[ModernMech]

This a caricature, a misrepresentation of the process, and not how this "basically" works at all. As a straight white cis male academic (who had to write a diversity statement when I was hired, who is involved in hiring other faculty, and who reads a lot of DEI statements) what you write here does not match my experience or the experience of my colleagues, who are majority straight white male and cis.

The purpose of the DEI statement during hiring is not to filter out straight white cis males. It is to filter out people who haven't put sufficient thought into incorporating diversity into their teaching practice, no matter who they are. This is important to universities because professors necessarily encounter a diverse classroom. Issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation are important for a professor to consider so that they may create a safe learning environment for all students. This does not limit intellectual exploration in any way - it relates to discharging the duties of teaching, not the content taught.

Sometimes these issues can feel abstract, but in the classroom they are concrete, and I want colleagues who have thought these things through. It does not matter that you are a straight white cis male, and judging by the makeup of our faculty, it's not an impediment for them getting hired.

[anandrew]

> It is to filter out people who haven't put sufficient thought into incorporating diversity into their teaching practice, no matter who they are. This is important to universities because professors necessarily encounter a diverse classroom.

Please be honest. What happens if they do put "sufficient thought" into it, but come to the wrong conclusions? What if they didn't put any thought into it at all, and just parrot various "diversity is strength" talking points, and their contributions to diversity are limited to ethnocentrism, such as a Latino candidate working with the Latin American Student Organization, helping their co-ethnics?

> Issues of race, gender identity, and sexual orientation are important for a professor to consider so that they may create a safe learning environment for all students.

Those statements require much more than just competence in making a "safe" environment (Isn't that the job of campus security? What kind of safety do you expect professors to provide?). From the open letter of Abigail Thompson, professor of mathematics at UC Davis:

Why is it a political test? Politics are a reflection of how you believe society should be organized. Classical liberals aspire to treat every person as a unique individual, not as a representative of their gender or their ethnic group. The sample rubric dictates that in order to get a high diversity score, a candidate must have actively engaged in promoting different identity groups as part of their professional life.... Requiring candidates to believe that people should be treated differently according to their identity is indeed a political test...The idea of using a political test as a screen for job applicants should send a shiver down our collective spine.... - https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf

[ModernMech]

Sure I'll be honest, and I'll appreciate if you take me at my word as opposed to the other poster, who straight up said that I was lying here.

You have to recognize that for educators, these topics go beyond a political nature and into a practical matter. We in academia are trying to sell a service (a college "experience"), and our students are customers of this service. The idea that "the customer is always right" applies here.

For instance, if you have the belief that men and women should not be educated in the same classroom together, or that women should not be educated at all, that's a political opinion. If you want to be a teacher, that opinion turned into practice could be problematic for our business because >50% of our customers are female. So that's what we are interested in -- actions, not beliefs. Your deepest opinion of their presence in the classroom is immaterial; what is important though, is how will you make our female students feel welcome in the classroom? Because they are our paying customers, and your political opinion of their presence in the classroom is irrelevant after they hand over their tuition dollars. They have a right to be there as much as anyone else, and we want you as a teacher to make our customers feel welcome, safe, and that they belong. It's not political, it's business. Customers who feel welcome and safe in our classrooms donate money to us and send their children to us. Customers who feel marginalized and antagonized transfer and don't send their kids to us. It's good business to be inclusive.

Same goes for black students. You may have the political opinion that black students should not be in the classroom with white students. Again, this political opinion does not matter to us, because we actually have black customers in our classrooms. What is the practical action you will take to make our black customers feel welcome and happy about the purchase of our services? The answer to this question usually would involve an empathetic view of what black students are looking for in education, the challenges they face, and the solutions that may overcome those challenges. Notice that your personal political opinion of their existence in the classroom doesn't factor into that discussion.

One more, maybe more contemporary example: you may have the political opinion that there are only two genders and that trans people are a made up concept. This opinion is immaterial, because we have actual trans students in our classrooms. You may think they are completely insane and that they are living in a fantasy and you refuse to address any trans person by their chosen pronoun. But as a practical matter they have put down a large sum of money to learn in our classrooms, and they would prefer to be addressed by their chosen pronouns. So as an employee, are you going to disrespect our customers, or will you treat them with the respect they are asking for and address them using the gendered pronoun they are most comfortable with? Again, your personal political opinion doesn't really factor into that answer.

