Progressives sure do seem to like making their policies mandatory, even if they’re threats to freedom of expression.
From the National Association of Scholars:
Mandatory DEI Statements Undermine Academic Freedom at UNC-Chapel HillIt’s hard not to see these as ideological litmus tests. As I show in my Texas report, at the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University, job candidates receive low scores on their diversity statements for failing to demonstrate a track record that “includes intersectional actions spanning the needs of minoritized individuals” and for conflating “diversity, equity, and inclusion without distinguishing among them.”Many universities release their diversity statement rubrics, which make abundantly clear that candidates must embrace a “race-conscious” orientation in virtually everything they do. If a candidate expresses one of many commonly held beliefs that are now off-limits, such as opposition to affirmative action—or, even more poignantly, if they quote Martin Luther King’s admonition that individuals “not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”—they can say farewell to their job prospects.Today, the concepts of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion” are politically coded. Of course, out of context, each term seems unobjectionable and good in a banal sense. In the context of academia, however, they connote the adherence to a set of social and political views, especially those expressed, for example, by Ibram X. Kendi.This brings me to the University of North Carolina (UNC). Recently, UNC-Chapel Hill reaffirmed its commitment to the Chicago principles on free expression and adopted the Kalven Committee Report, a statement that codifies the principle of institutional neutrality, promising “a heavy presumption against the university taking collective action or expressing opinions on the political and social issues of the day.”Mandatory DEI evaluations come in conflict with both sets of principles. A university that asks its faculty to state their commitment to politically-coded concepts is hardly neutral. Such statements make it likely for scholars to be penalized for expressing opinions held by many Americans. Moreover, they hinder academic freedom by requiring scholars to reorient their research to match a “social justice” agenda at the university.I’ve reported before on UNC-Chapel Hill’s use of DEI evaluations for promotion and tenure—a policy adopted by both the School of Medicine and the Gillings School of Global Public Health. But I wanted to examine how the policy has been applied to hiring. Thus, I’ve created a snapshot of how the policy is applied to hiring at UNC-Chapel Hill.
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