NEWS: UT-Tyler Removes 'JEDI' Provision From Strategic Plan

  Canada's fireworks at the 2013 Celebration of Light in Vancouver (Source: Wikipedia Commons)

They changed it! 

UT-Tyler has removed a provision within its strategic plan that was set to enshrine Critical Race Theory into its institutional mission. The provision that once read that the university will advance a campus climate that cultivates “justice, equity, diversity and inclusion” now reads that it will advance a climate “of equal opportunity and success” instead. 

This is a huge win as it removes the institutional bias that would have entered the university's  philosophy (and then spread throughout the entire institution) as a result of this language.

What Is Critical Race Theory?

For those who are unfamiliar, critical race theory is the theory that white people built Western society through systematic racism to benefit white people. Therefore, the very DNA of Western institutions is racism, and the appropriate way to remove discriminatory bias from within Western institutions is through "justice, equity, diversity and inclusion” (or "JEDI").

So enshrining the JEDI values as an institutional commitment would have effectively brought in critical race theory assumptions into the institution’s operational philosophy. 

My Complaint about JEDI

As I have written in previous posts, my complaint about this is that critical race theory is an ideology and JEDI’s adoption into the strategic plan would have introduced a significant bias into UT-Tyler's institutional philosophy. This bias—the belief that disparities, wherever they exist, are the result of discrimination—would have transformed the university’s commitment from an “evidence first” approach (where one suspends his judgment until he looks at all of the facts) to an “ideology first” approach (where one starts with an assumption of systematic racism and then looks for confirmation).

JEDI’s adoption at the highest levels of UT-Tyler management would have introduced a blind spot on the "institutional mind” and would have fundamentally changed the university’s mission, from higher education to ideological indoctrination. 

Thankfully, this transition will not happen due to JEDI’s removal from the institutional plan. Its helpful replacement of “equal opportunity and success” now stands in its place. 

Will the Ideological Takeover Continue?

Yet, while JEDI’s removal is a very positive step, the next question is: ”Where does UT-Tyler stand on the rest of its commitment to interventionist policy, especially those it said it would enact, such as its goal to increase the diversity in the student body’s racial composition by enrolling more minority students or its commitment to intentionally hire a diverse workforce?”

How will UT-Tyler do this without unlawfully discriminating on the basis of race?

I don’t know the answer to this. I am unfamiliar with “diversity” law, but I will seek to learn it to find the answers.

Yet, even though if it may be legal (somehow) to prioritize race in admission and employment, with the commitment to advance a climate of “equal opportunity”, then will UT-Tyler still venture to do this? (In other words, will they still do this even if they can?) This requires a a legal and a political (policy) answer that I do not know yet.

However, I do know that UT-Tyler's Human Resource office now offers a list of JEDI-specific interview questions that departments interviewers can ask job applicants within the context of hiring for employment. For example, one is, "Tell us about one or two specific things that you have done to promote diversity, equity and/or inclusion in your current (or last) job?" Another is, "How will you contribute to the University’s efforts to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion in a meaningful way?"

Although UT-Tyler removed an explicit commitment to JEDI values in the strategic plan, it is still unclear to me whether the university will tie employment to JEDI.

Overall, the big question is, Will the ideological takeover that the explicit commitment to JEDI in the strategic plan represented continue, or does this plan's revision signify a larger change to the university’s philosophy than just what this language change reveals? In other words, What is the extent of the ideological takeover at UT-Tyler now given that JEDI is no longer in the strategic plan?

This I will have to find out.

In the meantime, JEDI’s removal was a very positive change for which champions of sound-minded education should celebrate.

Thank You

Finally, I wrote to UT-Tyler President Kirk Calhoun, UT System Regent Kevin Eltife, Texas Senator Bryan Hughes and Texas Representative Matt Schaefer about my objections to JEDI's inclusion in the strategic plan. 

Any party who may have had a hand in this positive change to the institutional plan deserves a very big thank you.

I have not received a reply from any office yet about their involvement in the change. UT-Tyler's spokesperson merely said “there have been changes” because “the version of the strategic plan that has been presented has been a working draft.” So I take it that they don’t want to get into who may have been responsible for the changes, but just that there have been changes.

At any rate, to any elected or university official who had a hand in averting this ideological bias adoption into UT-Tyler’s philosophy, thank you! 

The life of the mind prevails (for now)!

Twitter: @Jhescock12

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Feature image: "Cheers!" by Pete Berlin via Flickr

*Editor's Note: I changed the feature image to this article and made minor edits in the text for flow and readability at 11:57 a.m. on 9/17/22