[Live Panel] Diversity Statements in Academia

informal Norms we call the hxa way that guide what we do and I just want to share them with you because they'll be the governing Norms um in ideal at least of our conversation today as they are at every hxa event so make your case with evidence be intellectually charitable please be intellectually humble not an easy virtue for academics be constructive look for the good in your what people say and of course be yourself saying what you think is always um powerful and helpful to us uh next slide um if you're if you work in Academia as a professor administrator or if you're a student this is a call to action to you please consider joining hxa check out our website subscribe to our email uh we're a building organization always looking for for new members our members who join shape who we are so if you're interested in these topics and want to help us grow to become a better version of ourselves at h say we welcome you so please consider joining us I'm going to go to the main okay thanks so now so our main event today um we're going to be talking about diversity statements we have two really important uh speakers who are going to be bringing bringing bringing their different viewpoints to to us on this topic um on first we have Randall Kennedy from Harvard Law School Randall is the Michael R Klein professor of at Harvard Law School where he teaches courses on contracts criminal law and the regulation of race relations we're also joined by Brian soek Brian is a professor of law and the Chancellor's fellow at UC Davis School of Law he also recently chaired the UC the University of California's systemwide committee on academic freedom I'm going to invite each of our speakers to speak for 10 minutes or so some may do less some may do slightly more they've told me in advance but about 10 minutes about 10 minutes each then we'll have some discussion um between professor soek and and um Kennedy and then we'll also of course have um discussion with with all of you I want to just to take a moment before we before I turn it over to our speakers just to make a a few very brief points it seems to me that there are three sets of issues that are separate but connected and they often work together when we think about this these questions about diversity statement so I just want to mention these three buckets so we can try to try to keep them separate to some degree or at least when we start to connect them at least be aware that we're connecting them first there's a question about what is the appropriate goal or mission for a university um most people I think would say it's the search for knowledge at hxa we say that the university is a community of imperfect Learners who come together with humility and charity ideally to search for knowledge together the big story of the past 50 years in the academy is the increase in racial and ethnic diversity for example this year in the ivy league some 54% of students identify as being part of a a racial or ethnic minority IV faculty numbers are a bit harder to get but it's around 17% so the first bucket of questions is something like should managing should managing or welcoming diversity um racial and ethnic diversity be part of the University's Mission second there's an important set of questions about what's legally or constitutionally allowed with few exceptions State actors cannot base hiring decisions on a candidate's political Viewpoint can or do diversity statements um requirements pass legal muster so it's a set of legal questions and then third certainly important to what is an effective means to a desired ends for example does a candidate stated commitment to inclusion whether it's sincere or whether it's not sincere does it actually result in more incl a more inclusive campus what what kinds of evidence would we look for if we're trying to make it ascertain that answer to that question and even if it does create a more inclusive campus are there other costs that we should be thinking about the other big story perhaps in the university for the past 50 years along with the inclusing incl increasing racial ethnic diversity is a decline of viewpoint diversity on on an ideological dimension in 1969 the ratio of professors who L left versus those who lean right was about 2: one by 1999 it was about 5 to1 currently nationally it's about 12 to1 some St recent study one recent study show that among Junior faculty it's 49 to one if we think about the wider missions of the university and we think that it's appropriate to pursue diversity and it's legally allowed to pursue it in these ways are there costs on that side that should be considered if we think the university is a knowledge Seeker how do we how does this question fit into those other questions so three big buckets what we ought to do what we're legally allowed to do and maybe what's effective um with that I'm going to turn it over um Rand Professor Kennedy I think I'll have you go first if you don't mind um you have the floor for 10 minutes or less or more as you um as you like very good thank you very much for having me that's a pleasure I'm against uh mandatory diversity statements I think that they ought to be abandoned I think they ought to be abandon immediately why um I'm against them because I don't think that Scholars should be subjected to pledges of Allegiance or loyalty tests that attempt to Monitor and control not just their conduct but their inner beliefs and ultimately that's what's going on with these uh mandatory diversity statements you're being asked to signal that you're on board with the Dei project that's that is really what's uh going on you're it's a it's a demand to signal that you're on board with the Dei project and um not only that but you it's a demand that you express your obedience uh in a certain way and um it seems to me that for you know for our instit tions public or private uh that that is not a good way to run uh a university now there is there has long been and it's probably inevitable that there will be some sort of informal ideological vetting in various domains yeah history anthropology political science economics whatever what's so striking about the the the current Dei uh mandatory requirement is the bureaucratization the