Was it a controversial infringement on academic freedom or a commitment to the mission? Regardless of how it’s characterized, it puts applicants for academic positions into an awkward position: either commit oneself to social justice or lie about it. The message is clear. If you’re not committed to progressive beliefs, you won’t get a job at UCLA.
Mathematicians who want tenure at UCLA have to do more than show a facility with numbers. They also have to pledge in writing a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusivity.
In fact, all professors applying for a tenure-track position at UCLA must write a statement on their commitment to diversity, showing, for example, their “record of success advising women and minority graduate students,” according to the UCLA’s Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.
A commitment to educating students seems like a core requirement of a tenured teaching position, but that’s not what they’re asking for.
The written pledges are used to “identify candidates who have the professional skills, experience, and/or willingness to engage activities that will advance our campus diversity and equity goals,” said Judy Piercey, senior director of strategic communications at UC San Diego.
Is there anything wrong with having teaching candidates who possess a commitment to “campus diversity and equity goals”? Not at all. But the squishy positivity of the goals isn’t the issue, or the problem, as FIRE’s Robert Shibley explains.
One needn’t be a rocket scientist to see the distinct difference between counting “equity, diversity, and inclusion” work in a candidate’s favor and mandating all candidates to provide evidence of this work with their application. It’s one thing to tell candidates that their work in the areas of equity, diversity, and inclusion will be credited to them and make sure these do not go unrecognized by departments. It’s entirely another to indicate to candidates that their mandatory EDI statement is going to be awfully lacking if they happen to spend too much time pursuing teaching, research, and service goals that may be both worthy and excellent, but which simply don’t move the needle in the direction of equity, diversity, or inclusion. Or to set up a process where faculty interviewers can’t help but hold this against them.
Is he overstating the problem? Is it “entirely different” to seek applicants who promote a university’s goals versus mandating a commitment to a political “creed,” a “public confession of faith,” as Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, calls it? Jeffrey Flier, former dean of Harvard Medical School, thinks not.
“As a dean of a major academic institution, I could not have said this. But I will now,” Jeffrey Flier, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Higginson Professor of Physiology and Medicine, tweeted Saturday. “Requiring such statements in applications for appointments and promotions is an affront to academic freedom, and diminishes the true value of diversity, equity of inclusion by trivializing it.”
The reaction was, unsurprisingly, huge, a mix of agreement and support and brutal attacks. Some academics condemned a political litmus test for hiring, while others went the Nazi route, since what else could Flier be if he questioned the orthodoxy?
As for the “expected” negative comments, Flier said he found nearly all of them “missed the point, and misunderstood why I was taking the view that I did. Also the requisite number of crazies.”
Of course, from the perspective of progressives, he missed the point. There is no “point” other than to dedicate one’s existence to the cause of diversity, and anyone who would deign to challenge “good” must, by definition, be evil. Flier explained his purpose with slightly more nuance.
Flier summed up his primary objection to the “whole idea” as follows: what “should mainly be an objective evaluation of a faculty member’s accomplishments and reputation will now potentially be influenced by a politically contentious set of factors that will likely be gamed. And even more, this opens up academic assessment to even further inroads from political influences, which was well known in prior history.”
None of the above has “anything to do with support for more diversity, which I fully support,” he added.
Phillip Kass, vice provost at the Davis campus of the University of California, responded to Flier’s twit.
Kass said that he found Flier’s statement “ridiculous,” and criticized Shibley’s argument as intimating that required diversity statements were part of some “leftist plot.” Instead, he said, they’re an additive part of a portfolio, just like awards or other honors.
Kass offered himself as proof that this was overblown.
Using himself as an example, Kass said that when he comes up for a merit review, he may or may not submit an optional statement on his work on diversity and inclusion, with the assurance that it can only help — not hurt — him. The same is true of Los Angeles’s initiative, he said. (Davis also requires diversity statements for faculty candidates. Statements are optional for promotion and merit decisions.)
Saying there’s no requirement for as to what the statements say, Kass said they “can document the sorts of things I’m doing that go beyond the bounds of expectations with regard to equity, diversity and inclusion. But the converse is not true. I’m not penalized for not doing these things and not writing about them.”
