It misrepresents what happened at Cal. Candidates were not rejected on the basis of their statement, which was merely one factor in scoring the 800+ candidates they interviewed.
> A total of 993 applications were received, of which 893 met basic qualifications. The LSI Committee conducted a first review and evaluated candidates based solely on contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion. Only candidates that met a high standard in this area were advanced for further review, narrowing the pool down to 214 for serious consideration.
What was misrepresented? "Evaluated solely on contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion [sic]" is not quite the same as evaluated solely on their diversity statement, but it doesn't seem too far off the mark. Aside from the candidates' diversity statement, how would the bureaucrats evaluate their "contribution to diversity, equity, and inclusion"?
As far as the effect on applicant demographics, here's the stats before the diversity evaluation / After diversity evaluation:
Female: 41.7% / 60.3%
Male: 56.5% / 39.3%
African American: 2.8% / 6.1%
Hispanic: 13.2% / 22.9%
Native American: 0.4% / 1.4%
Asian: 25.7% / 18.7%
White: 53.7% / 48.1%
1. https://ofew.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/life_sciences_...
This is a fancy way of saying that they used affirmative action to advanced African American, Hispanic, and Native American candidates.
And what does this mean, besides reviewing their DEI statements? We know that review of diversity statements are one component of this - you keep alluding to the notion that there's more to it than that, but neglect to actually provide any such example of how the universities measured this contribution besides their diversity statement.
> This is a fancy way of saying that they used affirmative action to advanced African American, Hispanic, and Native American candidates.
This is illegal in California. This is why people speculate that the review of diversity statements is a smokescreen for universities to illegally discriminate on the basis of protected classes.
Many ways. For one there’s an interview where such topics can be probed. For another there are various talks given, where candidates can expand on their DEI activities. Finally there are grant applications and grant activities which relate to DEI that can be evaluated.
Race-conscious hiring is allowed if it would increase under-represented minorities. Whether you agree, or disagree with this policy (which I think most of us do), it is nonetheless legal in California, and it is what happened at the UC schools mentioned in the opinion piece you cited.
Fun fact: Berkeley and UCLA each employ more conservative professors than most "conservative" schools do. But they employ real conservatives, not the modern snowflake conservatives that constantly portrays themselves as victims.
As long as everyone selected was qualified, it’s great to hear that folks who don’t have as many shots at an education are getting their chance.
For the folks who get denied who are members of the majority group, there are innumerable additional opportunities remaining for them.
This kind of comment serves as incredibly good ammunition for people looking to stir up racial resentment.
Is it trivial or easy? Nobody said it was. Is it needlessly harder for certain groups? Yes. Can we do something about it? We already are.
And if the truth is used as ammo, so be it. I’m sick of pretending we have to kowtow to the racists and even the selfish while talking about making the world better for everyone.
You haven't proven differential opportunity. You've only proven that some groups outperform other groups. You have not proven whether this is due to opportunities, discrimination, or hard work. Asian students, for example, spend more than 3x as much time studying as Black students.[1] Do you think there's a chance that this contributes to their higher representation at Caltech?
1: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/07311214221101...
I wonder what black study rates would be if they were given the same chances as white and asian people are. Hopefully we’ll get there, but we’re still a long way off.
As the other commenter explained, the mere existence of disparities in representation is not evidence of "rigging the game".
So to be clear, you need help figuring out how centuries of systemic racism, racism that continues to this very day, might impact the community receiving that vile, disgusting hate?
You're not sure how living under constant oppressive hatred might have a negative impact? That's what you're saying?
Okay. Here's about a dozen documents, papers, and resources you can use to understand this. [0][1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]
Of note, this isn't really a debated topic. In what specific ways is something we're trying to better grasp, but whether or not it's happening is not.
And if you think you know more than the combined wisdom of all of these collective institutions, I highly recommend therapy, focusing specifically on this belief of your superior understanding of the problem.
[0] https://news.temple.edu/news/2020-06-25/systemic-racism-has-...
[1] https://www.americanprogress.org/article/fighting-systemic-r...
[2] https://fas.columbia.edu/files/fas/content/ASHE%20Higher%20E...
[3] https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2021.01394
[4] https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/racism-and-ecd...
[5] https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/to-understand-str...
[6] https://news.stanford.edu/2022/02/01/examining-systemic-raci...
[7] https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1...
[8] https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases...
