This seems good.

I'm really more myself thinking of the academy as a political arm of the establishment (e.g. Columbia) these days.

It's a little known fact eugenics was invented at private institutions and at some of the most elite universities in the US in the '20's.

Idealism about our Medieval based higher education system dies hard.

I don't know exactly what type of DEI statement MIT required, but the whole politicization of DEI by both sides is complete. For that reason, and that reason only, this makes sense.

The article itself explains:
“diversity, equity, and inclusion” has come to connote a set of controversial views about identity, power, and oppression. Universities which require scholars to “demonstrate” their “commitment” to DEI can easily invite ideological screening, as well as potentially unlawful viewpoint discrimination.

It didn't need to be this way. If you step back a bit and remove the politics, then what part of DEI is objectionable? Are institutions against diversity? against inclusion? against belongingness?

My 2c for what it's worth: There are scores of management case studies showing that diversity of opinions and ideas is a good thing. Diverse views and opinions leads to creativity, new ideas and better decisions. Lack of these things leads to the Challenger disaster, to cite one of the most famous.

I have outrage fatigue. This is not a good reflection on us as a society.

Nina, what does equity mean exactly? We talked about equality but not equity back in the day.

quote:

It didn't need to be this way. If you step back a bit and remove the politics, then what part of DEI is objectionable? Are institutions against diversity? against inclusion? against belongingness?

This.

quote:

The article itself explains:
“diversity, equity, and inclusion” has come to connote a set of controversial views about identity, power, and oppression. Universities which require scholars to “demonstrate” their “commitment” to DEI can easily invite ideological screening, as well as potentially unlawful viewpoint discrimination.

It didn't need to be this way. If you step back a bit and remove the politics, then what part of DEI is objectionable? Are institutions against diversity? against inclusion? against belongingness?

I'm against none of the three things you mentioned though you really have to peel it back a layer to specific policies, one could imagine objectionable policies for each of the above with diversity, inclusion, or belongingness as the goal.

'Equity' on the other hand, I think is per se objectionable, as it requires differential treatment of individuals based on immutable characteristics. It basically requires discriminating against living, breathing human beings in service of a statistic.

quote:

My 2c for what it's worth: There are scores of management case studies showing that diversity of opinions and ideas is a good thing. Diverse views and opinions leads to creativity, new ideas and better decisions. Lack of these things leads to the Challenger disaster, to cite one of the most famous.

I agree wholeheartedly. But viewpoint diversity doesn't seem to be the goal. From what I've seen, the goal of DEI statement review is closer to viewpoint conformity. The institutional diversity initiatives I've seen seem more cosmetic.

Yes, Jon - I agree with pretty much everything you say. Somehow diversity became synonymous with racial/ethnic/gender minorities ONLY. That was where politics took center stage. The whole notion of diversity as simply "differences," on a full spectrum that includes, but isn't limited to race/ethnicity/gender has been lost.

It's also much easier to set up metrics that align with counting noses, and the goals for many institution's DEI initiatives are nothing more than that.

As an aside, I remember watching a few people's brains nearly explode when I suggested that my institution should take seriously the notion of making their campus more inclusive for rural (e.g., "red") students and faculty, and allow those viewpoints to be heard. How naive of me, given today's situation where diverse viewpoints are literally being shouted down.

yes. DEI is now synonymous to conformity with a single worldview.

I was always a skeptic of DEI statements until I served on a search committee and an open-ended DEI statement was part of the application process.

I found that the DEI statements offered a very perceptive window to how the candidates thought about making their classes welcoming environments, and how their own backgrounds influenced their approach to teaching. Most of the other "paper credentials," like teaching evaluations and degrees proved less valuable to me in making the fine discriminations about who would be a better instructor here.

That's an interesting viewpoint, P*D. I've not sat on any search committees where the candidates were required to submit a DEI statement. I can see how it might provide a bit more insight than the usual letters of recommendation.

Most letters I've seen are so insanely glowing that if there's even a hint of a negative comment it can carry way too much weight. I think they're useless.

The trick is in turning the question into an invitation to talk broadly about themselves, and to allow them to frame the question. We don't phrase it in the way Mik implies, and responses that thickly lay on the tropes and intersectional jargon usually don't come across well.

Nice of your institution to let you read them. At some institutions DEI staff read them and only pass candidates to hiring committees that passed their test.

In one particularly egregious case (UC Berkeley)almost two thirds of applicants were rejected before their professional qualifications were even considered.

Not how our system works, thankfully.