This was a bizarre non sequitur, given that the argument is about initial hiring, where the EDI statement is mandatory versus tenure, as applies to Kass, where it’s not. Further, the argument that there is no requirement as to what the mandatory statements say may be correct, provided they address an applicant’s commitment to diversity and equity. But then, if they don’t confess a commitment to the creed, the applicant won’t get the job.
Is the division here about being for or against diversity, or about mandating that applicants prove their dedication to the cause of diversity to be worthy for that job teaching higher math? Or is this a political litmus test to root out applicants who might have heretical thought? If it was merely the “additive” Kass claims, then what purpose is served by making this a mandatory requirement? Certainly no one is mandated to win awards, which are nice but not a make or break condition. Yet, it’s mandatory that applicants pledge allegiance to the diversity and equity if they want the job.
Discover more from Simple Justice
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Harvard University: “Race can only help, not hurt, a student’s admission chances” for a fixed number of admissions.
UC Davis: “Diversity statements can only help, not hurt your chances at tenure” for a fixed number of tenure lines in any given department (yes, the number of tenure lines is decided by the administration in advance).
Academics have become, unfortunately, politicians. So UCLA made the diversity statement mandatory instead of required? While it sends a message, I’m not sure there is a practical difference.
A rather critical distinction with regard to Kass’ example: it may not be mandatory for tenure, but it is for the initial hire. That he completely (and presumably deliberately, unless he’s just a dolt) ignored this suggests he’s shooting blanks.
Kass doesn’t strike me as very sharp. Even if diversity bullshit as part of tenure considerations “can only help, not hurt,” I imagine there are a limited number of tenure-track slots, and if the other professors vying for them include diversity bullshit–and are thereby helped–while he does not, then he is, in fact, hurt by not including it.
Universities might as well just rename diversity administrators “political commissars.” They could assign one to each department and then dispense with the pleasantries.
“Diversity” is one of those noble-sounding ideas that no reasonable person would presumably say they oppose.
But the devil is in the details. Ask the Asians at Harvard about it.
There are no details to unduly passionate. Only racists see details. Believers see Utopia.
You are very much correct. So much of what SJ seeks is dependent on the Reptile Theory. How could one oppose what must feel true?
Speaking of devilish details, I believe those Asians are not actually at Harvard.
Sounds like a loyalty test to me. Except in the 50s the government wanted the imposition of such tests and the universities were resisting. Now the universities are imposing the ideological shackles on themselves.
The resistance was more from professors than the university. The current University of California oath isn’t nearly as draconian. But I continue to be amused that all UC employees, including cafeteria workers and janitors, must swear an oath to defend the U.S. and California constitutions against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
As faculty at UC, I think the concern is a little overblown. The diversity statement is only one part of the overall hiring packet, and many hiring committees (to be blunt) do not consider it the most important part. Importantly, there are basically zero guidelines as to what they should be, so you get a pretty wide range of answers. When I applied, my diversity statement was all about outreach work I had done to low-income schools, and how I planned to increase flexibility for my lectures (posting materials online, etc) to help students who are putting themselves through school by working and have difficult schedules.
The UC has decided that CA is a diverse state, and that that diversity is part of the strength of CA. While I’m not particularly taken with most progressive causes, I can’t say I disagree with either part of that. And if that means part of my job as faculty is encouraging non-traditional students…I can’t say that is a bad thing.
The “only help, not hurt” thing is basically giving people more flexibility. If I spend some weekends visiting local schools to encourage children to apply for STEM or judging science fairs (which I do), that is time I am not researching (which is the major thing I am judged on for progression). Being able to include these other aspects in my hiring and promotion packets means that time I spent doesn’t necessarily count against me. Again, I view it as a good thing.
I think the concern is more for the humanities. Not all diversity/outreach activities will be treated as equal, and the “zero guidelines” doesn’t help. I doubt anyone expects UC to consider mentoring an LGBT group and the local Campus Republicans of equal weight, regardless of how many women and minority students were in either group.
Morgan:
I’ve replied in more depth to SHG below. But honestly it really depends on the framing of the statement. I would honestly be surprised to see someone referring to the local CR chapter, just because academics skews liberal, but if the statement was about diversity in the CR and mentoring I doubt it would be dismissed out of hand.
And I agree, zero guidelines results in a lot of flexibility…but ultimately I think people act with some degree of self-interest. If you are hiring someone that you have reservations about their ability to perform and passing over someone that you think will be excellent…that will come back and bite you fairly hard.