formalization of this ideological uh control and it's not just ideological control you know in the in the discipline but it's ideological control that is uh that has institutional Authority behind it and that is imposed from on high so that that's my you know that that's my central claim secondarily secondarily I'm against the mandatory uh diversity statements because it has become uh such a counterproductive Enterprise for diversity in inclusion uh and uh you know and belonging it it's it's it has become a self-destructive gesture on the part of the Dei bureaucracy there is nothing there is no aspect of the whole Dei apparatus that causes more resentment than what we're talking about today and we're you're seeing the effects as we speak there are a number of uh states that are mandating the abolition of the whole Dei apparatus uh outside of those states there you know there are there are hundreds probably thousands maybe tens of thousands of academics who are in Rebellion against the whole Dei Enterprise because of this and I'm a person who is very sympathetic to what I think is driving the Dei Enterprise the Dei Enterprise did not just fall from the sky it arose because of a real need what was the real need the real need was to turn the page on a history of exclusion at our institutions of higher educ sometimes they were you know the racial exclusion gender exclusion other sorts of exclusion and there was an effort to repudiate that and to draw into higher education people who had previously been excluded that was a good thing that ought to continue but that will not continue in a good way uh under this uh under this Dei mandatory state statement which is coercive and that actually just um turns people against it I I'll stop there great thank you um Shakespeare makes palonia say that brevity is the very soul of wit you gave back five minutes of your 10 so we're thanks for that Brian I I'm sure have a Shakespeare in response to you but I'm turn the I'll turn the floor now to you for 10 minutes or so okay see if I can match Prof brevity here uh I completely agree with Professor Kennedy that if there are statements out there that are requiring pledges of Allegiance from faculty that are imposed On High by administrators and uh bureaucrats uh and that are counterproductive to the goal of advancing diversity and inclusion on campus uh then I'm completely against them I think where we uh where Professor Kennedy and I disagree is first on the descriptive fact of whether that's what diversity statements are currently doing uh or secondarily or as a kind of fallback position on the question of whether that's what they need to be doing or whether it could be otherwise so one empirical is it otherwise two even if not could it be otherwise or or do they just the question is could it be reformed in a way that would avoid Professor Kennedy's worries his very justifiable worries or is it so hopeless as he's argued that it needs to be uh abandoned immediately um I think unlike a lot of people that uh talk in this space I've spent quite a bit of time reading diversity statements and actually using them in appointments processes so I've chaired and been on committees in which they've been required and then at my school uh every three years the law faculty go up for some sort of advancement or raise and we all vote on each other's raise which means seeing each other's uh materials at that point which explains what they've written what they've taught what service they've done and how in all three of those areas they've uh Advanced the University's mission in terms of diversity equity and inclusion and so having read just you know a dozen of these a year with my colleague and uh hundreds of them in the searches I just don't think that they are uh doing the kind of thing that critics fear uh that they are doing or conceptualize them from outside as doing so a very quick history of how we started using them at the University of California uh almost 20 years ago now uh 2004 2005 the then president asked uh had a had a commission to see what the status was of University within the 10 campus system the faculty in those years ended up creating uh what is our institutional statement about diversity that was uh passed by the university uh faculty Senate and then was adopted by our region and interestingly uh our diversity statement first says that diversity should be integral to the University's achievement of excellence and then uh in a complicated way has two different definitions of what talking about when we talk about diversity so the first is quite in inclusive it says it refers to the variety of personal experiences values and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and Circumstance this could include race ethnicity gender Age religion language abilities disabilities sexual orientation gender identity socioeconomic status geographic region and many more so a hugely expans expansive conception of diversity there in paragraph one interestingly then in the final paragraph of the statement and this is easily found online region policy 4400 if anybody is interested the statement ends the university particularly acknowledges the acute need to remove barriers to the recruitment retention and advancement of talented students faculty and staff from historically excluded populations who are currently underrepresented so two different types of goals with diversity there and keeping that in mind as going to the the first of your points John about uh what kind of goal or Mission might we see as having for the University that was something that through shared governance was established at the University of California again about 20 years ago well what followed from that were changes to what's called our academic Personnel manual again systemwide where we Define uh what counts as academic Merit in the system what are we looking for when we hire when we tenure when we promote and there they said well if this is part of the mission of the University we shouldn't hide the ball we should say that this is something that we are recognizing as a component of academic Merit for our faculty and so this is something that we should be evaluating in hiring in tenure and if we're going to do that if it's going to be something