[9] https://psychcentral.com/health/prospective-teachers-more-li...
[10] https://www.apa.org/monitor/2016/11/cover-inequality-school
[11] https://www.oah.org/tah/issues/2017/february/the-troubled-hi...
You should check out John McWhorter, who has a very different take on what it is to grow up Black these days. I have no idea whether you're Black, or how old you are. But the characterization you give is out of step with what a lot of people perceive. Folks like John find these sort of descriptions borderline offensive. Also demoralizing to Black kids, who shouldn't be told that the world is more awful than it actually is.
If what you are saying were true we should be seeing Asians spending the least time studying and Black students studying hard. But your hypothesis is not only untrue, it's the opposite of what we actually observe.
What we do see are the systemic effects of an entire society normalizing a whole host of racist behaviors, including trying to play the struggle Olympics by comparing one racial group (who have a whole different set of issues) to another.
Your who premise that Black students are not rewarded for academic success - which other commenters asked you to substantiate and you refused [1] - is untrue, and you've resorted to accusations of racism instead of trying to argue your point.
That literally does not make sense logically.
And I didn't refuse to do shit, I literally gave a dozen sources that all support my claim that black people have a whole host of things working against them when it comes to performing well academically. I disagreed that I haven't "proven" what I claimed when I very clearly and undeniably did exactly that.
See this list for a very small start into understanding why the same amount of "hard work" won't help a black person succeed academically in America.
He'll just keep referring you to these links and call you racist if you point out that other ethnic groups have succeeded.
I learned algebra from my grandfather, who was still alive because he didn't die of heart disease.
> He'll just keep referring you to these links and call you racist if you point out that other ethnic groups have succeeded.
Because it's covered extensively in those links why talking about the outcomes of the select few black people who make it to the top tiers of academia is not a relevant or meaningful way of approaching the problem. I can lead you to water, but I can't make you drink it.
But overall, what a shitty, disingenuous comment that reveals your terrible faith engagement on this topic. I didn't once call anyone here a racist person.
Honestly, thank you for posting this and revealing to the other folks here that you have no interest in abiding by the HN guidelines. At this point there's not really much more to do than flag your comments and stop engaging with your toxicity.
Your links don't actually substantiate the claim that you're making. That's why people keep asking you to substantiate the claims that you're making about lower reward for the same level of academic success, and why your continuous referral back to these links is pointless. And now you're resorting to flagging comments because you can't refute them.
If my comments are so toxic, the correct course of action as per the HN guidelines is to not respond - which you have evidently not done.
> I didn't once call anyone here a racist person.
Yes, you did, here [1]
> What we do see are the systemic effects of an entire society normalizing a whole host of racist behaviors, including trying to play the struggle Olympics by comparing one racial group (who have a whole different set of issues) to another.
You wrote this in response to my comparison of Asian and Black admission rates, in response to your claim that Black people are not rewarded for academic success. In your response explicitly called the comparison of racial groups racist. Sure, you didn't call me racist. You just called what I did in the previous comment racist - as though I can't connect the dots.
Yikes...
The only weak dodge here is your continued insistence I haven't supported my claim when in fact I have well beyond your ability to refute it; so you cling onto this clearly false claim that I haven't as some way of sidestepping your failure to directly address what I've claimed.
Shroedinger's racism: the person is simultaneously racist and non-racist at the same time.
You edited your comment after my response, that's what it read before you changed it to "...say and do very racist things."
You now want to tell black kids that everything's shit so there's no point trying, then point to the inevitable result of that lack of effort as racism? Are you not the racist?
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/11/09/beyond-red-v...
At this point, I doubt we'll make much progress toward resolving disparities in Black achievement without fostering equal investment in education in those communities. So long as Black students spend on average about half and one third as much time on homework as compared to white and Asian students respectively [1] the gaps academic performance aren't going anywhere. We can try to paper these over with more permissive expectations for admitting underrepresented students, but that has knock on effects: chiefly students admitted on account of affirmative action are less likely to major in STEM and more likely to drop out [2]. In this regard, affirmative action exacerbates underrepresentation in employment sectors as students that want to major in STEM are mismatched and change majors to graduate.
I'm honestly struggling to figure out how you think anyone who disapproves of racial discrimination is ignorant of slavery and the struggle for civil rights. Is your worldview really so narrow that you assume anyone who disapproves of racial discrimination is ignorant of slavery and anti-Black discrimination?
1. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-center-chalkboard/2017/...
Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
And I feel the need to remind you of slavery as you do seem wholly ignorant of its existence and further relevance to this topic. My citations are not generic "Slavery existed" citations, they're "slavery existed and to this very day has a gigantic impact on black people in academia. citations.
You are wrong, and harmfully so. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
If this were the case, the study gap would have disappeared decades ago. But it persists nonetheless. On second thought, you're probably right but not in the way you thik: racial discrimination creates a lowered expectations for underrepresented groups and they put in effort accordingly.
> Affirmative action does not exacerbate underrepresentation in employment sectors at all; if anything it improves representation, as more minority students are given a chance at completing college, which changes the makeup of eligible employees towards a more equitable mixture.
Did you read the paper I linked? Probably not given that you responded 6 minutes after I posted the comment. Racial discrimination does increase representation, but it shifts the concentration of affected groups out of STEM and into less demanding majors. Before you try to blame this on racism inside the university, understand that the likelihood for students to graduate in STEM is the same across all races for the same level of academic preparedness. An Asian, white, Black, etc. student with 700s on their SAT are equally likely to graduate in STEM, as are students with 600s and 500s. An Asian student and a Black student with 700s on their SAT are just as likely to graduate in STEM. A white and Black student with 500s are less likely to graduate than the former two, but equally likely relative to each other. But due to affirmative action, there's a considerably greater share of black students in the latter situation. Worse yet, since these students often try and fail to graduate in their preferred field they take longer to graduate and come away with more student debt.
> You are wrong, and harmfully so. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
And I would say the exact same thing to you. You're wrong and harmfully so. The soft bigotry of low expectations is more subtle, but more insidious. Instead of pushing underrepresented students to invest more time into a academics and compete with their peers as equals, you're advocating that we simply lower standards. You can continue to be wrong, but as long as you are, you also continue to be harmful.
I always find it funny when people talk about "lowered expectations" Do you realize what you reveal about your own views when you say that? You're telling the world how you see minority groups as "lesser"; the only way they can succeed, according to you, is with the help being provided. How completely wrong and wildly ignorant of the actual goals and effects of affirmative action.
I've read the paper you linked before you linked it. I'm generally versed in this topic. The Brookings paper is relatively famous, but it's extremely narrowly focused, and doesn't even remotely conclude what you're trying to say here.
Ironically though, I gave you a dozen papers/articles to read, and you replied nearly instantly. This feels like an instance of projection; where you didn't read anything I have given you, but are not accusing me of doing what you yourself perpetrated.
Not only are you wrong, you're alone. Nearly nobody agrees with you who has worked in this space, the consensus is not on your side. Which is good for me and the push for equity, but is tiresome, cumbersome, and harmful in the meantime.
Actually, you're the one that's more alone in your support for racial discrimination than I am. The majority of Black people (62%) oppose the use of race in university admissions: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/25/most-americ...
I find it odd that you don't even know the views of the people you're supposedly supporting. Nearly two thirds of Black people disagree with you. Yet you claim I'm alone in my views despite being in agreement with the majority of Black Americans.
> I always find it funny when people talk about "lowered expectations" Do you realize what you reveal about your own views when you say that? You're telling the world how you see minority groups as "lesser";
I agree: that's exactly why racial discrimination is counterproductive. Do you not see the message you're sending when you expect an Asian student to be in the top 5% and a Black student to be in the top 50% for the same role? Do you realize what this says about your own views when this kind of scheme is implemented? And yes, disparities of that magnitude are what universities are applying: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2018/06/23/a-lawsuit...
And you haven't given me a single paper. Changes are you're mistaking me with another commenter: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34673386
What MLK has to say on this topic:
> “Whenever the issue of compensatory treatment for the Negro is raised, some of our friends recoil in horror. The Negro should be granted equality, they agree; but he should ask nothing more. On the surface, this appears reasonable, but it is not realistic.”
> “A society that has done something special against the Negro for hundreds of years must now do something special for the Negro.”
> “A section of the white population, perceiving Negro pressure for change, misconstrues it as a demand for privileges rather than as a desperate quest for existence. The ensuing white backlash intimidates government officials who are already too timorous.”
I am not alone. You are, full stop.
And you found my comment almost instantly. Comments are not "to" any individual or person, they're free to be read by anyone. I haven't confused anything, I simply understand how HN works.