To be blunt, faculty in the UC work long hours. Very few would be willing to add to that by hiring someone that is going to leave messes for them to clean up. If they can’t teach, or can’t fund students, or don’t attract national/international attention to your department for their excellence.
It was my understanding that the “only help, not hurt,” applied to Kass’ tenure example, where the EDI wasn’t mandatory, as opposed to initial hiring where it was. Would it impact a person’s ability to be hired if he was a great mathematician but had nothing to offer to prove his commitment to diversity and equity? Would it only apply in certain disciplines, where such things are taken more seriously? What about the applicant whose reply is a belief in meritocracy? Would he stand a chance?
“Would it impact a person’s ability to be hired if he was a great mathematician but had nothing to offer to prove his commitment to diversity and equity?”
Hiring is mostly decided through search committees, which both have a lot of rules and a lot of flexibility. There is very little practically stopping a low weight being given to the diversity statement at hiring. On the flip side, there is nothing stopping a search committee (again as a practical matter) fully deciding based on the diversity statement.
In my experience, I wouldn’t be concerned about your hypothetical great mathematician being unfairly targeted. It depends on the department, but research/scholarship is a big part of the hiring. You want to bring in people that will add prestige to the department through their scholarship. Teaching and service are also important…its hard to run a program, and you recruit people that aren’t going to be deadweight in that regard.
Could a poor commitment to diversity sink an otherwise stellar candidate at UC? It is possible, but I would be shocked if it was more than a rounding error. Would a strong commitment to diversity help differentiate a candidate from a similar pool of academic excellence? I would say that is far closer to the reality of the situation. While search committees are given flexibility on how to weight different criteria, I am doubtful that there are many committees that don’t place *serious* emphasis on academic excellence.
I think it is also important to say this isn’t code for hiring from specific groups, or some sort of weird loyalty to a specific ideology. Not even in a wink wink nudge nudge way, or in my experience as a practical matter. It has to do with the UC’s recognition that CA is diverse, the student body is diverse, and that diversity is a strength. Again, I’m not one to hew to a lot of progressive causes, but I don’t disagree with that statement. More to the point, UC is one of the strongest public research universities in the world…if their longstanding commitment to diversity was working against (as opposed to for) their academic excellence, I’d expect that would be reflected in the stature of UC as a research institution.
As to the reply of meritocracy, would really depend on how it phrased. If the candidate eloquently argued for the importance of meritocracy as the best way to teach a diverse student body, and provided examples that they take to use meritocracy as a tool…honestly it would probably be a fine statement. If they talked about diversity of thought, that would probably be an OK strategy. One example I’ve seen focused on the diversity of growing up in a rural farming community and how the candidate planned on reaching back to those communities to encourage more higher education.
While I have less experience in the social sciences and humanities, my colleagues in those branches are typically very serious individuals who care a great deal about the people they hire. Not being privy to their internal deliberations, I can’t say more, but I would be significantly surprised if it varied significantly from what STEM branches focus on.
I appreciate that you’re a prof, but damn, you are insufferably verbose.
Man, if only there was some way you didn’t have to suffer through reading me. Such as…not reading me. That might solve your problem 🙂
The issue is complicated, and academic hiring is opaque to say the least. One liners aren’t really going to help people understand. But for you, David, I will try to be more concise.
[Whispers] He didn’t really address your questions, but I don’t want to say anything to him or he’ll write another boring tome.
Shh. Be nice.
Hendiatris: time-worn solution,
Cures evils, inspires revolution.¹
We can’t all get along
With wine, women and song.
Pledge, then penance, and rites of ablution!
FN 1: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity
Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Travail, Famille, Patrie
Kinder, Küche, Kirche
Peace, Land, and Bread
Democracy! Whiskey! Sexy!
God, Motherhood, Apple pie
Sex, Drugs, Rock ‘n Roll
Blood, Sweat and Tears
Ready! Aim! Fire!
…
“Wine, women and song.” I’m literally shaking, but in a good way.
A key characteristic of totalitarianism is the infiltration of the mandated ideology into everything. If a mathematician doesn’t believe in the UCLA ideology, her numbers are no good, and her equations are bad and subversive. The truth-knowers at UCLA have to protect students and other faculty and the campus culture from these bad, subversive numbers and equations.