President Calhoun talks LGBTQ+ Representation, Diversity At UT-Tyler
Dr. Kirk Calhoun, president of The University of Texas at Tyler, spoke about the university’s new diversity, equity and inclusion commitments, along with his approach to LGBTQ+ representation, in a meeting with student government on March 29.
The president of the new UT-Tyler took questions from representatives in the officially recognized forum for student opinion during its weekly meeting. Among the possible topics for the representatives’ questions, Members asked more about diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policy than any other topic.
Sadly, my takeaway from this conversation is that UT-Tyler, if it wasn’t already, is now fully “woke” thanks to the advent of Dr. Calhoun’s administration. The university’s new DEI policy will mean future challenges to free speech, an increase in racial tension among students as individuals become more race-conscious, a dilution of a cohesive social fabric at UT-Tyler, and a subversive, toxic, anti-Western culture that may feed into the local East Texas community.
Feel encouraged yet?
Anyway, that’s my take. Here’s what he said, issues-by-issue, and I’ll provide a little commentary after each section to try to help readers form their own interpretation of his statements by reading mine. I will also include a link to the video at the very bottom of this article so that you can hear his statements for yourself.
So here we go.
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Calhoun on Racial Diversity
Soules College of Business senator Adan Govea asked Dr. Calhoun “This University is really not representative of the city it lives in. So…what are your thoughts on the campus diversity here, and what are the pushes that you and the University are making towards making this campus more friendly(sic), towards a more diverse student population?”
President Calhoun replied that his administration aims to increase UT-Tyler’s racial diversity through five means: by creating channels for student recruitment in local school districts, by targeting community colleges so transfer students stay at UT-Tyler for their four-year degree, by intentionally hiring a diverse workforce, by targeting communities of color in the university’s outreach, and by creating an environment where students feel comfortable to make complaints about unfair treatment.
Here are his statements one at a time.
Channels in Local School Districts
Dr. Calhoun said, “There are a lot of inroads that are taking place right now that will build our relationships with the school districts...to better prepare students to apply, be accepted, and come to UT Tyler. I want them to come here. I don't want them to choose other schools. I want them to come here.”
Students from Community Colleges
“For our local community colleges,” he said, “we want to be their four year baccalaureate university of choice so that those transfer students want to come to UT-Tyler, and that's a specific strategy that we want to follow.”
”And if you look at the community colleges,” he said, “they are much more reflective of their communities than necessarily four year institutions.”
(By “reflective” I believe he means they contain more racial minorities in the student population.)
Outreach to Communities of Color
“The University needs to reach out to communities of color,” he told student government. “We need to make sure that everyone feels welcome here, that it's an inviting place for women students, for white male students, for Hispanic students, for Spanish students. I want us to reach out to everyone.”
Hire a Diverse Workforce
He also said, with respect to hiring senior university leadership, “Diversity is one of the goals that we look at when we're hiring people.”
“I'm insisting that whether [candidates are] ultimately selected—because we want to pick the best person for the job—but at least I ought to be presented—I want to be presented with a diverse choice of candidates,” he said, “so that I don't want just all males presented to me [by a headhunter organization] when we have a key leadership position.”
“We want to hire a diverse workforce,” he said.
Make Students Comfortable
When it comes to making students comfortable, he said he believes the university should have two priorities: a diverse faculty for student mentorship and a comfortable environment for students to complain about possible mistreatment.
“We have to hire a faculty that is composed of folks that can not only be good teachers, but they can be mentors to you,” he said.
“I want to build a faculty that has mentors in it that you all can choose to go (sic)….If you feel you need somebody who looks like you as a mentor, fine. If you need someone who looks opposite of who you are to be a mentor. And sometimes that's the most appropriate thing for it. The students ought to have that flexibility of identifying mentors,” he said.
He also said, “We want to create an environment that is comfortable for all students to come if they have a concern, if they have a complaint, anything like that, and create an environment where people feel comfortable sharing that,” he said.
“We may not always agree with you,” he said. ”We may say the professor is not treating you any differently. You need to study harder. But being honest and telling the truth to people is also a very important thing that we need to do.”
Reaction
Of course, I think I have the typical conservative concerns over Dr. Calhoun’s policy. If you don’t base your selection process on merit, then to what extent does an employer rob a candidate of economic opportunity by prioritizing other qualities, such as race or sex, over merit?
Furthermore, affirmative action policies (which is what DEI basically is) don’t always produce the best candidates. A long-standing criticism of affirmative action policies has been that racial preferences elevate individuals to an area of performance where they are unprepared to succeed. This leads to drop-out rates and embarrassment for the targets of these helping measures. So, I oppose these preferential efforts on these grounds, primarily, on my support for merit-based qualifications.