It creates mismatch. The result is predictable. The "beneficiaries" of affirmative action have lower GPAs and are less likely to complete STEM majors because they are outmatched by students for whom the admissions bar was not bent.
Does it increase representation? At a point in time, yes. But if the goal is to get folks into the executive suite, affirmative action may actually be a step backward.
Should I get to play despite never having held a baseball bat?
You need to let me play, only then is it worth me starting to practice.
To which you replied:
>If your cultural group is substantially underrepresented in academia, why would you participate in academics? If you know the game is rigged against you, it’s perfectly reasonable not to play...
So are they expected to 'play the game' or not?
Define qualified? If a get an E (technically a pass) am I 'qualified' to the same extent as someone with an A?
If I get my basic baseball proficiency badge does that allow me to play against the best baseballers the world has to offer? Just because of my race?
Further. You do understand the future danger of all this? If I'm looking to hire graduates and I know the black kids had an easier time getting in. If I want the best im better off not looking at the black kids. Their piece of paper is worth less. Plus you're infantalising them. They should be getting there on their own merits. If they aren't doing the work to get the grades, that issue should be addressed, not papered over.
If you see a black person with an education from an institute like Harvard, you should think about the additional work they had to do to get there.
And by the way, those kids get the grades necessary to attend these schools. Why would you presume they don't?
Your position is/was that black kids put in less effort because racism.
So if black kids are putting in less effort because racism how can you then say they're putting in more work.
If they're trying and not getting in then that's something universities should be doing something about. If they aren't putting in the work universities shouldn't just be expected to accept lower grades. And the solution lies elsewhere.
You can't have it both ways. Either theres no point trying because the game is rigged. Or they're putting in more effort to get to the same position. If the latter then challenge the GPs assertion, instead of tacitly accepting it by saying that black kids aren't trying.
Are you claiming revising for an exam doesn't lead to better outcomes?
Because you'd be wrong.
Group A outperforming Group B does not mean that Group A is being given unfair opportunities. It certainly doesn't justify intentionally, and illegally, giving Group B undeserved opportunities to the detriment of Group A.
If you work from a false premise, you end up with false results. The motivation behind the desire to believe that everyone is equally capable at everything is a good one, and individuals should be treated as if they have equal potential regardless of their immutable characteristics. It would be great if all groups were great at everything. If it were possible, I would make it so. However, falling prey to treating "ought" as "is" leads to pathological behaviors, which is exactly what is happening to the well-intentioned members of this movement.
This is not true, genetically, and if you believe there is, that's a real problem for you.
As for the differences in these communities as a result of differing treatment by others, you're damn right there are differences, and to the degree that those differences are caused by discrimination and hatred (and it's a high degree), that's exactly what we're trying to slowly improve.
The problem with your egalitarian vision is that not everyone starts out on the same level, and if you ignore the systemic ways people are held back, you ruin any shot you might have at getting the end goal you seem to want, which seems to be "may the best person win".
We all want that end result, but until you deal with reality, that's never going to happen.
You still haven't explained how any of these people are being held back, though.
This is likely due to age. Things shift when women start having kids. What you observe is also true of childless women versus childless men of certain ages. It does not hold as broadly for women and men with children, in the same age range.
What you're referring to is the ongoing wage gap (women paid less than men) due to having time out to have kids.
The point being, women aren't paid less than men for no reason, just that they take time out to have children, that interruption is what leads to the pay gap.
It sounds like a fancy way of saying "the sign says no Homerssss. We're allowed to have one."
(From the Simpsons:) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwHGE7uhjco
It's interesting (by which I mean utterly unsurprising and completely typical but in a revealing way) that social class and money are not considered for "diversity" and are, in fact, rather pointedly ignored. This debunks the whole thing, but I'm sure the proponents will be incapable of understanding why.
>...ways of using the statements by reading them _prior_ to any other components of the application, scoring them using a rubric of their choice, and deciding which applicants to consider further using the entirety of the application. Exercising their discretion, faculty on some committees elected to move most applicants forward, while others (especially from the large colleges) preferred to continue with less than 50% of the original applicant pool.
So based solely on the DEI statement, some have rejected over 50% of the applicants without taking the rest of the application into consideration.
The proposition you failed to link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16
Does anyone actually check whether recipients of these de facto reparation actually have been affected by any of that? As far as I can tell, nobody does, because nobody cares, it’s literally just based on the skin color.