that we value uh these contributions then we need to be asking people what their contributions are which is to say I think we should be asking people what they have done uh or for faculty applicants what they plan to do uh in order to advance this part of the University's Mission complicated it as it is by the fact that we've defined uh that part of the mission in you know perhaps not fully consistent ways at least in two different ways and that's where you starting in 2009 I believe uh the first campus started experimenting with diversity statements and then they really expanded uh the use in around uh 2017 2018 to the point that now they're used throughout the system both in hiring and in advancement uh one last bit of that history uh when I was on the when I was chairing the academic freedom committee be in response to worries that we are hearing like Professor Kennedy's uh we changed the recommendations that had originally been made without the input of the academic freedom committee unfortunately uh we got involved and changed the systemwide recommendations this is coming from the faculty not from the administration that say first uh Dei statements should focus not on beliefs but on actions and plans that was crucially important to us in order to avoid uh the Pledge of Allegiance type of concern you know don't ask for or seek pledges of Allegiance one way of saying that uh and the other is going directly to Professor Kennedy's uh worry about being imposed from on high it's that what is asked and sought in terms of diversity statements and then the kind of rubrics used for evaluating them need to be developed just like every other part of Faculty evaluation bottom up by the appointments committee or the tenure Committee in each individual Department that's doing the hiring or promotion they're the ones who know what the kinds of Dei gaps or challenges or needs are within their field and so ideally what they're doing with these statements is identifying what the challenges are which are going to be different field to field and then you know uh rewarding people who are meeting those challenges uh who have had actions or plans that are creatively addressing those shortcomings so that's the goal as as I think I can say as we see it uh within the University of California both in terms of the mission and then how we can best uh advance that aspect of the mission thanks thank you um Professor Kennedy you want to you want to are the questions you'd like to ask yes I I have a couple of reactions and I do have a question first um we were just presented with um a a portrayal that in many respects uh is attractive the problem is I think it's a wholly unrealistic portrayal I don't believe it uh you you talk about one thing I mean on the question of imposition you know you so you you talk about well this was created by The Faculty okay I mean let's suppose something's created by The Faculty what I'm concerned about is the you know an individual scholar so let's suppose that I go to your institution and you tell me that the faculty has produced something fine I I like that better than it being produced by you know nonacademic bureaucrats but even when it is produced by a group of the faculty that um you know I have my view and just suppose my view does not you know align with a with uh a group of Faculty or the majority of Faculty uh what are we going to do about the people who you know um have views that are counter to what you present as the Dei goal here's my question to you um Brian do you imagine somebody who in response to the requirement for a de eii statement says uh I'm a physicist I'm a chemist or I'm a historian or I'm an anthropologist whatever and I don't believe that the Dei Enterprise is a good Enterprise I think it was a mistake to uh to to to create these bureaucracies that you know so you're asking for my orientation I think it was a mistake do you really think that you know what what is the Fate what do you think will be the fate of that person that's one related one imagine the person who says I'm an old-fashioned liberal I'm an old-fashioned liberal I know that other people have different views than me but frankly I think that everybody should be viewed regardless of race regardless of gender regardless of sexual orientation I know that there are a lot of people who don't you know who think that that's a uh you know an realistic view but that's the that's my view my question to you Brian is in in your experience across various institutions what will be the fate of a scholar who says what I just posited great thank you Brian I think in both cases uh the scholars the two Scholars he just posited didn't answer the question that I asked in request ing the diversity statement because in both of the examples that you just gave they have stated beliefs I don't want beliefs I want a statement of what you have done to advance this part of the University's Mission now if you think that uh you know if you're the classic liberal who has a particular conception of what uh you know what type of methods are going to advance that part of uh our mission then you would be stating those things that you you've done and just like any other part of the application there's going to be you know your peers your fellow disciplinary experts that are either going to recognize in what you say or not recognize in what you say uh you know an accurate portrayal of what your field needs in this regard and what's effective in meeting that and those will differ between the physics department and the law school and the drama school those are going to be different types of needs in terms of uh you know in my old field as philosopher of art uh I would say most of our needs were around the kinds of examples we were using and the kinds of people we were reading and assigning everybody when I was in grad school had sort of two examples that they would do all their work on it was Beethoven and Duchamp now we have a very rich field full of lots of micro communities of aesthetic experience and as a much richer and more diverse and really more successful field as a result that's what we needed there and lots of people were doing the work of trying to help uh you know people revise their syllabus that kind of thing that's an