> (Isn't that the job of campus security? What kind of safety do you expect professors to provide?).

Intellectual safety. Learning new ideas can make people feel vulnerable and uncomfortable, which is expected. But learning in an antagonistic environment is difficult: imagine trying to learn the intricacies of e.g. functional programming when your peers and instructors are telling you that you don't matter and your idea of your own personhood is a delusion. Suddenly your homework assignments and exams don't mean that much when you're not sure if you're insane or sick. So to get the course content across, we first have to provide a safe environment where the things we say get heard instead of drowned out by lower-level needs like personal safety, a sense of belonging, and sense of self esteem. Only then does actual learning occur.

So the job of a teacher is not just to put on power points and talk about a topic for an hour twice a week. It is also to create an ideal learning environment for all our customers. This also includes managing interpersonal conflicts. Campus police don't really manage that either.

> From the open letter of Abigail Thompson, professor of mathematics at UC Davis:

Prof. Thompson's letter is problematic in a couple ways. For starters, she tries to liken the current diversity statements to anti-communist hysteria in the 1950s. The issue with this is that the anti-communist movement asked professors to sign letters disavowing an ideology and association with a group. Setting aside this is obviously in violation of the first amendment, that's not even close to what's happening with DEI statements. They are essentially saying "We have a diverse student population. What concrete experience do you have working with a diverse student population?" This is completely different from the Red Scare because, I will reiterate again, teaching a diverse student body is part of the job description for a professor. Community service is also part of the job description for a professor. Therefore if you're applying for a job, you have to show you are qualified irrespective of your personal beliefs. No one is asking you to disavow your group membership and personal beliefs. No one is checking if you're a card carrying member of the Republican party or that you watch Fox News or associate with other conservatives.

Secondly, she's really overstating how these statements are used in the selection process. I mean, maybe it's different at the Math department at UC Davis, but where I'm from there's really only two kinds of candidates: entry level assistant professors and already tenured senior professors. Entry level assistant professors are fresh out of gradschool, newly minted Ph.Ds. They have been in the higher ed. system anywhere from 8 to 15+ years. If they don't have anything to demonstrate community service, and if they haven't put any thought into the emotional needs of their students, that's a problem. Not because of their political ideology or group membership, but because that's the job description. Moreover, the bar is pretty low at that point. It's really not a high hurdle to talk about your community service experience. If you really have nothing to say here along the lines of "Here's some evidence that I can work well with others in my community to make it a better place", that's a red flag. Senior professors will be chosen based on their research record first and foremost. I can't think of any situation where a senior researcher with a stellar publication track record would be filtered out of a search due to a lackluster DEI statement. Our number 1 question for these people is, what is your H-index? Seriously, there's way too much weight placed on this thing.

Finally, she says that this is a political filter because it is a reification of the classical liberal ideology. I think the implication here is that it will filter out anyone who isn't a classical liberal. She says that the DEI statements require candidates to "demonstrate their knowledge and experience" as part of their professional life, but then pivots very quickly to the idea that the DEI statements require certain beliefs. What one believes and what one is required to do professionally are completely different things. The Red Scare was about what one believes. DEI statements are about one's professional record on issues of DEI in a profession that requires such interactions. So in practice you can believe whatever you want, which means that this isn't really a filter of ideologies but of experience. For instance, in my department I know of 0 classical liberals including me. I don't know everyone's political leanings, but of the ones I do know they span the political spectrum. It's not much of an ideological filter, in my experience, is what I'm saying.

At the end of the day, the DEI statement is answering the question: what will you do for our necessarily diverse student body? It's not asking if you believe a diverse student body is a good thing. It's not asking you about your personal beliefs or political leanings. It's not asking you to sign a pledge. It's one aspect of a job application intended to make sure you are qualified to discharge a critical duty of the job to which you're applying. That's it.

I hope you've read this far an you find this post insightful. It's my honest opinion. One thing I'd be interested in knowing from you is: how many DEI statements have you actually personally read? I'm just wondering because you made a statement about what's involved in those statements, so I was curious if you had any first-hand experience, or if you're going by what Prof. Thompson wrote in the link you provided.

[kortilla]

This whole thing is based on the supposition that supporting diversity is the right move from a business perspective. If someone came to you with hard evidence that said removing gender from bathrooms would bring in 10 trans students and cause you to lose 50 other students, would your DEI action be to keep gendered bathrooms?

