Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dropping Required Diversity Statements for Tenure-Track Positions
“expanded its approach to learning about candidates being considered for academic appointments by requesting broader and more robust service statements as part of the hiring process”
The last several months have been such a disaster for Harvard. Perhaps they’re trying to improve their public image.
FOX News reports:
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences to stop requiring diversity statements for tenure-track positions
After months of criticism from Harvard professors and high-profile donors, the elite university has announced that it will no longer require diversity statements for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).
Instead of requiring a DEI statement for a tenure-track at Harvard, applicants will be asked to send a “service statement,” as flagged by Steven McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni.
Aspiring tenure-track professors at Harvard can use that statement to explain their “efforts to strengthen academic communities, e.g. department, institution, and/or professional societies.”
The original diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statement required a statement “describing efforts to encourage [DEI] and belonging.”
Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences told Fox News Digital that it has “expanded its approach to learning about candidates being considered for academic appointments by requesting broader and more robust service statements as part of the hiring process.”
“In making this decision, the FAS is realigning the hiring process with long-standing criteria for tenured and tenure-track faculty positions,” the statement continued. “These criteria include excellence in research, teaching/advising, and service, which are the three pillars of professorial appointments.”
Harvard Kennedy School historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad attacked the decision, arguing that the removal of DEI statements from the application process “may discourage applicants who are the strongest supporters of DEI to not apply for a job at Harvard given the broader context for this change,” The Boston Globe reported.
Harvard (and some other schools) eliminating mandatory DEI statements is mostly window dressing. The statements, whether called a DEI statement or something else, still can be submitted and considered, and the same DEI factors enter into hiring decisions. https://t.co/8L3NjrqtdQ https://t.co/HYs0tsAawb pic.twitter.com/AagZvDpud3
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) June 4, 2024
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Comments
Does this mean they can fire claudine gay now?
It is a sure bet that it will be replaced by some equally odious, ambiguously named piece of drivel.
The statements will not be required. They will be optional, and will be worth extra credit.
Just because there is no longer any formal requirement doesn’t mean you’ll get hired without one.