The American Association of University Professors has issued a new policy that supports the mandatory use of "DEI statements." These are written accounts by faculty members of how they advance the goals of diversity in the workplace, often used as part of the decision to promote or grant tenure:
Since the 1990s, many universities and colleges have instituted policies that use DEI criteria in faculty evaluation for appointment, reappointment, tenure, and promotion, including the use of statements that invite or require faculty members to address their skills, competencies, and achievements regarding DEI in teaching, research, and service.
....Some critics contend that such policies run afoul of the principles of academic freedom. Specifically, they have characterized DEI statements as “ideological screening tools” and “political litmus tests.”
I don't think DEI statements infringe on academic freedom any more than, say, a required statement about how you try to be an effective teacher. With or without them, professors remain free to say anything they want, including the opinion that DEI statements are stupid.
My problem is wholly different: I think it's clear DEI statements are a charade that strips the dignity from everyone involved. Nobody takes these statements seriously and everybody knows it, but grown men and women are nevertheless forced to submit vapid boilerplate to any committee with power over their careers. Not only is this vaguely humiliating, it sends an active message that it isn't really something to be taken seriously. Just check the box and move on.
But there's another problem too:
In the past two decades the share of Black professors has barely budged, increasing a grand total of 0.8 percentage points. Considering that the overall Black population share has also increased by 0.8 points during the same period, this is essentially zero progress.
In other words, whatever else you can say about them, DEI statements clearly aren't doing much good. Insisting on a transparent charade is bad enough, but insisting on one that doesn't even work makes no sense at all.
My problem is wholly different: I think it's clear that they're a charade that strips the dignity from everyone involved. Nobody takes these statements seriously and everybody knows it, but grown men and women are nevertheless forced to submit vapid boilerplate to any committee with power over their careers.
Agreed 1000%.
Well, the first question is whether the purpose of requiring DEI statements from faculty for hiring and promotion is to increase the number of Black faculty at a university. Given that there doesn't seem to be any direct connection between the two, I wonder what Kevin's basis is for assuming this to be the appropriate measure of DEI statement effectiveness.
The second question, then, is what DEI statements are intended to do. Like teaching statements, the intent is to force faculty to think about an aspect of their work which not all faculty in all disciplines necessarily think about, but because colleges and universities will never single out individual departments which may have specific issues with teaching or diversity, they require these statements of all faculty. (Consider that a Gender and Race Studies professor has to submit the same DEI statement as someone in the College of Engineering, for instance.)
At least in theory, writing the statement requires the faculty member to come up with something, some concrete statement about what they do which takes DEI into account. That's better than, say, requiring faculty to attend training but doing nothing to make them account for how that training translates into action. But, as Kevin points out, it can translate into a rote statement which doesn't reflect actual classroom practice (though it need not do so). Without knowing how many faculty are denied promotion, tenure, etc on the basis of a poor diversity statement, it's impossible to gauge their impact, but it's a reasonable guess that while they might have a small positive effect, they are never disqualifying beyond the hiring stage.
The larger question is whether college and university teachers need to be doing a better job of DEI in the classroom. If one rejects the diversity statement, how can one determine the answer? Anonymous student surveys? Teaching observations? Whatever data gets collected to substantiate that teachers are "doing diversity" properly, that data has to have a meaningful effect on hiring, promotion, and the like before it will produce meaningful and wide-spread changes.
That suggests Kevin has the wrong end of the equation: the fault isn't in the DEI statements. If administrators denied tenure or refused to hire candidates primarily on the basis of DEI performance metrics, you can bet those metrics would see improvement. So why aren't they? For that matter, if you want to employ more Black faculty, why not refuse to hire anyone else? (I suspect the university lawyers might have something to say about that.)
Of course, the whole matter gets more complicated when you consider that those fields and disciplines with the least existing diversity, for some reason, aren't producing a lot of diverse PhDs eligible to be employed as faculty. Practical solutions would be expensive, resource intensive, and draw heavy and predictable criticism, so naturally, they aren't popular with academic administrators. The corporate response, then, is to do something to "show willing" but that doesn't make enough of a definable difference to make anyone too angry, even if it also doesn't accomplish what you say you wanted, either.
As someone who has served on numerous hiring/search committees, I will respectfully say KD that your presentation of the this is a crock of shit. DEI statements (at least in our use of them) have nothing to do with the number of Black faculty or Black students but have everything to do with making sure applicants have thought through the fact that the demographic makeup of the student population of the university may be quite different than the applicant. As a consequence it is useful to hear an applicant think through how that difference may impact their teaching, service and research.