However, at the center of this conversation is a question over what it takes to build a successful community. In this case, a successful community among so many different cultural and religious groups.
I believe America should have a common national culture, or at least, many local communities with varied approaches to reaching the same shared ideals, such as humanity’s equality, individual achievement and constitutional republicanism for political government. Yet, Dr. Calhoun’s DEI seems to promote unique racial and sexual identity over common human identity.
I don’t know what shared ideals will be deep enough in this approach to unite so many different groups at the university. I certainly doubt that “celebration of the university” is enough to hold together contrary groups, such as Muslims and Jews, or Conservatives and Progressives, or the rich and the poor.
I think this policy divides more than it unites
and that we will see greater social fracturing the longer it remains a university policy.
LGBTQ+ Representation
When it comes to ensuring LGBTQ+ representation in school policy, Dr. Calhoun said he wants everyone to feel comfortable, but believes the university should stay out of matters related to sexual orientation.
“I certainly want everyone, because it's the right thing to do, to feel comfortable on campus and to know that the campus is there to support everyone in their particular goals,” the president said, “But…I don't care who you love, and I don't think universities should be getting involved with who you love.”
“If I see a couple walking on campus holding hands, I don't care,” he said. “I mean, I got other issues that I need to deal with and the last thing I want to be concerned about is who you choose to spend your life with and to get involved in those kinds of issues.”
Dr. Calhoun said he does, however, want the university to take complaints seriously.
“Now, if people are treated unfairly--if they are abused, if things aren't being done fairly--then I do want students to feel free and have a safe environment to speak up…and the university take that seriously.”
Reaction
President Calhoun must know that many LGBTQ+ people claim special rights on the basis of their identity. They claim right to both institutional resources and financial support to bolster their population in the university community.They often accuse the administration of discrimination if they don’t get what they demand.
Therefore, what could Dr. Calhoun’s policy mean for students of traditional values (that is, those who don’t affirm that LGBTQ+ is an identity) but a club with which campus bullies can beat conservative students and to war against traditional values at the university?
This too will fracture social cohesion at the university and the emphasis upon each individuals rights rather than upon serving one another will result in deeper divides in the student and employee community, since identity based on racial groups conflicts with identity based upon a common humanity that transcends racial groups.
It’s sad to see UT-Tyler transform under President Calhoun’s leadership. Whatever the small-town, conservative university UT-Tyler was in the past is over. The New UT-Tyler is woke.
DEI in The Classroom
Lastly, with respect to his administration’s commitment to foster diversity, equity and inclusion in the classroom, President Calhoun pivoted to Provost Amir Mirmiran gave the answer.
Mirmiran said the university pursues diversity in the classroom according to three main priorities: a diverse student body, a diverse faculty and effective training.
“We need to make sure that from admission all the way to retention and everything else, we have policies and processes in place that would ensure a diversity student,” the provost said.
“The second is trying our best to have a diverse faculty, as well,” he said. “But it is not just about diversity of the faculty themselves, which brings me to the third and last one, which is training people. So maybe I have a different background. I came from a different country, but at the same time, I can be trained. I can learn how to make sure that when I teach in the environment that I teach, I am following the processes that are appropriate to make sure that every student feels included.”
Reaction
While a priority for diversity is nothing new to a modern workplace, the institution’s new emphasis on DEI will likely increase the possibility for hostility in the faculty working environment.
For example, consider how UCLA lecturer Gordon Klein was denounced and later suspended after he questioned a student request to implement race-based grading in the aftermath of George Floyd’s death.
Moreover, three University of South Alabama professors were suspended and publicly derided after photos of their costumes to an on-campus Halloween party in 2014 led to complaints. Constitutional lawyer Hans Bader said the professors’ costumes were constitutionally protected. Nevertheless, the university president denounced the professors’ costumes as “offensive” and “contrary to our core principles of diversity and inclusion.”
The point here is that DEI commitments often conflicts with academic liberty, the foundation of which is free expression, and professors can become targets of punitive action, not for illegal action, but for non-conformance--or for just apparent non-conformance--to Progressive social justice theory.
Undoubtedly, this can make it very hard for professors to express themselves in a DEI-focused workplace.
Conclusion
As I said before, it’s sad to think of it, but with diversity now in the university’s new strategic plan proposal, and DEI efforts spreading throughout the university community, even the search to hire a full-time diversity officer in The Office of Student Engagement, it’s hard to see it any other way than that the once a small town, conservative University of Texas at Tyler, is now fully woke.
Watch Dr. Calhoun's Q&A from the beginning of the diversity questions on YouTube here.
Watch Dr. Calhoun's full Q&A session on YouTube here.
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