[oefrha]

Damn, this is actually a lot worse than it sounds. Rather than requiring an arguably hollow oath like the infamous UC loyalty oath from the 50s, they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that. You don’t get a job without demonstrating tangible contributions to DEI in the past (no, treating everyone equally doesn’t count) and plans to promote it in the future. According to UC Davis math chair Abigail Thompson:[0]

> Nearly all University of California campuses require that job applicants submit a “contributions to diversity” statement as a part of their application. The campuses evaluate such statements using rubrics, a detailed scoring system. Several UC programs have used these diversity statements to screen out candidates early in the search process.

> A typical rubric from UC Berkeley[1] specifies that a statement that “describes only activities that are already the expectation of Berkeley faculty (mentoring, treating all students the same regardless of background, etc)” (italics mine) merits a score of 1–2 out of a possible 5 (1 worst and 5 best) in the second section of the rubric, the “track record for advancing diversity” category.

> The diversity “score” is becoming central in the hiring process. Hiring committees are being urged to start the review process by using officially provided rubrics to score the required diversity statements and to eliminate applicants who don’t achieve a scoring cut-off.

[0] https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf

[1] https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit...

Glad I’m no longer in the academic job market…

Edit: And I wonder if and when these will start to appear in PhD applications, as PhD students are employees in a sense and often need to teach, too.

[hgir8937q63hlay]

> Edit: And I wonder if and when these will start to appear in PhD applications, as PhD students are employees in a sense and often need to teach, too.

I applied for CS PhDs last year and Stanford did indeed require a diversity statement.

I don't remember any of the other universities I applied to asking for this. MIT certainly did not.

[oefrha]

> Stanford did indeed require a diversity statement.

If true (and similar to the “contributions to diversity” statements discussed here), that’s quite disappointing news about my alma mater. At least there was no such nonsense back when I applied to Stanford Physics, but that was ages ago.

What the hell happened to Die Luft der Freiheit weht?

[zozbot234]

> they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that

Doesn't this explicitly incent applicants to lie by misrepresenting their views and past "contributions to DEI" as more pro-DEI than they actually are? I'm not sure how this requirement is compatible with rather basic norms of academic ethics.

[colpabar]

Absolutely. Lying is always somewhat incentivized, but in most cases it doesn't work, because the candidate will be found out. If I interviewed at google, I could lie about my skills all I want, but I will be found out when asked to demonstrate them.

The DEI stuff really seems like as long as you say all the right words, you're fine. Which leads me to a scary thought - are we going to create some kind of "DEI social credit score" that employers can reference in the future?

[BeFlatXIII]

Lying about one's identity is a social necessity. It's when people take the claims of others at face value to societal delusions can take hold from one bad actor.

[native_samples]

It does but academia is already overrun with candidates lying about their past experiences to try and get in.

At some point PhDs issued after certain years are going to start being negatively attractive to employers, as they're going to be basically some sort of ideological purity awards rather than anything to do with merit. And you don't want people like that in an otherwise healthy organization, and more than you want to hire someone who has "20 years membership of the Lenin Appreciation Society" on their CV.

[ModernMech]

Why is this a bad thing? Part of a faculty’s job is to do community service and to manage a diverse classroom. Faculty who have a good handle on the issues that arise through teaching such a diverse classroom are better equipped to handle the job. It’s no different than judging them based on the their research or teaching experience, which are also part of the job. If an applicant doesn’t understand the salient DEI issues, they are literally unqualified.

[funcDropShadow]

Because they are supposed to be top researchers in their field. And I doubt you'll find a world-wide renowned scientist in biology who believes sex is merely a social construct. So these goals are at least partially incompatible. Universities should be about research, science, teaching and teaching students to educate themselves. Following the dogma of DEI is incompatible with teaching students to educate themselves.

[SamoyedFurFluff]

I think you’ve misinterpreted the common meme. The common meme is that gender or race are social constructs. I haven’t heard the meme sex is a social construct.

