Diversity Hiring Has Backfired on Higher Education

Diversity Hiring Has Backfired on Higher Education

The problem with progressive DEI hiring practices is that they were all based solely on appearance. There was no ideological diversity.

From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Diversity Hiring Faces a Reckoning

Kristina M. Johnson’s project was personal. Announcing a goal of hiring 100 underrepresented and nonwhite scholars, Johnson, then president of Ohio State University, drew on her background.

She described her experience as a young woman studying engineering in the 1970s. It took her a long time to realize she could become a professor, she said, because it was only men who taught her basic coursework.

“I want every single Ohio State student to be able to look across the lecture hall or seminar table and understand immediately that their dreams are valid and achievable,” she said.

At the time of Johnson’s address, in February 2021, higher education was awash with similar sentiments. An understanding had taken hold: Despite years of effort, the professoriate was still too white and, in some fields, too male and therefore out of sync with what a demographically diverse student body needed from its instructors.

In Columbus and beyond, professors and administrators were eager to right this perceived wrong. In some cases, they appeared to pursue that goal by explicitly considering applicants’ identity characteristics, like race, ethnicity, and sex.

The phenomenon wasn’t limited to Ohio State, but the documentation there is public and candid. In one search, when narrowing applicants to the Zoom-interview round, the committee discussed “underrepresented groups in the department,” which it listed as “Latinx,” “South Asian,” and “trans/gender nonbinary.” In another search, the committee chose its top seven candidates, in part, because of the candidates’ ability to “add to the diversity” of the department by way of “their backgrounds.” In a third, the committee wrote that “bringing Black scholars to campus” was “essential.” “We thus chose three Black candidates” as finalists, wrote the group, which added that “diversity was just as important as perceived merit as we made our selections.”

Excerpts like these won’t come as a shock to many professors with experience on similar committees. Behind closed doors — and frequently in front of them — academics have spoken about the importance of diversity in an industry where turnover is slow and tenure is long.

What went underdiscussed is whether consideration of demographic factors in hiring crossed the line into legally or ethically dicey territory, and the possible repercussions if this private thumb on the scale ever came to light.

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