> The effects of redlining, as noted in HOLC maps, endures to the present time. A study released in 2018 found that 74 percent of neighborhoods that HOLC graded as high-risk or "hazardous" are low-to-moderate income neighborhoods today, while 64 percent of the neighborhoods graded "hazardous" are minority neighborhoods today. “It’s as if some of these places have been trapped in the past, locking neighborhoods into concentrated poverty,” said Jason Richardson, director of research at the NCRC, a consumer advocacy group.
The linked page[0] goes into more detail about how disastrous this was and the impact on wealth it has to this day. Considering how neighborhoods were even less integrated then than they are now, it's safe to say the correlation of redlining to skin color was very high.
0: https://www.investopedia.com/the-history-of-lending-discrimi...
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_Owners%27_Loan_Corporatio...
For many black skinned people in America, sure. For all? Certainly not. There are millions of African immigrants and their descendants in America, who have not experienced any of this. Does anyone bother to differentiate them from the American descendants of slaves? No, it really is all about skin color.
Reparations would at least be a coherent policy. But Prop 16 proponents also want the policies to favor Latinos, who given the demographics of California would by far be the primary beneficiary of such policies. But Latinos enjoy similar income mobility to whites. Favoring Latinos over whites isn’t “reparations” but just straight up racial discrimination. Ironically, Prop 16 was voted down in every single Latino-majority county in the state.
someone should send a memo to remind countless california institutions who nevertheless persist
The "grades part"?
We are talking about academic positions here, not student applications.
Welcome to the historical experience of numerous underprivileged people who were excluded through no fault of their own. But since DEI statements can be rewritten at any time, applicants are not stuck with the prospect of permanent exclusion.
I am not a fan of college administrators in general, nor of the heavy-handed bureaucratic approach described here. But administrators are looking for faculty who can produce more distinguished grads in the future, who might be 'the next Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk'. You could be an outstanding brain in your field, but if you're not interested in maximizing the search for undiscovered talent, are you likely to attract it to your school?
Emphasis on historical. You have to make sure not to swing the pendulum too far, otherwise you'll just end up creating a new generation of aggrieved people. Especially if your actions are themselves illegal.
> https://651d7eef-05d1-4785-8f04-93b49cc8d71f.filesusr.com/ug...
It seems like you are expected, as a staff member in a position to influence the diversity of your workplace and of the students whose educational experience you exercise power over, to do so in a manner consciences of issues of diversity, not even just in general, but in the specific context of your job.
I mean, just for instance, a low '1' rank is described as, among other things: (*my emphasis*)
> Defines diversity only in terms of different areas of study or different nationalities, but doesn’t discuss gender or ethnicity/race. Discusses diversity in vague terms or platitudes. Does not provide any evidence of having informed themselves about diversity. *May discount the importance of diversity.*
I mean - yeah, I wouldn't want someone who fits that description being in charge of my education, or my kid's education - I wouldn't even want to be around a coworker who fits that description. I'm not even sure how well it would work trying to be friends with someone like that - I mean, in this day and age? How could you possibly excuse being so irresponsibly underinformed of such an important issue?
Compare that to a high '5' rank: (again *my emphasis*)
> Clear knowledge of experience with, and interest in dimensions of diversity that result from having URM identities. This understanding can result from personal experiences *as well as an investment in learning about the URM experiences of those with identities different from their own* ... Comfort discussing diversity-related issues (including distinctions and connections between diversity, equity, and inclusion), both in writing, and in a job talk session and one-on-one meetings with students, staff, and faculty.
I mean - that sounds really good doesn't it? Why shouldn't that skill set make someone a more attractive candidate to hire? Isn't that all good stuff that we would all benefit from more people being well-versed in? Doesn't demonstrating that well-versedness indicate a willingness to put the work in, as required to help actively oppose systemic oppression and bigotry? (as opposed to merely paying lip service to an ideal?)
What would you rather see here?
Unfortunately for them, the job includes teaching a diverse classroom, so applicants who don’t give serious consideration on how they will do a critical aspect of the job, or even what are the salient issues, are rejected. This is true of any job.
Viewing race as a quaint and antiquated concept that is completely irrelevant to higher education.
It’s essentially the argument against “I don’t see colour” - the problem is that modern racists and the legacy of racism persists whether you see colour or not, and the targets of systemic oppression continue to experience repercussions whether you personally target them or not.