That’s rhetorical, DEI statements are absolutely about pledging a particular type of political alignment and a university would get absolutely skewered if it got caught optimizing for student body count over diversity.

[anandrew]

> For instance, if you have the belief that men and women should not be educated in the same classroom together, or that women should not be educated at all, that's a political opinion. If you want to be a teacher, that opinion turned into practice could be problematic for our business because >50% of our customers are female.

Was there a big problem with professors instituting sex- and race-segregated classrooms, that necessitated filtering them out with diversity statements? There must have been, since in one instance, a pool of 893 candidates was narrowed down to 214 only on the basis of how convincing their DEI statements were [1].

Imagine that - a full 76% of candidates were some kind of segregationists (that's the kind of person you claim DEI statements are meant to exclude, right?). And that's in academia, in California - the most liberal of the most liberal.

> how many DEI statements have you actually personally read?

None. But I have read one set of rating criteria [2]. Candidates that merely do "what is already expected of staff" [3] regarding diversity (I.e. what you claim is the goal of DEI statements) are given the lowest scores.

[1] https://ofew.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/life_sciences_...

[2] https://ofew.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/rubric_to_asse...

[3] Only mentions activities that are already the expectation of faculty as evidence of commitment and involvement (for example, "I always invite and welcome students from all backgrounds to participate in my research lab, and in fact have mentored several women. [..] Describes only activities that are already the expectation of Berkeley faculty (mentoring, treating all students the same regardless of background, etc).

[ModernMech]

I appreciate your response and I will point out a few things about the links you provide. Regarding [1] I will say a few things. First, the paper makes clear that the effort described is not a typical search process.

  This search was unique, both in scale and in intent ... Limiting the first review to contributions in DE&I is itself a dramatic change of emphasis in the typical evaluation process which generally focuses on primarily on research accomplishments. 

So we must be clear that this is a unique and dramatic departure from the way things are usually done, as described in my reply to your sibling comment. You can't point to this as the way things are in academia because it's a self described outlier at an already outlier institution, UC Berkeley.

Secondly, I will also tell you that filtering down applications from 893 to 214 on the basis of a robust diversity statement is not surprising. A lot of people treat it as a cursory exercise and devote no real effort to it. It's not hard to spot these. And ~24% seems like a reasonable ratio based on my experience. One of the issues with academics is as they are being brought up through the Ph.D. system, they do not place a large emphasis on DEI activities at all. So it's easy as a Ph.D. student if you're not careful to devote 100% of your time to research and very little to DEI related activities. And as I've said in another post, DEI issues are important discharging the actual job duties of a professor. I'm going to keep emphasizing that because it can often get lost, giving way to the idea that this whole DEI thing is orthogonal to professorship. It's not.

Third, this looks like it was a special search process directed for the specific reason's stated in the document. This kind of experimental and one-time thing is typically separate from the normal hiring process.

> But I have read one set of rating criteria [2]. Candidates that merely do "what is already expected of staff" [3] regarding diversity (I.e. what you claim is the goal of DEI statements) are given the lowest scores.

What [2] is saying would be the lowest score isn't really what I was saying in my post. The document characterizes low scoring DEI statements as "vague", "little expressed knowledge", "little demonstrated awareness", "seems to be not aware", "no specifics", "brief descriptions" etc. A vague DEI statement should score low on the rubric.

The "Only mentions activities that are already the expectation of faculty as evidence of commitment and involvement" is because a lot of people will say something along the lines of "My experience with DEI is that I tutored a black/Hispanic/female/Muslim/blind person" or "I've taught in diverse classrooms". That's not what we're looking for. We want specific examples of practices that you have implemented in your classroom and mentorship that demonstrates an understand of the issues faced by educators who teach diverse classrooms. It's not interesting to anyone that you taught a diverse classroom. We all do that. How did you teach it? What specific teaching methodologies did you deploy and why? What was the specific outcome of those teaching practices? How did you adjust them? These are all basic questions that yes, probably 75%+ of applications cannot answer.

Look at how the the rubric characterizes top scoring DEI statements: "clear knowledge", "aware", "comfort", "understands", "discusses", "consistent track record", "roles taken were significant and appropriate", "identifies", "clearly formulates", "convincingly expresses". The bar is not super high here. You just have to demonstrate a clear understanding of the issues, show examples of actual instances where they mattered to you as a teacher, and talk cogently about the subject. It's not hard, and yet indeed, many fail because they don't take it seriously as a job requirement. Many aspiring faculty think the job of being a professor is 100% research, and that's just not the case and really never has been.