example of identifying a need and finding ways to help people uh meet it I think in other fields it's going to be less about the examples or the topics it's going to be more about who's there uh you know that there are gender gaps or things like that in in particular fields that where more mentorship uh and and those kinds of activities are needed uh but in neither of those cases are we asking you what do you think of the Dei apparatus for example what I want to make sure and this I hope goes directly to your question and concern uh Professor Kennedy is that I want to make sure that by asking about actions we're leaving open space outside of the diversity statements for people to be just as vigorous as you are in other context like in the faculty meetings in the academic Senate uh in op-eds that they publish just as vigorous as you are in contesting uh the effectiveness of certain Dei strategies or even the value of diversity as it plays into the mission itself I want to leave that space I think it's crucially important Brian I think that you can I just say if if I didn't it may very well be that I did not respond to your present of what you were asking if that is so that's because in preparation for this I went online and read what institutions are asking for uh my sense is that what you are asking for is rather idiosyncratic and that my portrayal of what is actually being asked for is more characteristic they are asking for so at my home in institution I went online I went online you know what what are they asking for they weren't asking for they were asking for you you know what's your orientation towards such and such a thing what do you think about such and such a thing how will you build into your scholarship and your teaching ideas that further Dei I mean further it where here's the room for somebody who says I don't want to further it now again you know I want to be clear about this what's what what strikes me about this is I mean ideologically ideologically I'm on the same I'm in the same tent with many of the people who are in favor of the Dei Enterprise and what I've got to say is if I'm so exercised about this if I feel like if I was writing if I was seeking a position and I was asked some of these questions I would feel indignant I would feel no I don't want to I don't want I think that this is illegitimate for you to ask me that question if I am feeling this well good grief I would imagine that people you know to the right of me people who you know actually are don't like the Dei Enterprise at all I imagine what they are feeling and it seems to me as Scholars we need to be attentive to such people um you know don't we want to make our Enterprise welcoming actually um to all people who want to advance uh the you know pedagogical Enterprise that that's what we should be asking but I think that's the question because so I I can understand what you just say in a couple different ways if the Enterprise is something like I as a public university Professor think that I have a responsibility to make sure that I am teaching in a way such that a diverse set of students are flourishing at my school you know that I want a set of students that is as diverse as California to be able to flourish at UC Davis and I want UC Davis to be producing research that addresses the need of the full diversity of a state like California you know the the needs of that entire community that if that's the Enterprise then I am going to you know plant my flag and say no I think that uh somebody who's a professor at my school you know I that's the Enterprise that I think we are engaged in uh now there's lots of ways to advance that Enterprise so described I think there are uh and then also to judge whether somebody has advanced it I think what you're describing in terms of what you found online if that's what's being asked then that is a hugely counterproductive way of trying to advance it I completely agree but I said that at the beginning we are on the same side there I don't think that asking people about how what concrete things are you doing to advance that Enterprise as I just defined it you know what is the gap well we've got an inclusion Gap at my school because textbook costs are so high costs in general are so high all but one of my classes I've created my own textbook I put that in every diversity statement that I write every three years because that is a way of advancing our mission towards inclusion um you know and so it's you know it does come down to what people are asking I've spent a lot of time in the last few years trying to evangelize on the on the side of asking uh you know having bottomup uh judgments bottomup prompts and asking for uh for actions and belief actions and plans rather than beliefs uh you know I was successful at changing the recommendations at the University of California it's a huge system uh does that mean that every search we're doing uh is asking for them in the way that I would do if I were uh you know the philosopher king of the place well no uh but that's where I think that's where I think we differ in terms of is the answer to that then cut it off kill it immediately or is the answer to work to make it productive do you think you've gotten a lot out of these things do you think you've got do you think that you have you said you know you've read through these oh sure um do you have in in your experience do you think having read through these that in terms of selecting people you are getting better teachers better researchers on account of these mandatory diversity statements yeah I think they're beneficial in two ways uh one is yes I actually do and I can describe more fully uh why but also uh if people are doing it the right way if what the project is is hey we as a committee or we as a department are going to think about what the gaps are in our field the challenges that itself is a hugely productive Enterprise that somebody isn't just uh you know making their syllabus in a uh you just out of inertia they're not just teaching the same readings every year because it's always they've always done it that way they're actually thinking about whether there are ways that they could change their teaching uh change their mentorship practices in order to be more successful at