OPINION: UT-Tyler Must Stop Screening Job Applicants For DEI Conformity

 (Source: "Man on a Job Interview" by Amtec Photos via Flickr)

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is an ideological virus that is ravishing higher education institutions. The latest example is how testing for DEI in hiring practices threatens academic freedom and contradicts the university’s fundamental mission.

UT-Tyler now makes evaluation of DEI commitment an essential part of its job screening processes. The university's Human Resources webpage presents a resource document that contains over 34 sample questions related to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion that a hiring manager can ask a job applicant to test his commitment to DEI. UT-Tyler's practice, though new to the university, is now very common among institutions of higher learning.

However, screening for ideological conformity in prospective faculty and staff subverts academic freedom and undermines the higher education’s mission (which is to pursue the truth, rather than ideology.) UT-Tyler should end its practice of this counter-productive policy and rededicate itself to truth and academic freedom. 

AFA's Beautiful Statement

The Academic Freedom Alliance (AFA) illustrates this point beautifully in its statement of opposition to universities that demand “diversity statements” for faculty employment and promotion.

The September 2022 statement calls for universities to “desist” from demands for diversity statements from faculty citing that “academics seeking employment and promotion will almost inescapably feel pressured to say things that accommodate the perceived ideological preferences of an institution." AFA claims that this scenario contradicts “the fundamental values that should govern academic life.”  

It states that the rapidly adopted and now widespread industry practice of testing for ideological conformity undermines academic freedom and threatens to impose “a suffocating orthodoxy”, especially when “DEI skepticism” is present among both right-leaning scholars and left-leaning scholars alike. 

The statement also claims that the demands for diversity statements "enlists academics into a political movement" and erases "the distinction between academic expertise and ideological conformity." It also claims the practice "encourages cynicism and dishonesty" and is reasonably suspicious of being a way "to screen out candidates" who express mixed feelings about DEI.

“It is one thing for schools to take action against wrongful discriminatory conduct,” the statement reads. “A very different and disturbing thing is monitoring beliefs by demanding pledges of allegiance to an array of policies that are often vague, frequently ambiguous, and invariably controversial.” 

AFA’s beautifully clear statement illustrates how ideolgoical tests are antithetical to are antithetical to the very heart of higher education (which is academic freedom) and distort the university’s fundamental mission. 

Universities' search for ideological conformity in its prospective faculty and staff is another example of how DEI fundamentally transforms institutions of higher learning. UT-Tyler should end its practice and rededicate itself to academic freedom.  

Ideology Over Competence

Another detriment to DEI tests in hiring and promotion is that they prioritize ideology over competence. This National Association of Scholar’s fellow John Sailer’s observes when he notes in how Texas Tech’s Biology Department evaluates its faculty. He observes that Texas Tech would rank a faculty member with a low score on a evaluation, not for incompetence in biology, but for expressing an insufficient level of competency in DEI ideology. (The implication here is that faculty evaluations play contribute to eligibility for promotion and faculty tenure.) 

“Biologists applying to work in Texas Tech must have a specific, well-delineated understanding of DEI, receiving a low score for ‘[conflating] diversity, equity, and inclusion without distinguishing among them,’” Sailer tweeted on Jan. 18.

“The rubric also mandates a low score if a candidate shows little ‘expressed knowledge of, or experience with, dimensions of diversity that result from different identities (for example, intersections between experiences of women scientists and Black scientists),’” he tweeted.

Sailer makes the point: “A DEI evaluation for hiring almost inevitably weeds out candidates on the basis of their political and social views. Someone who opposes, say, racial preferences in admissions or hiring would likely run afoul of the Texas Tech rubric,” he tweeted. 

DEI conformity tests in hiring and promotion evaluations prioritizes ideology over competence.

Conclusion

Testing for ideological conformity in hiring and promotions is antithetical to a university's core values and undermine the pursuit of truth, which is funadmental purose of higher educaiton. 

UT-Tyler should abandon its policy of testing for DEI conformity in staff and faculty hiring and rededicate itself to truth and academic freedom. These represent the real mission, and to these the growingly ideologically captured institution must return. 

Twitter: @jhescock12

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Feature Image: "Man on a Job Interview" by Amtec Photos via Flickr