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UW-Madison Prof: Unlikely That Conservative Would be Hired Under Minority Recruitment Program

UW-Madison Prof: Unlikely That Conservative Would be Hired Under Minority Recruitment Program

“next to no chance”

In higher education, diversity is based on how people look, not how they think.

The College Fix reports:

UW-Madison prof: ‘next to no chance’ conservative could be hired via minority recruitment program

While a minority hiring program at the University of Wisconsin-Madison values skin color, there is less value placed on political minorities of color on the right.

There is “next to no chance” that a conservative faculty member could be hired through a program meant to attract minority faculty to the school, a University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor told The College Fix.

“We nominated what appeared to be a conservative African American political theorist last year, but that proposition didn’t even make it out of the college,” Associate Professor of Political Theory Richard Avramenko told The Fix via email.

“My guess is that if the candidate is not working on Race and Ethnic Studies, Critical Theory (i.e., cultural Marxism), post-colonialism, or ‘The Problem of Whiteness,’ s/he would not make the cut.”

“The program is set up to ensure that any hire, even if not a minority him or herself, would be working in this vein,” Avramenko said.

The candidate, who earned his Ph.D. in 2020, has gone on to teach at another Midwestern university. He declined to comment to The College Fix.

The $2 million Target of Opportunity program, or TOP, allows UW-Madison to identify faculty who, according to the school’s website, would “add diversity to our campus community.” Between 2018 and 2020, UW-Madison hired 25 individuals who met the requirements for the program.

While several white women were hired under the program, no white men were hired.

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Comments

Has anyone pointed out to them the fact that race-based hiring is illegal? Colleges got a pass on race-based admissions to obtain a “diverse” group of students. But they never got a pass on race-based hiring.

I was a member of a committee to hire a new faculty member, with emphasis on “diversity.” In the initial committee meeting I asked if we were going to comply with the college’s Nondiscrimination Statement in this hiring process. Everyone looked at me like I had just farted in a crowded elevator.

The Orwellian answer from the HR rep was “Yes, of course, but our emphasis will be on “diversity.” We were later told (unofficially, of course) that if any of our top candidates was a white male, the Admin would shut down the search. So we threw out our top candidate, who was a white male. He should have sued us.