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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

#271

Post by adamsmith143 »

thwayunion wrote: post #202
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…

> top students, grants, researchers, etc.... Nobel Prizes LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service). I'm sure there's an exception here or there, but even in those cases... Harvard/MIT have thousands of qualified candidates for every spot, and any of those people…

>LMAO. If you're hiring top-tier researchers there's enough cut-throat competition for revenue that DEI statements are marginal and everyone agrees no one gives a shit about Service (DEI is service).

So why play the kabuki game at all if it's all so pointless.

>The schools where DEI statements matter the most in hiring may or may not even have an office of sponsored research (aka not even enough grant revenue to bother budgeting for a secretary or accountant to help with paperwork). They depend on tuition dollars.

We're talking about the UC schools which have been top of the world generally and the DEI stuff seems to matter quite a lot there.

>Their student base is declining by as much as 20% in 2025 due to a collapse in birth rates after 2008, and they NEED to increase the size of the pie or they will die. The easiest way to do that is to recruit non-WASP students, since the WASP demographic is already college-saturated. Enter DEI. It's about $$$, not Ideology.

This doesn't map to reality because it's some of the most elite schools, with the most applicants, the largest endowments, the most Federal Research Money, etc. that have been pushing this the most aggressively, Harvard, Yale, the UC's etc.

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

#272

Post by dang »

esporx wrote: post #106
Manuel_D wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One crucial detail to note with the research showing diversity improves company performance: Asians were categorized as diverse in these studies. But in all the DEI initiatives I've seen, Asians were either non-diverse and in some they were "negative diversity" and treated even worse than whites. So there's a mismatched between the definitions of diversity used in research and used in DEI discrimination.

[flagged]

Using alt accounts to get around moderation restrictions is obviously a serious abuse, so I've banned this and related accounts.

Please don't create accounts to break HN's rules with.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#274

Post by rayiner »

cmh89 wrote: post #191
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?

>Everyone bans books. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Desantis is banning books for political reasons that have nothing to do with the education of children. > I think there needs to be a question of merit about what is taught, no? I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Experts on children's education are not calling for these politics-based book bannings.

The education and socialization of children is one of the fundamental functions of a society and as such it’s inherently a political issue.

Education experts are delegated the authority to figure out the particulars of how to educate children. The decision of what kids learn is a political decision outside their domain.

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

#275

Post by tablespoon »

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]

> Banning books and trying to erase people from society due to their sexual orientation is draconian.

That framing is extremely misleading and tendentious. For instance: school boards making decisions about what to stock in their libraries is not "banning books," it's democracy. However, misrepresenting that as "book bans" cranks up the outrage, which is beneficial in partisan an ideological conflict.

It's also frequently hypocritical. For instance: the ACLU has been paying for big banner ads in the New York Times saying the oppose "book bans," while simultaneously employing a director who publicity advocates stopping the circulation of certain books and certain ideas.

When someone complains about "book bans," frequently their real position is "I want this book/idea in the library but that book/idea that I hate needs to be thrown out and burned."

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

#276

Post by StabbyMcSwordfi »

Manuel_D wrote: post #96
SpeedilyDamage wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's the civil rights movement in reverse. Is it? Here's what MLK has written: > “Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.” > “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of…

One crucial detail to note with the research showing diversity improves company performance: Asians were categorized as diverse in these studies. But in all the DEI initiatives I've seen, Asians were either non-diverse and in some they were "negative diversity" and treated even worse than whites. So there's a mismatched between the definitions of diversity used in research and used in DEI discrimination.

[flagged]

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

#277

Post by tablespoon »

cmh89 wrote: post #191
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?

>Everyone bans books. Sorry, I should have been more clear. Desantis is banning books for political reasons that have nothing to do with the education of children. > I think there needs to be a question of merit about what is taught, no? I'm not sure what you're getting at here. Experts on children's education are not calling for these politics-based book bannings.

> Sorry, I should have been more clear. Desantis is banning books for political reasons that have nothing to do with the education of children.

Sorry, no. That's just "when I do it, it's good; but when they do it, it's evil." All these book decisions are for "political reasons," and they all have everything to do with the education of children.

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

#278

Post by fallingknife »

wonderwonder wrote: post #187
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Why do you switch to D on the federal level? They seem like the main people pushing this nonsense through regulations. Because of Trump, I assume? It is pretty hard to vote for him.

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

#279

Post by kelseyfrog »

raxxorraxor wrote: post #266
kelseyfrog wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think we're talking past each other. My claim is that the values you mentioned(free speech &c.) are derivatives of enlightenment thought whose epistemological basis is objective reality. This appears tautologically true for true-believers within objective reality. The DEI values are derived from an internal contradiction within objective reality which is something like, "How can X,Y,and Z bad things exis…

I do indeed believe in objective reality, but enlightenment also taught me that my perspective can only ever be subjective as well as I can only hope that I can approach these values to a sufficient degree. This is an important realization and a potent argument to disarm a lot of DEI initiatives. Because it often proposes to be able to discern inequality objectively and redistribute it in a just manner. Impossible fr…

Great exchange! thank you

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

#280

Post by haberman »

thwayunion wrote: post #253
wonderwonder wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

FWIW, I am a white, heterosexual male. I wrote a DEI statement that did not mention ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. I consistently got praise for my DEI statement in faculty interviews. I am fairly confident I am one of the only straight white males in this comment section who has applied to faculty positions and received job offers, across a variety of institution types. I am almost certain I am the only one in thi…

If the interest in DEI was primarily market-driven, rather than ideological, then we would expect to see a strong correlation between the selectiveness of an institution and disinterest in DEI. Institutions like Harvard that accept only 4% of applicants have no trouble keeping full enrollment year after year; people are banging down the door to get in. So if we follow your explanation, Harvard would have little motivation to push for DEI programs.

But in practice some of the most selective institutions (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth) have some of the strongest commitments to DEI. Maybe some institutions are motivated by market forces, but that cannot be the case in these elite institutions. There must be more to the story.

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