advancing this part of the mission so I think that's a good thing uh but I would just love to point people I think better than I've ever said any of this there was a uh essay in inside higher ed last week uh by a professor Suzanne penwell who is at uh the University of South Carolina Lancaster uh and the title was why I'm a convert to diversity statements and she had just uh chaired a appointments committee was much against them uh less for the reasons that we've talked about here and more just thinking that it was extra work for completely overburdened job applicants you know why make another statement she didn't think it was going to be productive and she totally changed her mind in the course of it I just highly recommend this to people listening she said that compared to the other statements they get like teaching statements uh these were actually less generic it was the teaching statements where people were just saying generic things like oh I'm going to flip the classroom you know students centered pedagogy Etc where she said the Dei statements in contrast weren't productive weren't predictable um like me one candidate said he made sure the textbook was free another mentioned online office hours for students who couldn't be on campus uh some had widened the range of perspectives in their reading uh flexible attendance policies uh things like this they were generally modest in their aims she said and in fact the people that did come across as ideologues on either side uh that was a way that they thought this is not the kind of person that we actually want so somebody that just came in and said something about you know usual kind of uh the what I think is often the sense of what's going on here that you want somebody to come in and pledge falty to ibram kendi or something like this she said people like that uh we weren't looking for idogs for one thing they're a pain in the ass at faculty meetings uh that she thought that she was getting more specifics out of this part of the uh application than than any other so again I just commend the the essay to uh the audience here I was um I I was I saw my experience reflected in that uh but she just put it much better than I ever had Brian can ask you to respond to a point that that Randall made early in his opening remarks about resentment yeah I think of the reasons I I see this as well having served on faculty committees with Dei up and running that the resentment is is quite real and I think the resentment is focused on something like a concern that these requirements and the way they're implemented and the way the forms are evaluated they their intention with academic freedom specifically was something like academic self-governance can you say anything about that how do you how do you see how do you see the relationship of these statements being required to academic freedom and academic self-governance good well so there's just the descriptive fact that some places that's not true and I think that's uh that's my experience but I want to take more Ser just to be clear on that point so you're saying that in some places it actually is purely academic communities that is departments that decide whether or not to have the statements and they also evaluate them with no other party involved no bureaucratic party involved uh that's correct but also um sometimes the bureaucratic involve the administrative involvement is is rather thin uh in the sense that they mandate that the statements be requested but if there's uh I call thin in that they are not in any way dictating either how they're how they're asked for you know what's being asked for or certainly how the committee is evaluating them you know what what kind of rubric they're using there was a brief suggestion at my campus in 2019 that we were uh told from the provos office to use rubric supplied by that office and there was immediate outcry from The Faculty uh and that was withdrawn within a month and so uh you know I I don't mean to be poish about it like there is a lot of places where there's not that kind of shared governance and that's a real concern but even that I don't think gets to uh Professor Kennedy's deep deep worry about resentment and I I've I spent a a lot of time now thinking about uh you know if we could get past the pledges of Allegiance type worries by you know as I would put it doing it the right way there is still going to be this resentment in part uh because of a lack of understanding of what's going on in part because of an incredibly well-funded well-coordinated campaign to as has been clear make the letters Dei quote toxic uh within American discourse you know that this is to stand for everything that people hate about Academia if not race relations uh you know that has been a coordinated uh effort uh Nationwide you know on the part of let me ask let me ask you Professor Kennedy when you talk about you spoke about the resentment was that connected to the questions of academic freedom and self-governance that professors feel that they have some responsibility and right to make decisions about hiring without um administrators being directly involved what did what did you mean by resentment I simply meant I I simply meant that people are angry that um and that they're being asked questions that they feel are encroaching upon areas that ought not be encroached upon and I'm talking about people from a wide array of ideological positions I'm I'm talking about people I'm talking about strong liberals I'm talking talking about people on the left I think that there is a very widespread belief that the mated Dei statement was a tremendous mistake but you know sometimes when mistakes you know get a certain amount of momentum they get going this is something frankly until a couple of years ago I I didn't even know about these Dei statements I was amazed when I learned how pervasive they were I didn't know where they came from they have you know they've grown up you know where they come from who you know who was there study of them who actually designs them how are they evaluated now Brian tells us that you know don't worry um uh you know let's just do it in the right way well I mean frankly I mean really if if if Brian was in charge of it all in the United States of America where