schools. No sane person would object from banning literal hardcore pornography from school libraries. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the state must allow the librarians to stock pornographic magazines on school library shelves. Same goes, for example, for books glorifying murderous regimes like Nazism or Communism.

Since the government have every right, and in fact in some cases a moral duty to ban certain materials from schools, the only question here is what materials exactly should children be encouraged to read, and, on the other hand, what will damage their lives and minds.

Individual parents, of course, are free to disagree, and they can show their children whatever they want. However, the whole point of democracy is that the elected officials have mandate on behalf of the majority of the voters to exercise control over state institutions. If voters do not like what DeSantis is doing, they can vote in his opponent during next election.

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

#174

Post by jrm4 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126
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…

> 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, reductions in public services, etc OP’s point is these aims may be in opposition to one another. Pushing ideology-affirming DEI requirements in academia alienates allies who would have given support to…

Much like the mythological "swing voter," I have no reason whatsoever to give faith toward the type of person who would hate e.g. DEI requirements and be pro-reform in any meaningful way; there aren't enough of them to make a difference.

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

#175

Post by xyzzyz »

jrm4 wrote: post #167
onetimeusename wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Banning books Everyone bans books. I am surprised this is such a meme because you probably won't find many supposed free speech activists also being in favor of putting Mein Kampf in the student library for the children or teachers teaching Creationist perspectives on science. I think there needs to be a question of merit about what is taught, no?

Stop. There is a universe of difference between curating selections for children's and/or adult libraries, and a government official stepping in to control and/or ban books. The former is part of the job, the latter is overreach.

Those two are literally the same thing. The “banning books” you’re talking about is literally the state curating the selection of children books in public libraries. Florida is not actually banning sales of certain books, as it would be illegal for it to do it (except in some edge cases), all it’s doing is curating the selection of books in libraries. The critics call it “banning books” to confuse audience into thinking that some books are actually getting “banned”, which is simply not happening.

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

#176

Post by abbiebe89 »

Manuel_D wrote: post #168
hgielatan wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You cut off your link in the first comment. It read: "www(dot)mckinsey(dot)com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inc" I also removed " https:// " in addition to substituting (dot) to trick HN formatting. This one works because it points to the full link: "www(dot)mckinsey(dot)com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/diversity-wins-how-inclusion-matters" You can't just drag-select links on HN, since it truncates li…

[dead]

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

#177

Post by megaman821 »

kevingadd wrote: post #100
bushbaba wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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…

Are you willing to apply this DEI guidelines to music and sports? Black Americans are overrepresented and Asian Americans are massively underrepresented. Do you not think there is an element of personal choice and culture involved here?

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

#178

Post by Dig1t »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #13

Just lie. That is what corporate has always expected from this. Go find a Black woman to interview and then hire who you want. Or ask current team members to claim they are certain races. I am a straight white male. As far as my employer is concerned I am a mixed race sexual minority. My boss at one of my jobs gets credit for a 25% diverse team that is just white men + 1 Asian man (Asians do not count as diversity).…

Absolutely this. I will also be encouraging my kids to lie about their race and identities on all applications as they grow up, especially college.

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

#179

Post by jrm4 »

xyzzyz wrote: post #173
cmh89 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the state banning books from public schools. No sane person would object from banning literal hardcore pornography from school libraries. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the state must allow the librarians to stock pornographic magazines on school library shelves. Same goes, for example, for books glorifying murderous regimes like Nazism or Communism. Since the government…

This is painfully wrong. There is absolutely everything wrong with THE STATE banning books from public schools.

The state's job is to set up and maintain a structure by which localities etc. can more-or-less self govern their methodology of education and handle things like content, and e.g. fire your hypothetical school person who's glorifying Nazism. And the actual state should only be getting involved in deeply extreme cases, if at all.

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

#180

Post by thwayunion »

bradleyjg wrote: post #38
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.

The legal situation for private non-profit universities (particularly those without religious affiliation) is quite a bit more complicated than anyone on this thread seems to realize, mostly for statutory reasons. Maybe with the exception of Hillsdale and a few others.

I have honestly no idea what SCOTUS would do with these cases absent an agency rule or legislation banning DEI statements, for example, and IMO anyone who claims otherwise is a clerk, a SCOTUS judge, married to a SCOTUS judge, or lying :)

I am fairly confident that state legislatures could ban DEI statements at public universities, but I am also fairly confident that this wouldn't actually change anything and that people who think otherwise haven't ever been a serious applicant for a faculty position.

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