Texas Tech Drops Diversity Statement Requirement for Prospective Faculty Members
“These statements clearly encourage a narrow focus on race and gender and open the door for search committees to screen candidates by political association.”
In a win for academic freedom, Texas Tech University has dropped its requirement for prospective faculty members to submit a diversity statement.
As we have repeatedly pointed out, the ideology behind diversity, equity and inclusion is destructive for higher education.
The National Association of Scholars applauded the decision:
Victory for Academic Freedom: Texas Tech Ditches Diversity Statements
The National Association of Scholars (NAS) applauds the speed with which Texas Tech University jettisoned its requirement that candidates for faculty positions submit “diversity statements.” This decision came just hours after NAS senior fellow John Sailer published “How ‘Diversity’ Policing Fails Science” in the Wall Street Journal on February 7, in which he detailed how the Texas Tech Department of Biological Sciences used these statements. Texas Tech notes in its announcement that it has “immediately withdr[awn] this practice” and related “evaluation rubrics.” The university also declared that it would initiate “a review of hiring procedures across all colleges and departments.”
This is a breakthrough in the larger battle against higher education’s attempt to impose diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) standards on faculty hiring, along with every other aspect of college and university life. Sailer used a freedom of information request to obtain the public university search committee’s evaluations of candidates. This is the first time that the public has been able to see how DEI standards affect applicants.
“These documents prove definitively that ‘diversity’ statements are not a benign addition to a candidate’s application,” noted Sailer. “These statements clearly encourage a narrow focus on race and gender and open the door for search committees to screen candidates by political association. DEI statements are a clear danger to academic freedom.”…
“I am glad that Texas Tech acted so quickly to stop this abuse,” said Peter W. Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars. “This is, however, a problem that goes deeper than ‘diversity statements.’” Wood added, “American higher education has become obsessed with the ideology of racial ‘equity,’ to the point where ordinary fairness, as well as standards of intellectual excellence, have been undermined.
FOX 34 in Texas has a statement from the school:
“Texas Tech University’s faculty hiring practices will always emphasize disciplinary excellence and the ability of candidates to support our priorities in student success, impactful scholarship, and community engagement. Recently, we learned of a department that required a diversity, equity, and inclusion statement in addition to the usual applicant materials as pan of a faculty search. We immediately withdrew this practice and initiated a review of hiring procedures across all colleges and departments. We will withdraw the use of these statements and evaluation rubrics if identified.”
This is a win.
UPDATE: After I published my article in @WSJopinion, Texas Tech University announced that it has ended its use of DEI statements. pic.twitter.com/0QYAtenXFO
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) February 8, 2023
WINNING: After @JohnDSailer's bombshell report in the WSJ, Texas Tech has suspended its "diversity statement" policy, which prioritized job candidates who expressed fealty to left-wing racialist ideology.
The war against the DEI bureaucracy has just begun. pic.twitter.com/kRYtBwAPd6
— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) February 8, 2023
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
If diversity was a strength they would quit using homogeneous steel and start mixing everything together to see how it turned out.
Maybe if we bring in 100 million more people whose allegiance is to other countries we can go to war and be strong.
Diversity of perspective from experience or philosophy can be useful. Each can provide a balance to argument and debate that can preclude a narrow view from crowding out other voices and emerging as the unchallenged orthodoxy viewpoint. That isn’t the sort of diversity being sought out or advocated for in academia. Instead they seek a surface level artificial diversity based on skin tone but with everyone singing from the same hymnal.
Yeah, the problem is that diversity isn’t really fostered. We want colorful people in a room, but only one kind of idea is safe or correct.
It’s like the time when a wife asks her husband for an opinion but then forces him to choose as she did or face consequences.
Diversity of individuals, minority of one.
Congratulations to John Sailer and the WSJ for this win. One down and how many more colleges and universities to go.
Of course Sailer was able to uncover this insidious practice via FOIA because TT is public but what about all the private schools employing these practices?
Good work! Now watch the ‘back door’ after the cameras leave..
good to know there are some sane people left in lubbock–wish could say the same about ut/austin
This diversity slogan started being bandied about around 25 years ago. From the onset it was uncritically accepted by just about everyone. Must have a snappy sound to it.
All football teams need one female player who is 5′ 2″ and weighs 110 pounds. They will be stronger.
All basketball teams need half of their players to be shorter than 5″2″ and they will win more games.
The military needs to enlist one million illegals who can’t speak English and the language barrier will help win wars.
Here’s the obligatory the “Harrison Bergeron” reference.
So was the requirement to pay lip service to DIE when seeking an academic job. The “diversity statement ” has been a feature of job applications for at least that long, at least in CA.
My DIE-ing Declaration…
This stuff is hard — the topic of our department, not the DIE stuff. And I have tiny brain. I’m gonna be inclusive and the rest because I’m not smart enough to pay attention to anything but the work, work while doing the work.
Peers, department, profession, institution, and the react-o-bots on Teh Twit can all be confident I’ll be as actively oblivious in the future to side-issues as I have always been. Imma continue to be as I have been, all about D-I-E because I’m too dumb not to be. Really, I’m too consumed to notice who’s zooming who unless somebody starts DIE-ing in the lab, and scares the apparatus.
(No offense meant to the ambisexual walnut community, or whoever else. It’s not personal. Nobody’s to my taste.)
Are we done? Can I get back to work?
— Bored Before it Started
Whoever in the department instituted this DEI Statement nonsense needs to be terminated immediately, the hiring committee needs to be disbanded as none saw fit to bring this to light and the entire DEI infrastructure should be dismantled with all DEI staff fired.
What about the people in the department who have the attitude to have produced this document in the first place? The document may have been rescinded, but those perpetrators of it are all still there.
Nothing was accomplished except to tell these DIE-hards that their emergence into the sunlight was a bit premature.
I had ChatGPT write my diversity statement for me. Apparently, the human race has little to recommend it.