Mandatory DEI statements are becoming the norm in academic hiring

To be clear I already admitted I was wrong about this after checking the other faculty signatures. The call to put pronouns in signatures wasn't mandatory. I certainly look very poorly at statements that go on and on about pronouns and rate them at the bottom, because as I said, we've already had this debate as a community, and a job application/interview is not the time nor the place for that debate to be rekindled.

> - You do not count this as a political litmus test, instead you accuse the applicant of being political by having an opinion that is different from what students are demanding.

Yes, and I don't see why that's a problem, because it wouldn't be tolerable in any other workplace to bring your personal political opinion into the interview. Imagine if I had an interview at BigCo and started complaining about capitalism, and how the CEO owner didn't work for his money, and that I feel he should reorganize the entire corporation so that workers controlled everything. Would you call me political for bringing those opinions to the interview, or would you call the owner political because he's forcing his capitalistic economic model on me?

> You acknowledge that the institution is extending asymmetric affordances, and picking winners and losers on a charged topic

It's not charged in our community. Just because the political Twittersphere goes crazy over some topic doesn't mean it's a big deal for everyone. Some communities can arrive at a different norm than others, and it's not "picking winners and losers" if that community starts rejecting outsiders who violate the community's norms. Sure it may be sad for the outsiders who wanted to participate, but it's not up to the community to accommodate the outsider's political sensibilities. I'm sorry you feel this is illiberal, but if it makes you feel any better, these standards were the result of intense community debate, and were voted on. At some point, things need to move on. We can't be in a perpetual debate about pronouns forever.

> Respectfully, the fact that you would tell me all of this openly, but then think that I need right-wing agitation to consider this an illiberal trend, just reinforces to me how much of an echo chamber academia must have become.

I have no idea what motivates you specifically, but it's not a coincidence that a furor of a thousand+ comments bubbled up here about DEI statements in academia at the same exact time the right wing media sphere also was very concerned about DEI statements in academia.

> I told you that I would credit such accounts if they came from someone who had significant disagreements with the dominant thinking on these subjects, and was able to be hired without hiding this.

That's definitely not me, but at the same time I doubt you've tried hard to seek these people out. Are you waiting for this person to drop in your lap? There are plenty of them out there, but they know not to bring their political opinions to a job interview. That always seemed like common sense to me, but it seems to now be a problem for some reason.

It behooves you to show evidence that this is happening. So far you’re generalizing a fair bit while not citing, well, anything.

I have no clue what the fuck this means, but I can tell you I think HR DEI training is a bunch of bullshit. I have to do it, of course, just like I have to do the AML training and the Insider Trading training and the Phishing training. It's all dumb bullshit. And the corporation has to require it because the risk of not requiring it is too large. So we all play the dumb game.

> and nevertheless felt comfortable stating their true beliefs in a DEI statement and was still hired.

LMAO. This would not get you hired. Like, "faculty make fun of your app on the hiring committee slack channel" levels of not getting hired >'D

MechE gives the reasons why -- people are asking if you can do the job and going on a political rant in your job application is a huge red flag regardless of your politics.

Believe me -- faculty, esp in STEM departments, are wary of hiring wacko leftists. It's not even about the political valence. You just don't want to work with someone who's obsessed with politics and feels the need to spout off about it in their job application. Those sorts of people fucking suck to spend time around.

When reading DEI statements, universities want to know that you can help increase the size of their total addressable market. The harsh cold logic of financial capitalism combined with demographics demands that they only hire sufficiently woke faculty. If you don't like it, time travel back to 2008 and pop out a bunch more white babies.

And? It's an ongoing debate that even I am unsure about and perhaps maybe they'll be vindicated one day. But conversion therapy is categorically abuse today. And for good reason.

>I would be shocked if you could convince me there is a governor who would always decline to sign bills that ban material from schools.

That's not really how it works. You need to provide evidence of Democrat governors banning books at the state level a la DeSantis and Abbott. I can't prove what they wouldn't do because the situation is theoretical.