There is a lot of this going around right now. Professor Jacobson is quoted in the article.
The Daily Caller reports:
‘Appalling Reality’: Elite Alumni Set To Strike Down Mandatory Diversity Statements For University HiringCornell University alumni are preparing to launch a campaign against the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring, an email obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed.The Cornell Free Speech Alliance (CFSA) is putting together a series of short, educational videos to inform fellow alumni about how diversity statements are used to hire faculty at the elite New York school, the email—sent to CFSA and Alumni Free Speech Alliance members by Carl Neus, a Cornell alum—reads. The series will be sent to “Cornell alumni members and followers to inform our many thousands of followers, supporters, and members regarding the atrocities now occurring at US universities.”The course will allegedly include a 30-minute video featuring Daniel Ortner, former Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) attorney, titled “How DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) Can Lead To Tyranny.” The video was published July 2022 by California Insider…“If the university did not think DEI statements were an important part of the hiring and promotion process, the university would not place such a heavy emphasis on such statements,” William Jacobson, director of the securities law clinic at Cornell, told the DCNF.Cornell’s strictness on the importance of diversity statements wavered in 2022, archived versions of the website reveal. The university required applicants to submit diversity statements in the early months of 2022, but apparently changed the requirement in December to ask that they be submitted.“The concern with DEI statements is that they send a message that adopting a group identity ideology is mandatory, as DEI focuses on group identities,” Jacobson said. “While the statement guidelines do not dictate precisely what an applicant must say, it is clear that adopting a DEI group identity viewpoint is expected. This serves as a means of filtering out applicants who adhere to the viewpoint that individual, and not group, rights are what matter. It also serves to provide a mechanism for weeding out those who have different political and ideological viewpoints than the prevailing Cornell liberal/leftist monoculture.”
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