there 300 million people if Brian was doing it if Brian was doing it on his own you know frankly I would still not like it I would still not like it but I wouldn't be as concerned that was close close that was closean but hold it Ryan you are not understand doing it on your own we had a debate a couple of months ago in which you acknowledged that in the California system there had been earlier iterations of the mandated diversity statements which you said and I think you said earlier here were mistaken that they were encroachments on academic uh Freedom that they you know that they that that they they were counterproductive well I mean if if if that was so um and and then you say well but we Revis them okay they've been revised fine you are you going to tell me that people oughtn't be worried uh in jurisdictions that maybe don't have people like you you know attending to things is it there re let me put it like this Brian is there a legitimate reason for me to be worried and if the answer is yes then my position is well why not let's have as as a prophylactic matter why not let's get rid of my worry by not having these things yeah you have legitimate reasons to be worried I think that uh you have far exponentially more reasons to be worried about other elements of the application and uh tenure and promotion file uh most specifically the use of student teaching evaluations which we don't have to rely on uh anecdote we know from study after peer-reviewed study that they have racially and gendered disperate impacts disperate impacts based just on appearance that they have zero correlation with teaching Effectiveness that they're a primary driver of grade inflation that they cause teachers to censor what they say and change what they do in class in ways that they don't find to have any pedagogical support we know all we know that they're imposed by administrators and that they Outsource uh academic judgments to non-experts by definition students we know all of that and yet n over 96% of the schools in this country rely on student teaching evaluations you know far outpacing any current use of diversity statements so I'm not trying to say let I'm not trying to change the subject here I'm just saying we've got some academic freedom concerns when it comes to the ways that we evaluate uh each other in Academia I don't mean to deny that by any means uh but you know if you're worried about just the fact that there's a whole bunch of faculty and not all of them might be doing this with academic freedom you know in mind in the way that I at least hope I'm doing it that's nothing compared to the sort of Outsourcing we're doing uh of acemic Merit judgments to you know to students for example um so so am I worried yeah but there's lots of worries there's wor you know when when the University of California started experimenting with uh changing the order in which we read applications so there was uh a year in which in just a few special searches uh eight at my campus about the same number at Berkeley uh we started by reading only the diversity statements anonymized for those eight searches and then once those were uh those were judged then the provos office would release the rest of the uh of the uh file and we'd go from be clear for for our listeners this was a this was an experiment where the diversity statements were taken to be the first cut before they could look at degree granting institution letters of recommendation Publications the first cut exactly all you saw was an anonymous diversity statement tell us tell us about the findings from that uh well one we didn't do it that way again in the future uh because they were so deeply interrelated with other parts so now to the extent anybody does that uh for broader searches it's been the diversity statement paired with the research statement uh but again anonymized and then opening up and you know lots of criticism for that uh to be sure um lots of you know allegations that it's a litus test or something like that but you know you just have to keep in mind that although that's not the right way to do it I don't think I think that's what we discovered that just doing the diversity statement first did not give us the kind of in full information we needed even for that initial pass but there's always an initial pass you know Randall and I get as law professors get a stack of uh entry applications it's all comes in one book with one page per applicant 400 people or something in a given year and there's always a first pass you know and it's it's names you learn a lot from a name it's degree granting institution it's name of recommend ERS and you know I can guarantee you that at both of our institutions a large number of those applications just get uh you know cut at that pass before you know certainly before anybody has read a single word of research of right scholarship that any candidate has has written so there's something that Brian if I just jump in here I mean most academic most academics would say that in sorting sorting through the stacks you people use degree Grant institution as a proxy for merit and ability there's other proxies for merit and ability that they're using rather than setting every file do noo that seems quite different than asking for a diversity statement as a first cut but you assume that diversity statements have nothing to do with academic Merit that's that's exactly yeah I find that to be question begging uh can I um Brian what do you make again just going online and you know we we got people can just go online put in uh Dei statement and immediately there there are hundreds of um sites for people you know there there's there's a cottage industry of people producing these things making suggestions of these things is is that suggestive of something I mean I again I think that one of the things that's one of the problems I have is isn't this a isn't this an an invitation for insincerity um people know what folks want to hear you make it seem as though well we're just we're innocently asking a question no you're not you know and we're speaking at a moment we're speaking at a moment in which high education is really in the crosshairs coming from various directions with respect to academic freedom we have a committee in Congress that