According to John Sailor, this is a watershed shift, the first elite school to end the practice of requiring diversity statements from faculty applicants.

On Saturday, an MIT spokesperson confirmed in an email to me that “requests for a statement on diversity will no longer be part of applications for any faculty positions at MIT”, adding that the decision was made by embattled MIT President Sally Kornbluth “with the support of the Provost, Chancellor, and all six academic deans”.

The decision marks an inflection point in the battle over diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in higher education. Since at least the late 2010s, diversity statements have been ubiquitous in faculty hiring, sometimes carrying serious weight in the selection process. As one dean at Emory University put it while describing her approach to hiring, “Diversity statement, then dossier.”

Whether it’s correct to suggest diversity first, then competence, it’s hard to argue that anyone falling short on their past, present and future commitment to diversity stood a chance at being hired. And it wasn’t an easy thing, even for those who believe in diversity rather than spew the word salad to get a foot in the door.

MIT embraced the diversity statement trend. In late 2023, the university’s Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering sought an assistant professor “in fields from fundamental nuclear science to practical applications of nuclear technology in energy, security and quantum engineering”. Applicants were required to submit “a statement regarding their views on diversity, inclusion, and belonging, including past and current contributions as well as their vision and plans for the future in these areas”.

What exactly would a nuclear science prof have to offer to prove his diversity cred? Short of guaranteeing a passing grade to all marginalized students, it’s not as if the prof has much to offer.

The thought here is that if MIT, what the Ivy folks call a “peer institution,” is ready to trash the diversity statement, then can Harvard and Yale be far behind?

The decision at MIT is different — reform from within, prompted by a university president alongside deans and provosts, at a private institution.

It’s very possible that more private universities, and state universities in blue states, will eventually follow MIT’s lead for one basic reason: a significant number of faculty from across the political spectrum simply cannot stand mandatory DEI statements. Last month, Harvard Law School’s Randall Kennedy — a self-described “scholar on the Left committed to struggles for social justice” — described the general sentiment: “It would be hard to overstate the degree to which many academics at Harvard and beyond feel intense and growing resentment against the DEI enterprise because of features that are perhaps most evident in the demand for DEI statements.”

DEI statements had long been under attack as social justice loyalty oaths, requiring applicants for the Academy to swear fealty to the “DEI Enterprise” They’ve been criticized as a blatant mechanism to assure woke ideological conformity in the professoriat by weeding out any heretics who scored too poorly on the diversity rubric. But is it, as Sailor proclaims, “momentous”?

While the compelled speech of a diversity statement was a blight on the Academy, the elimination of diversity statements by no means guarantees that the hiring process will eschew ideology or welcome diversity of thought. Diversity statements were one test, an easy means by which to vet applicants so that no heretic manages to slip through to the interview stage. But that doesn’t mean applicants won’t be asked questions, won’t be tested on their adherence to the orthodoxy, or suffer rejection.

Diversity statements were a reflection on the depth to which the Academy had fallen in its ideological conformity. Has that changed? Are the current professors, and perhaps more importantly, the current students who are often involved with hiring committees whether officially or otherwise, any less woke? Will they be willing to have a conservative in their midst? A liberal, in the old school sense of a principled lefty who would fight for the rights of those he disagreed with?

Much as MIT’s elimination of Diversity Statements is certainly a positive step, particularly given the nature of the Institute and the limits of how science and engineering can bend to fit the diversity paradigm, rumors of the death of ideological capture might be quite premature. Much as many of us would hope that the days of the Woke Inquisition are waning, the current campus climate suggests that there remains a very long way to go to undo the ideological damage to students inflicted by, and with the support of, the people into whose hands their fragile minds were entrusted.