In other words, they don’t want employees to simply opt out of racism - that’s comparatively easy. They want employees to actively work against racism. That’s harder, and more worthy, and in my opinion worth actively seeking in new hires, especially in areas like education, politics, health and social services, and real estate that have an outsized impact on the accessibility of the American dream.
It’s not asking employees to pass a test to prove they’re not racist - it’s asking employees to be actively equipped to fight racism as part of their job description. Think of it like being hired for a UX/UI position - are you educated on Dark Patterns in user flows, and can you show experience in identifying and reversing them?
I don't know a single person who has anything genuinely thoughtful or insightful to say on these topics that I would describe as "comfortable" discussing them in the current environment.
You'd have to be exceedingly naive to feel like you can include any amount of nuance into the prevailing narrative, let alone push back against it, without opening yourself up to a slew of mendacious attacks on your character. In many places you can, but within academia or certain corners of the media it's downright risky. There seems to be a rotating example of the day of poorly informed and hyper-reactive school administrators coming down hard on faculty based on nothing at all. Like most recently, the thing with the images of Muhammad being shown in an Islamic history seminar with warnings included in the syllabus and before the lecture being attacked as "Islamophobic."
Nobody is ever comfortable talking about this stuff unless they're up on the current jargon and issues and willing to parrot whatever the approved dogmas and shibboleths of the moment happen to be.
I don’t personally know a single union master craftsman carpenter, but I have no problem acknowledging their existence, or their market value to employers. Why should this skill set be any difference?
Yes all of the problems you mention are real - so why should an employer not specifically look to hire individuals who are equipped to face them? Like seriously, in what other industry would you protest the necessity of being conversant in applicable jargon? If I walk into a technical interview, and they ask me to use a ternary statement to assign an enum value to a constant based on whether the result of performing a spread operation on a collection of tuples yadda yadda yadda… do you really think my smug “I don’t keep up on shibboleths and dogma” is going to make me look like an appealing candidate?
They’re asking that applicants demonstrate their awareness of the current lay of the land when it comes to systemic oppression. Why should lack of awareness and lack of ability or willingness to engage with these issues be attractive when hiring? these are important issues, the handling of which are essential to the continued effort to reverse the effects of bigotry in our country. You might not want to do the work yourself, but that doesn’t mean the work doesn’t need to be done, and it doesn’t mean there aren’t people out there who are much better qualified than you to do it.
Because it's not the lay of the land when it comes to systemic oppression. It's the lay of the land as perceived by a clade of under-qualified and unaware administrative functionaries. These people are operating off vibes and public outcry, not any research or evidence backed understanding of history or sociology or policy analysis. The images of Muhammad example is a perfect case because that's exactly what happened. The DEI initiatives were used as a cudgel by the most extreme elements of Islamic movements to impinge on the academic freedom of the professor, and they just dressed up their highly conservative point of view in DEI jargon to manipulate the administration into taking action against her. But all the Muslims who did not agree with that perspective, as well as most scholars of Islamic history, had way more nuanced perspectives on the issue that agreed with the professor. This is basically just an instrument for the administration to erode worker power among an already beleaguered and exploited labor force.
It's also not really germane to most of their disciplines. It would be like asking a mathematician about their knowledge of epidemiology during the COVID pandemic. Why would I expect that of a mathematician? I expect them to do math and to follow whatever directives the public health experts tell them to.
I don't actually think conscripting random people whose core expertise is not policy or equity into doing bootleg equity initiatives are actually going to result in very good policies or a very accurate understanding of equity or diversity issues. I think what it actually ends up getting you is more people who operate off vibes and truthiness they picked up from social media instead.
The issue isn't that people care about diversity or equity, the issue is that this is done in such ham-fisted, lazy, and counterproductive means.
As to whether it's germane to their disciplines - my understanding is that it's germane because of the position they are in as educators, as employees of educational institutions, not because of their particular discipline. Of course you don't need to need to know anything about the modern concept of diversity to be a mathematician - you need that concept to be an effective teacher. Every one of those people in that class room is a whole person, with an entire life leading up to that day of attendance - "Why would I expect that of a mathematician?" - because you should expect that of everyone, but especially of people in positions of power, who have the ability to either reinforce or disrupt systems of oppression. That's the angle.
The suspicion is that inclusion of these diversity statements in the hiring process is a way to stealthily discriminate on the basis of race when it is ostensibly illegal to do so.