[funcDropShadow]

Just my last encounter with the so called meme, that sex is a social construct: [1]. It was just 12 hours ago.

[1]: https://twitter.com/x_mass/status/1488329923471319043

[BeetleB]

Sex has multiple meanings, one of which is gender. I don't know if it's an American vs British English thing, but in many countries they use the word "sex" this way much more frequently than "gender".

[zozbot234]

The requirements are not limited to "understand[ing] the salient DEI issues" in an abstract, neutral sense; going by the scoring rubric, they're explicitly demanding a statement of ideological conformity-- as well as a personal commitment to an especially divisive, controversial, dubiously-effective approach to mitigating DEI challenges-- that goes further than what was previously "expected of all faculty". That's what makes it not OK.

[ModernMech]

Again, that's not about belief, that's about the reality that the student body is diverse, the school wants the student body to be diverse, and the classroom itself will accordingly be diverse. What specifically about the rubric is the most troubling to you?

By the way, as someone who hires faculty and reads many such statements (I have to ask, have you read any DEI statements? Do you have examples which you find especially troubling?), a discussion about how current efforts are dubiously effective would be welcome and would help your application at my institution. More often than not, what they are trying to do with these DEI statements is to weed-out applicants who have given no thought whatsoever to this part of the job. The most common failure here is to treat this job requirement as an afterthought and to focus 100% on the research portion. Someone who had genuine opinions about DEI education that run counter to the way things are done would be well received by the hiring committee at my institution.

[zozbot234]

> a discussion about how current efforts are dubiously effective would be a welcome and would help your application at my institution.

A required statement as part of applying for any faculty position or promotion is simply not the appropriate place for such a discussion. You're expecting what amounts to a serious research effort in social science. This kind of intervention in effective leverage points of a complex system (even if perhaps only a "system of oppression", as often described by those most concerned about DEI) is the stuff that research papers are made of, not short statements of conformity.

(Of course, this assumes that effective mitigation of DEI challenges is the actual goal of these requirements. It's not unreasonable to be rather skeptical about this, as the original professor who raised the issue - who is a social scientist - states in his blog post series.)

[ModernMech]

> not the appropriate place for such a discussion

Why? We want to hire faculty who have experience managing a diverse classroom. We want a diverse classroom because our student body is diverse. Our student body is diverse because our applicants are diverse. Diversity is part of this whole thing, and experience as faculty teaching diverse classrooms tells us that it's not something that can be treated as an afterthought.

> You're expecting what amounts to a serious research effort in social science.

No, we are expecting a cogent discussion of the issues which one encounters through teaching diverse classrooms. It's a matter of experience, and yes sometimes it amounts to years of experience to understand the complex and subtle role that diversity plays in the classroom. But as I said in another post, the failure mode here isn't typically an inability to articulate a deep understanding of this area, it's an inability to articulate any understanding or thought whatsoever to these problems. Even just discussing the problems is more than enough to get you past any cutoff or filter I've encountered.

[zozbot234]

> Even just discussing the problems is more than enough to get you past any cutoff or filter I've encountered.

Even assuming that this were true, the clear implication is merely that the scoring rubric for that part of the application is being disregarded, since it very explicitly says otherwise. The linked blog post series actually discusses the issue at length, so I'm not going to repeat what it says. Regardless, having scoring rubrics that explicitly demand ideological conformity to a specific point of view is still a recipe for significant problems in the future.

[oefrha]

As a non-white male person who successfully navigated highly diverse top U.S. institutions as an international student without all the DEI bullshit a while back, I’d rather work with faculty and staff who don’t cater to my ethnicity, gender or whatever irrelevant traits, thanks.

[ModernMech]

> without all the DEI bullshit a while back, I’d rather work with faculty and staff who don’t cater to my ethnicity, gender or whatever irrelevant traits,

Let me give you an example of where one example where it might feel like bullshit and be perceived to be irrelevant to you, but makes a big deal when it comes to individual students in my classroom.