In my experience these are mostly used in job applications, not in tenure and promotion decisions unless an issue/complaint has come up.
If you find it demeaning to be reflexive about how you will think through your pedagogy and mentoring given the student population... well, let's just say you probably aren't that serious about educating students.
👍👍👍👍
I've also served on a lot of academic search committees, probably twenty or more. I agree that its useful to have people think about the population of students they will be teaching - especially if that population is different from one they have lived among and experienced themselves - but that's the only good thing I can say about DEI statements. Fortunately, the almost universal expectation that academics in all disciplines need to produce a DEI statement has ensured that it has become useless in evaluting candidates. It is a performative exercise that is widely recognized as such by candidates and search committees. Personally, I would like to see DEI sentiments folded into statements of teaching philosophy and (for those disciplines in which this is relevant) the management of lab technicians or other employees.
It helps to have generational wealth if you want to go into academia. Grad students in STEM will get paid to do research, and then will take jobs in industry or finance (or consulting) to get money for their family. If not in STEM, ignoring finance, law and med school, there is a lot less money and pay involves a lot of teaching and grading, not so much research to their degree. For finance, law and med schools, they'll have to take on a lot of debt unless they have a lot of family money. And then they'll take jobs to make money to pay off that debt. Going the academic route typically means post-docs (less money), and lots of competition for positions. Faculty positions have their perks, but typically come with less salary then other jobs, especially when starting out. For faculty positions to match the demographics of the country, the generational wealth of minorities will have to go up.
As for DEI statements, they mainly end up being boilerplate. They don't have to be.
Having seen firsthand how badly some academic types behave, I’m not as down on DEI statements as Kevin. It at least gets people to think about how to treat students and direct reports decently.
FWIW, I served on several staff committees tasked with hiring and promotions for an institution with close ties to a university. A number of employees had joint appointments with the university. At first, we required DEI statements only at senior levels. When our area started to ask for them at lower levels I pushed back without success. I thought it was more important for people in positions of power to consider DEI principles, than those lower down in the hierarchy. For entry level positions, it isn’t as important, they have less effect on the work atmosphere.
Having said that, I have very much noticed an improvement in atmosphere at my institution since the director decided to emphasize DEI. That’s very hard to quantify, and it may not bear results for quite a while. All I can say is that it is much easier to work productively as a young female scientist now than when I was one, and faced harassment from arrogant professors, who thought they were God’s gift to the world. Keep in mind that these professors have almost absolute power over their students and postdocs lives. It’s not too much to ask for them to consider for the 15 minutes it takes to write the DEI statement how to use that power wisely .
We need transparent charades that work.
Before evaluating the data you have presented to assess if a correlation is expected, I would like to ask: have academic institutions been requiring DEI statements during the time frame of the graph?
If not, not sure how relevant it is as evidence of anything to do with the post!
From what Kevin was quoting:
Sorry! I guess its the right-wing whining that has started only recently
Kevin, your lead/violence bullshit is a bigger charade than this DEI statement issue. Sorry, but you're misguided on this. You're convinced of your own theories. Sounds like a really smart orange guy.
The lead/violence "bullshit" is pretty convincing, IMO
Can we talk about some other minority than black people?
In the last few years I've interviewed for some internal corporate jobs and they invariably ask some question about how I plan to improve diversity or something. I'm not a people manager so aside from just being nice to everyone, I have little control over anything.
The question itself is pretty much useless. I really don't know how my answer is scored, but I doubt anyone is affected unless they say something really stupid.
If that rules out few assholes then it worth the trouble.
Of course the big unsaid truth is that these statement are intended to weed out conservatives.
Just ask yourself how it would go if someone wrote a DEI statement as below.
Diversity:
I work hard to promote diversity of thought among students. Since the student body is mostly left wing, I have acted as a faculty advisor for TurningPoint USA, Campus Republicans, and College Zionist Club.
Equity:
I work with students who are refugees from communist and socialist countries like Cuba, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China to help them adapt to the US educational system and to help them catch up on subjects where they are having trouble due to language issues. These students are often very smart kids but they have lost everything fleeing socialism or communism and they are now trying to adapt to a new educational system in a language they are still learning. I try to give them the equitable help to bring their performance and achievement closer to what it would have been if they had not had to flee their homelands.
