Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

economist.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 407 posts

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

#181

Post by wonderwonder »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #165
wonderwonder wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Friend my current jobs mandatory training stated that if I try to help a person that happens to be a minority and they yell at me and berate me for assisting them that I must not argue back and should "sit there in my shame". That's really all I need to know. While I have much deeper opinions on the topic, I'm fine just stopping there, I don't want my kids to live in a world where that sort of instruction is the norm…

Well friend, you appear to be working in an aggressively progressive company because I currently work in government and have friends who work in academia and have never heard of anything even close to the likes of that. I think it's possible you're (intentionally or not) misunderstanding their message.

I can assure you that what I posted is word for word what it said. Pretty hard to misunderstand. I work at a fortune 500 company.

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

#182

Post by tiahura »

jrm4 wrote: post #174
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Much like the mythological "swing voter” … there aren't enough of them to make a difference.

Did you sleep through 2020?

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

jrm4 wrote: post #174
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by cmh89 »

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…

>There is absolutely nothing wrong with the state banning books from public schools.

When it's entirely politically motivated, there is.

>No sane person would object from banning literal hardcore pornography from school libraries. I

Conflating Desantis culture war nonsense with actual pornography is a bad faith argument.

>ndividual 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.

If Florida was still a democracy, I might agree with you. Desantis voter disenfranchisement and voter suppression programs have effectively ended that.

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

#185

Post by rayiner »

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]

> But DeSantis whole schtick is try and make you feel like stuff like DEI is oppression for white people

It’s not just “white people.” DeSantis outright won Hispanic voters as well. According to the Associated Press/NORC studies, Youngkin also won Hispanics in Virginia and tied among Asians in 2021.

A critical function of state government is educating children, and that unavoidably invokes making choices about how kids are socialized and taught to view the world. (Nobody is banning books—they are curating what resources the government makes available in taxpayer-funded schools and libraries.) On that front, many minorities don’t want their kids socialized into the notion that they’re oppressed by white people and other left-wing ideas. Similarly, even if they’re sympathetic to sexual minorities, they are distrustful of materials that depict and seemingly encourage sexual exploration by teenagers. (My Muslim parents would have been freaked out by any of the books we are talking about even if everyone therein had been cis and hetero.)

A lot of this kerfuffle is the left foot-gunning itself. They’ve created a structure where any line drawing by the center left opens them up to devastating attacks of isms and phobias from the far left. If the left can’t open the door to teaching about the Tulsa massacre without allowing the Angels Davis sympathizers to walk through behind it that’s the left’s problem.

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

#186

Post by raxxorraxor »

kelseyfrog wrote: post #98
raxxorraxor wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are certainly a lot of true believers. And intellectuals often reflect future changes in society, but I think the ship for DEI has sailed as the ideas from its opposition are on the table as well. Even if inertia creates new initiatives today and tomorrow. And the alternative ideas are more popular among intellectuals. Maybe not academics, but intellectuals.

It might help to speak of the specific alternatives created as a response to DEI. Would you care to share?

I believe the set of beliefs associated most often with DEI are weakest with no opposition at all. I believe a lot of it is reactionary. This is why it needs huge media events where people can be outraged.

But as far as ideas goes that would be general humanism like color blindness, freedom of speech and expression, freedom of association, guilty until proven innocent, equality instead of equity (although a balance here is probably most desirable, DEI tends toward totalitarianism).

Maybe DIE isn't opposed to all these values, but it has positioned itself as such. And I believe opposing such values became en vogue by a class of academics to set themselves apart ironically. Although its ideas aren't that new as well.

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

#187

Post by wonderwonder »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #159
fallingknife wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I dislike Desantis for many reasons but ended up voting for him specifically for this reason and a couple of other cultural issues. Yeah, I hate the Republicans. But I vote for them now.

I guess this is the new single issue voting?

It is for me and I really dislike it. First time I've ever voted Republican. I still voted Dem on the federal level but had to think about it.

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

#188

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jrm4 wrote: post #174
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> 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

I admittedly haven’t seen joint polling on this. But competitive districts certainly show overlap, and joint increasing animosity, towards these elements. Speaking personally, corporate DEI always struck me as usual bureaucratic drudgery; gatekeeping academic positions with an ideological questionnaire makes me pause, particularly when those same institutions are proposing solutions to our inequality and electoral problems.

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

#189

Post by whatshisface »

xyzzyz wrote: post #175
jrm4 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think…

You will have a hundred individual teachers in your life but a lot of children can grow up with a single party in office.

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

#190

Post by [deleted] »

abbiebe89 wrote: post #176
Manuel_D wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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]

[deleted]
Post reply on HN