And anyway, even if you only do the minimum expectation you can still score a 12/15, so not exactly the "lowest" scoring. The lowest scoring would be if you do the minimum, and also are vague and express little knowledge of the field and have no track record. That sounds reasonable to me.

> And that's in academia, in California - the most liberal of the most liberal.

I mean, we're talking about Berkeley here. It's one of the top schools in the world. The applications will come from all over including totalitarian regimes like China and Iran where I imagine there's not a lot of emphasis on DEI. Applications aren't restricted to Californians.

[LogonType10]

Either we're not looking at the same DEI guidelines or this is disingenuous. It's not enough for a professor to merely state a commitment to fostering a respectful classroom environment permitting no disrespect to anyone's identity or dignity. DEI statements[0] don't want professors to merely block offensive and disruptive behavior, they want them to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a core part of teaching, research, and the candidate's personal life. A professor researching, for example, graph theory who merely creates a respectful classroom environment and treats students and research associates without distinction based on their identity doesn't meet these criteria. This results in a form of dog-whistling. Like all dog-whistling, it relies on the core message being subtextual.

[0] https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/drafting-diversity-equity...

[ModernMech]

Look, if you don't believe me that's fine. But I'm not lying or being disingenuous. I didn't spend all the time writing that out because I'm trying to trick anyone. I did it because I'm trying to engage in an honest discussion.

Anyway, let's talk about your link. First of all, let's give some context as to what exactly this document is and how it's produced. This was probably written by the very people you have in mind as a DEI woke liberal activist professor. Looking at the bios of the people at the bottom, that's the impression I get. That's why you are reading the "dog-whistling" but I would call it virtue signaling. Because it's there. It's the kind of document people in this community will show off to one another as a model DEI initiative. But that doesn't give this document any real weight in the hiring process. I'll explain why.

Frist, everything that's written here isn't really required for the hiring packet. It even says:

  To aid you in writing your DEI statement, we have provided brief descriptions of five different topics to consider addressing in your statement below. There are no requirements that you must address all of these topics, and you are not limited to only discussing these perspectives. Your statement should reflect the relative importance of these issues to your work and reveal your personal commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.

So already it's telling the applicant this is a very open ended thing. Secondly, I'm curious about some of your interpretations of the various sections. For example, you said

> they want them to make diversity, equity, and inclusion a core part of teaching, research, and the candidate's personal life. A professor researching, for example, graph theory who merely creates a respectful classroom environment and treats students and research associates without distinction based on their identity doesn't meet these criteria.

But I don't see exactly where this document is implying that. Do you have that impression based on this document or based on something else? Because the document for example says this about research:

  If your research addresses issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion, describe them here. If you work with marginalized populations in your research, explain how your research advances knowledge and addresses equity in different communities. Describe how you respectfully engage in that research and how you honor those communities in your scholarship. 

This is just giving the applicant a writing prompt. It's saying "if" your research addresses DEI topics, you can talk about them in the DEI statement. It's not saying that graph theory researchers must talk about how they incorporate DEI topics into their graph theory research. I should clarify that some government grants require a portion of the grant be dedicated to community service, but usually that looks like "We did a summer program to teach local students about our research."

As for their personal life, again I don't see the basis in this document to support that. The document says:

  Highlight your service and mentoring experience. If you have examples of serving on committees, participating in community outreach, or volunteer work, describe them here. Share some of your accomplishments or lessons learned from those experiences. If you have mentored underrepresented students, explain what you have learned from those relationships and how you will continue mentoring others.

Again, these are all qualified with "if" to make clear they are example scenarios. But a plain reading of this is that it's prompting the candidate to talk about their community service. Which I will restate is a job requirement for being a professor. You literally have to engage in community and university service as 20% of your time spent. I don't think many people understand that so I want to make that clear. This means serving on committees and doing community outreach. If a candidate has nothing to say about this, it's a red flag from a professional standpoint, as it wouldn't be clear the candidate has the necessary experience to carry out the duties of the job.