Inclusion:
Many conservative religious students on campus feel very excluded. They are bombarded everywhere with messaging that homosexuality, transsexuality, other more niche sexualities, atheism, revealing clothing, and pre-marital sex of any kind are OK and even expected. I provide safe space in my office for them to talk with me about their feelings on this and weekly coffee meetings where they can meet and talk with other students who have similar beliefs and feel included. I am proud to say that at my previous employment, there were three marriages immediately after graduation between students who met at these events and all of them are now in happy monogamous traditional families in which the husband works the the wife stays home to take care of the children, all of whom were born at least 9 months post wedding.
Yes, this is of course the purpose. No different than starting each meeting with a prayer.
It would be good to know this, so I could avoid taking any of your classes.
Kevin needs to learn maths again. If the share of black people in the population has increased by 0.8 percentage points (not 0.8% of their current value) and the (much lower) share of full-time faculty has increased by 0.8% percentage points. Then the percentage increase of full-time faculty is higher than the percentage in the black population - i.e. there has been an improvement.
I worked in academia as a professor for 30 years. I have never felt demeaned by efforts to help diverse students or include diversity on our faculty. I am glad that departments remind faculty and prospective hires to think about diversity. More than that, I do not see the harm.
I see anti-DEI efforts as a politically motivated effort by the right wing to undermine whatever their perceived opponents are trying to do. I see it as a backlash against anti-racism, inclusion and tolerance, which are not bad things.
It bothers me especially when white male non-academics express these views. These statements about DEI reinforce the values of the academic community, which is about teaching young people and encouraging optimism and hope about the future. We should treat everyone better and what does it hurt to say so?
If it is the right wing that is objecting to such expressions, that may be because their mantra is about doing whatever mean-spirited thing they want to other people, just because they can. No one wants academics to behave like the bullies they have been portrayed in past films, the stereotype of the cynical drunken asshole burnouts who are too self-involved to be productive in any way that matters. Anything that takes us away from such portrayals is good. DEI is not as obtrusive as Drum suggests, but any step in that direction is good, in my opinion.
I worked in academia as a professor for 30 years. I have never felt demeaned by efforts to help [students find Jesus.] I am glad that departments remind faculty and prospective hires to think about [God]. More than that, I do not see the harm.
I see anti-[Christian] efforts as a politically motivated effort by the [left] wing to undermine whatever their perceived opponents are trying to do. I see it as a backlash against [charity, faith, and grace], which are not bad things.
It bothers me especially when [non-Christians] express these views. These statements about [Christ] reinforce the values of the academic community, which is about teaching young people and encouraging optimism and hope about the future. [Christ taught us to] treat everyone better and what does it hurt to say so?
If it is the [left] wing that is objecting to such expressions, that may be because their mantra is about doing whatever mean-spirited thing they want to other people, just because they can. No one wants academics to behave like the bullies they have been portrayed in past films, the stereotype of the cynical drunken asshole burnouts who are too self-involved to be productive in any way that matters. Anything that takes us away from such portrayals is good. [My faith] is not as obtrusive as Drum suggests, but any step [towards Christ] is good, in my opinion.
Anti-Christian efforts. Hah, good one.
Maybe the underlying problem is performance evaluation: Everybody knows it's worthless and every employer plays the charade in full every single year.
There seem to be two things that show up in DEI statements: vapid statements about how important diverse and inclusive workplaces are, and some statements about how the writer is leading an affinity group of some sort.
Writing the former is more or less painless, although it does seem patronizing for me to be telling people "you have a right to be here." That's certainly how I felt after the Tree of Life shootings, when HR people at my Gang of Four tech company were telling me that I had a right to be there. I mean, the HR person was new to the country, while my family had been here for four generations, so, like, yes, I feel like an American because I am one.
Starting an affinity group, of course, isn't available to a white dude, right? Am I going to start a "white men at X*" affinity group? Not if I want to ever get a promotion again. Even a "Jewish men at X" would probably go over like a lead balloon.
*X is a variable, not the company. Hell would freeze over several times before I'd be working for Musk.
You can tell you're a racist, because you don't even begin to understand that 'white' isn't a thing.
C'mon man. You could be in a Jewish group or a men's group, or whatever isn't already the default or bias in hiring.
If we're talking about DEI statements now - it takes time for someone to:
Feel respected through 4-8 years of college
Maybe: Get hired
Pass that on to another generation...
...who goes through 4-8 years of college...
And now definitely gets hired.