says that it's just asking questions no they're not just asking questions they've come to conclusions they know what they want to hear and if they don't hear if and if you don't up with what they want to hear off with your head same thing here don't you know um it's true that we were told in the beginning you know try to be generous with the other side and I'm I'm down with that to some extent on the other hand there is such a thing as being naive and when institutions are saying we want to hear from you about certain things you would be foolish not to know what they want to hear and you can either do two things you can refuse to play ball and be sincere and not get the job or you can be insincere play ball I know what these people want I'm gonna you know I'm gonna give them the boiler plate my sense from talking with people is that there is lots of boilerplate which leads me to yet maybe my final thing which is I think Brian that you and I probably um have a very different conception of what's really going on here I do not think that what's really going on here is a matter matter of pedagogy I don't I think it is I think it is it is structured that way it is defended that way but in my view what's going on here is a type of symbolic cultural politics in in which a group has gotten a certain amount of power and wants to push its power and wants to make people acknowledge its power it seems to me that that is what is going on here this is a this is yet another front in you know culture War and the ma and the and the matter of pedagogy in my view is largely pretextual maybe that's an overly cynical view but that is the view that I have thank you we can we excuse we can question motiv in both directions Brian I'm I'm gonna give you a chance to say more in a moment I just want to go to a question from our audience um one question is um that it's actually directly to you Brian Brian in the diversity statements you have read how often have the candidates discuss contributions related to religious diversity national origin diversity geographical diversity or political diversity as opposed to racial ethnic diversity gender diversity or Sexual Orientation Diversity can you say something about that yeah um the certainly uh Geographic diversity uh Urban rural that kind of thing is something that comes up uh regularly uh some religious diversity um some uh certainly a lot to do with uh first generation first gen students um and you know that's that's an interesting example I think because I have a colleague at the law school who uh first started talking about uh the work she was doing with first gen students I don't know 15 years ago or something uh something that was deeply important to her um and she it was basically uh rejected she was told by her tenure committee or whatever uh you that's not what people are asking for that's not that's not what uh we care about here and she uh has really spent much of her career um using her work to show why that was important to the point that now we have a whole advising program that's first gen sponsored and central campus is you putting it on their website all of that so you know I think like any other area of the application that's something that you make the case for just like your scholarship such that outlier scholarship becomes Central within a field becomes you know grows acceptance because it's just shown to shown to work um so uh is there uh more of a focus on Race uh gender um sexual orientation yeah I think that's I think that's true I think in a lot of Fields if you're identifying the the gaps uh that's often where they are um Let me let I just have to say and it's one sentence that I care about the insincerity boiler plate uh plate uh concerns that Professor Kennedy has I just don't see how they're related to requests for actions rather than beliefs well good that the next question actually is directly on that on that point and I I'll present it to you Professor Kennedy if you want to take the first crack on it the this question says and I'll just going to paraphrase it that um Brian it seems as though you were saying that the initial wave of these statement requirements focused on beliefs or at least they look like they focused on beliefs whereas the new generation focuses on not so much on beliefs candidates beliefs but on actions and plans and there's two things there right there's actions things you've done I gather and then things that you intend to do and the question is you know to either of you do you think these statements pass legal muster is that movement from beliefs to actions and plans the key attempt to make it legally acceptable is that where the action is legally that's for you Randall if you like or you Brian if you like Brian go ahead uh I don't know that the legal question turns on it I think there are uh you know when you said earlier John that we uh can't can't ask about we can't make academic judgments uh hiring decisions based on political beliefs or shouldn't uh that needs a little that needs a little bit of an asterisk right you know we certainly can't say tell us what your party affiliation is and that should have nothing to do with uh you know with hiring um but when it come and if in the chemistry Department we would never ask somebody what their view on uh on immigration policy should be but that's a kind of topic might come up when we're hiring a new director for our Asylum clinic at the law school right so there is a way in which certain types of political views become relevant to certain you views that could be called political uh become relevant to certain jobs but not others and Viewpoint discrimination varies based on I think is better understood as relevancy to the position so what we call a Viewpoint discrimination is really irrelevant Viewpoint discrimination that's the legal thing but I think the change was more uh to address and acknowledge the kinds of worries that Randall and many others have rightly raised which is why do you want people just to why do you want why would you ever want somebody to pledge allegiance why would you ever want to just spout some sort of uh Creed that they may or may not actually believe in what value do you possibly get out of that if AI could just generate a diversity statement