On the issue of pronouns, many people feel like it's a bullshit thing they don't want to deal with. They view the inclusion of pronouns in a signature as a waste of time. I've been told as much. It's fine to have this position in the abstract, but it comes with costs in contexts that confront the reality that transgendered students exist.

Consider the fact that every semester, I will have at least 1-2 transgendered students in my classroom. For 99% of the students there, their pronouns are conventionally obvious. However, some students might be registered as "Christopher" yet they may present as conventionally female, and go by "Chris".

A good DEI statement might talk about an experience one has with this kind of situation. It's a situation that happens commonly for educators. How did they handle this situation? How did the students respond? What did the applicant learn? Pretty much the only wrong answer here is to dismiss this as a bullshit nonissue that is irrelevant. Maybe it's irrelevant to you in your personal life, but it's not irrelevant to everyone, and in fact is quite relevant to the professional performance of a faculty member.

[oefrha]

I have a name English speakers can’t pronounce. Many people can’t pronounce it even after correction; some are a bit off, others are wildly off. How do I deal with it? I’m mature enough to recognize that people don’t intentionally butcher my name to insult me, and it is almost entirely irrelevant to why I’m in a university, as long as I know when other people are addressing me. See, objectively relevant to me, actually bullshit nonissue to mature adults with a basic sense of mutual respect. “Quite relevant to her professional performance of a faculty member”, yeah, it’s relevant because you made it so.

[zozbot234]

> Pretty much the only wrong answer here is to dismiss this as a bullshit nonissue that is irrelevant.

Who's to say that there's any "right" or "wrong" answer to the issue? What if one were to fell back to basic norms of professional courtesy, that ask of us to treat others with tact and diplomacy so as to make them feel as comfortable as possible? One might then privately regard the whole matter as quite trifling, while nonetheless humoring the student's unconventional identity and presentation as merely the latest of many such possible eccentricities. This is clearly not the "accepted" answer in DEI offices, but it might be quite compatible with one's duties as an educator.

[vanusa]

I've been told as much. It's fine to have this position in the abstract, but it comes with costs in contexts that confront the reality that transgendered students exist.

So not in the abstract, but in the concrete, please: if someone is asked to state their pronouns (either in their email signatures, or at a meeting) -- are they allowed to opt-out? Or will there be "consequences" for doing so?

[MatteoFrigo]

Would you mind stating which institution you work for, so I can recommend that my kids avoid it like the plague?

I want teachers who can answer questions about Fourier transforms, not teachers who can "manage a diverse classroom". Really, "manage"?

[ModernMech]

The job of a teacher at a university is not to simply answer questions, but to manage (this is a term of art) a classroom for tens to hundreds of students at a time. One aspect of classroom management is mediating interpersonal conflicts, which happen often at scale and can hinge on issues relating to gender, race, religion, and other sensitive personal matters.

If you just want someone to answer questions on a subject matter, then a tutor is what you’re looking for. If you want to be a part of a student body, then you want someone who is not just good at answering questions, but can also effectively manage a classroom. Otherwise you’re in store for 14 weeks of confusion and chaos.

[vanusa]

"Often happen at scale"? What on earth are you talking about?

The schools I went to very much "politically aware" -- and there was no shortage of drama and controversy in the student newspapers, online and all over campus, in fact. But in the classroom? I literally cannot think of a single instance of "interpersonal conflict" that would have required special "management" skills of any kind (beyond simple decency and common sense). Everyone got along, and it was all pretty mellow and chill, actually.

[fallingknife]

DEI doesn't help you manage a diverse classroom. In fact it does the opposite by harping on racial divisions instead of just teaching the subject you're supposed to teach. No better way to foster animosity than to divide a group of people that is supposed to be equal and start enforcing different rules on the different groups.