[thwayunion]

> They say that any candidate who does not discuss gender or race must be awarded low marks.

For starters, explicitly not defending this. I think it's stupid. For race in particular, I've seen a lot more damage done by well-meaning but tone-deaf attempts at DEI than by people just being normal non-shitty humans.

>> The same goes for any earnest classical liberal who “explicitly states the intention to ignore the varying backgrounds of their students and ‘treat everyone the same’.

> What is wrong with treating everyone the same? Isn't that anti-racist by definition?

No, because "backgrounds" here can also mean "academic background" or "financial background" or a million other things that aren't race or gender.

If I were at an institution with a sizable population of academically under-prepared students then I wouldn't hire a faculty member who said they have no plan for how to differentiate their instruction and support academically under-prepared students, or non-traditional (read: older working) student, etc.