Finally as far as teaching goes, this is the one where I will say yes, it's completely acceptable and indeed required to integrate DEI practices into teaching. That's the job. The authors of the UT document agree with me, as the language in this section is not qualified with an "if":

  Describe how you create inclusive and equitable learning environments for your students. You may describe frameworks you utilize when designing courses and assignments. Explain some of the teaching strategies you use to make your classroom accessible and inclusive.

This is absolutely required because as I said, the student body is diverse. There's no getting around that. They are the customers and every single one of them deserves to be there. You may not agree with any of this DEI nonsense but if you want to have the job of teaching in that classroom, you are signing up to teach a diverse audience. There are issues that need to be navigated, and they can be sensitive and personal. If you think this isn't the case, I welcome you to walk a mile in my shoes. This is the job: manage a classroom of people from varying races, ethnicities, financial backgrounds, religions, nations, genders, sexual orientations, hair colors, heights, weights, shoe and hat sizes. Some of these issues are more relevant than others, and effective, experienced teachers know which ones because they've dealt with them first hand. The DEI statement is your chance as a candidate to demonstrate you know how to manage a classroom and how you handle the kinds of issues that can arise.

--

Okay, so that's the content of the article. But then there's the separate issue of how the DEI statement is used in the hiring process. I think maybe if you understand how the process works, you will see exactly where and how the DEI statement factors in. Here's how it works at my institution, and it works like this in many other places. We are by no means unique.

First of all, the people who wrote this UT page and their counterparts have little to no sway on the hiring process itself. The hiring process is conducted by the department, usually by a committee of professors appointed by the department chair. The committee requests permission to hire from the dean. The dean grants the permission to conduct a search and an ad is posted. When the application deadline listed on the ad passes, the application packets are collected and distributed to the committee members. The committee will rank the applications by any criteria they deem appropriate. It can be completely arbitrary. They don't even have to look at the DEI statement. They invite top candidates to a phone screen. Usually on this screen they will ask some DEI related question related to teaching because it is part of the job. After all interviews are conducted the committee will rank the candidates and choose who will be offered an on-campus interview. The ranking, again, is done in an arbitrary way by the hiring committee. 99% of the discussions I've been involved in focus on the merits of the candidate's research agenda.

During the on-campus visit, the candidate meets with faculty members outside of the committee over a 2 day period. The candidate's application packet is distributed to the rest of the faculty in the department. The candidate will meet with someone from the DEI office. This is usually to explain to the candidate the University's commitment to DEI. It's not an inquisition into the personal beliefs of the candidate, or a filter, or a purity test. The candidate will then have meetings with maybe a dozen or so faculty members, during which they can discuss any topic whatsoever. Usually the topic discussed is the candidate's research. They can discuss DEI topics or not. At some point the candidate will give a research presentation, and they will meet with the dean and department chair.

After all candidates have been interviewed in this way, the faculty convenes to vote on whether to extend an offer. A discussion commences wherein members may voice support or concern. Concerns usually revolve around the likelihood of a given research agenda to attract funding from top funding agencies, and which classes in the curriculum the candidate could teach. After the discussion the decision is taken to a vote. If the vote passes, a recommendation is taken to the dean. The dean makes the final decision (100% of the time in my experience they side with the faculty, but I'm sure there are reasons candidates have been rejected by the dean), and an offer is presented to the candidate as far as salary and startup package. After a period of negotiation the candidate accepts or rejects the offer and so concludes the academic hiring process.

Now, where does the DEI statement play into it? The DEI office doesn't have much sway. The content of the DEI letter isn't prescribed. Well, for us there's no official mandate to consider it. Others implement some kind of mandatory scoring system that was alluded to in another post. But at the end of the day the decision to hire/pass is typically a democratic process left to the department faculty, who are granted the agency to vote however they see fit, by whatever criteria.

Anyway, I've spent a long while typing this out, so I hope you can see I'm not trying to be disingenuous or mislead you in any way. I'm telling you my honest and candid first-hand experience of how DEI statements are used in the hiring process for University professors. I understand it's not quite what you imagine it to be, but it’s not a lie. And in fact if it were what you implied in your original post, that it was akin to signing if a pledge to join a political party, I would be the first in line to oppose that.

[LogonType10]

You must excuse me if I am not swayed by this since no one would expect university faculty to admit to the motives I described (such a letter filters out far more than just those who don't incorporate "diversity into their teaching practice" according to your institution's definition). Yours is exactly the bias I am speaking against.