for you you know it can't generate it if we're asking about plans uh I see no value in asking people just to to say something like those yard signs you know in this house we believe women's rights are human rights and all you know and black lives matter and blah blah like nobody wants that uh that does nothing for a hiring committee and would just be uh very useless in in in my comments um there you know first of all there is litigation that is that has already begun with respect to this issue I'm sure there will be more litigation but frankly um I didn't want to to get into the legal issue because for me more important than the legal issue is what's good for University life so in I would take the same position that I'm taking even if the court said um you can do it you know let's assume that there is nothing illegal about mandatory diversity statements my my issue is is is that a good way for us to run institutions of higher education and even if it is legal I have my doubts but even if it is legal it's not good and it's not good because when people enter this realm realistically not you know not nominally not you know just what is said after it's been gone over a thousand times times to make it look nice and innocent and inoffensive uh and um you know um what's really going on I think what's really going on in lots of places is an effort to make people uh genuflect or to weed certain people out you know that I think I think that in some places the idea is gosh this person knows they're supposed to say certain things and if they don't say certain things we know they're going to be a pain if we let them in so let's let's keep them out this is this is a good signal this is a good way for us to you know uh weed out people who are not going to play ball well my view is that's not a good way to run a uh an institution of Higher Learning we've seen this before what would we say let me let me close what would we say if the question was what are your plans what have you done to advance the goals of making America making America great again what would we say then what would we say if you know what have you done and what do you plan to do we're not talking about beliefs here what have have you done what do you plan to do to inculcate or to advance patriotism would that be okay I thought we had begun by agreeing I thought we started with a place of agreement that efforts to promote a greater inclusion at institutions in which there hasn't historically been uh certain forms of inclusion was a valuable goal and aim of the university did I misunderstand that let's assume that's correct okay so it so I take it then that patriotism patriotism is it you have American institutions I can imagine many public institutions public and private institutions the American flag flies outside the American flag flies outside of you know uh the administrative buildings great and there I can imagine a service Academy I can imagine any that's right particular type of institution that would ask for that and that would care about that that's not how our university has defined its Mission that's not how your university has defined its Mission so I thought we were starting on a common ground of let's say that both of us think that inclusion greater inclusion is a valid and admirable aim for University to advance if so then we need ways of advancing it and if so if that's something that we take that we take as a valuable activity for our faculty and staff and students to be advancing then for our faculty we should be rewarding work that a helps us achieve that aim and to reward it you have to ask about it and I am very open in order to get past some of the resentment that you're rightly identifying if there are better ways to ask those questions to find out what why is it mandatory why is it mandatory given what you just said why isn't it the case that people just as a matter of course this is an attractive feature to my profile as a matter of course I will give you this information why is it mandated I see Zero difference between a mandatory statement in which you say you know zero Dei contributions this term uh versus a an optional statement in which there's just no contributions uh you know in which you don't give any kind of statement at all I don't see a difference there in the same way that I always have to submit a teaching statement uh an account of my teaching even on semesters like this one where I'm on sabatical and don't teach at all it's just you know sort of zero teaching contributions this term it's still mandatory but I don't see any difference turning on that part that's not where I it's it's five o'clock and I need to keep a promise to our to our visitors I do want to note Brian that there's a comment that went by the chat I just saw that someone was asking whether they the UC Davis flies the American flag or not I'm not sure how relevant that is I just want to throw that throw that out there for for your for your enjoyment so um I just want to thank you both uh very much uh Professor Kennedy Professor soek for for joining us for this conversation um I also want to just thank all the the guests for for for listening in um you can find more about our speakers um on the links posted in the chat um also just a final reminder for many of you who are listening that hxa is having annual conference this summer in June in Chicago you can find about hxa conference in our on our on our website again please join hxa if you're a member or if You' like to become a member please join hxa and uh I'll just close again by thanking Professor Kennedy and Brian soek for our lovely conversation thanks everyone thank you bye bye thanks Randall bye bye thank you

Channel: Heterodox Academy

Views: 810

Keywords: free speech, heterodoxy, higher education, diversity, viewpoint diversity, enlightenment, free thought, heterodox academy, Jonathan Haidt, steven pinker, rationality, academia, enlightenment thinkers, intellectuals, sensemaking, science, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, cornel west, douglas murray, critical race theory, crt, intellectual dark web, john stuart mill, epistemics, conservative, progressive

Id: PcPVte1-Ipc

Length: 60min 50sec (3650 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024