MIT Confirms it will no longer require diversity statements for hiring

[OSR stands with Israel]

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/us/mit-diversity-statements-faculty-hiring.html

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said on Monday that it would no longer require candidates applying for faculty positions to write diversity statements, which have been denounced by conservatives and free-speech advocates as forcing a kind of ideological conformity.

In their statements, generally a page-long, candidates were required to explain how they would enhance the university’s commitment to diversity.

Such statements have become enshrined in faculty hiring at many elite public and private universities, as well as in corporate life. Academics have defended them as necessary in judging whether a faculty member can reach out to an increasingly diverse student body.

In announcing the change, M.I.T.’s president, Sally Kornbluth, said diversity statements constituted a form of compelled speech that do not work.

So not a full scale removal of DEI but effectively a scale back of it

[lfromnj]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

[HisGrace]

Good move, feels like it's finally starting to move a little bit the other way on this stuff. Those things are just cloaked ideological litmus tests to make sure you agree with affirmative action or whatever else before they hire you. If it was a "Patriotism Statement" to make sure you agreed with certain right wing political views of course words like "McCarthyist" and "Fascist" would be tossed around.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

[HisGrace]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/sfmcguire79/status/1792516696520941568

Interestingly even Harvard has 1/3 of its professors not wanting this stuff.

[Ancestral Republican]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

What an absurd, dumb strawman.

[Ancestral Republican]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

Yeah, people are protesting Israel because le woke DEI lmao.

Have not at all been impressed by your contributions of late.

[lfromnj]

    Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

Yeah, people are protesting Israel because le woke DEI lmao.

Have not at all been impressed by your contributions of late.

You never were impressed, so stop acting like you ever thought PIT was a good poster.
What he's saying is that the universities effectively encourage left wing activism like that kid who got accepted into Stanford after writing in his essay BLM 100 times over. Now unsurprisingly these same kids are behind the Pro Palestine protests.

[OSR stands with Israel]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

Yeah, people are protesting Israel because le woke DEI lmao.

Have not at all been impressed by your contributions of late.

No , it’s that the driving factor behind DEI and these protests are similar which is how insanely left wing liberal arts programs have become .

[lfromnj]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

What an absurd, dumb strawman.

Genuine question, do you actually have a defense of the UC's deciding to throw away 70% of all applicants based on this one statement?

[quesaisje]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

[HisGrace]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

What an absurd, dumb strawman.

Absolutely not a strawman, you've had the woke left outright arguing for discrimination in Asians in education and employment so there won't be "too many" of them, and some of the glossy progressive web magazines (forget if it was Slate, The New Yorker or whoever) were even saying violent hate crimes against Asians committed by black people shouldn't be considered hate crimes because Asians are "white adjacent". Then of course there's all the antisemitic rhetoric that's come out post Gaza conflict.

This particular strand of the white left's self hatred runs so deep that they're even taking it out on other ethnic groups who they think are too white. There should be an entire branch of clinical therapy dedicated to trying to cure these people. Someone needs to tell them slavery, segregation, and even George Floyd dying aren't their fault like that scene in Good Will Hunting, because they don't know regardless of what they try to say.

[SInNYC]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

I've often wondered where this number came from too. In most schools, the filtering is done by individual departments - after all, what could a sociology prof say about a math phd's thesis? The diversity office doesnt get involved until much later in the stage, typically right before the final stage of in person interviews. Most diversity offices accept what the department picks unless everybody they pick is a white male and the applicant pool isnt.

Now its possible that the application process involves uploading assorted statements and somebody decided they didnt want to upload their DEI statement, but that would apply to all statements. For some reason, there are many who think they are qualified to be a professor - this includes undergrads who think they can be an English prof because they got an A in Eng 101.  These typically just submit a resume and have multiple missing parts. Even pre-DEI days up to half of applications were like this.

[jojoju1998]

    Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

What an absurd, dumb strawman.

Absolutely not a strawman, you've had the woke left outright arguing for discrimination in Asians in education and employment so there won't be "too many" of them, and some of the glossy progressive web magazines (forget if it was Slate, The New Yorker or whoever) were even saying violent hate crimes against Asians committed by black people shouldn't be considered hate crimes because Asians are "white adjacent". Then of course there's all the antisemitic rhetoric that's come out post Gaza conflict.

This particular strand of the white left's self hatred runs so deep that they're even taking it out on other ethnic groups who they think are too white. There should be an entire branch of clinical therapy dedicated to trying to cure these people. Someone needs to tell them slavery, segregation, and even George Floyd dying aren't their fault like that scene in Good Will Hunting, because they don't know regardless of what they try to say.

The biggest irony is that often times, these people just 20-30 years before would be the suburban white conservatives who would vote against tax hikes to fund social democratic programs, or oppose school busing.

The Culture Wars have completely turned American politics upside down.

[Ancestral Republican]

    Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

Yeah, people are protesting Israel because le woke DEI lmao.

Have not at all been impressed by your contributions of late.

You never were impressed, so stop acting like you ever thought PIT was a good poster.
What he's saying is that the universities effectively encourage left wing activism like that kid who got accepted into Stanford after writing in his essay BLM 100 times over. Now unsurprisingly these same kids are behind the Pro Palestine protests.

You got me there.

[jojoju1998]

I'll share this article again for people to read, if they can. https://www.liberalpatriot.com/p/class-conflict-and-the-democratic

"Many knowledge economy professionals support ostensibly “radical” socioeconomic policies, but in a way that prevents even modest reforms. For instance, they tend to be much more critical of capitalism in principle than many other Americans. They tend to support “the revolution” (however defined) in the abstract, but because revolution does not appear to be in the offing anytime soon (certainly not a leftist revolution) they largely carry on day-to-day in much the same fashion as their liberal peers. If anything, under the auspices of slogans like “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” leftist professionals may show even less willingness to make practical changes in their own lives, institutions, and communities to advance their espoused social justice goals. Individual sacrifices or changes, it is commonly argued, are futile; nothing shy of systemic change is worth aspiring towards."

The Professionalization of the Democratic Party has not been positive. At all.

[Ancestral Republican]

    Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I think things were starting to move just a little in the other direction before this, but seeing woke bigotry directed at groups of people besides unambiguously "white" anglos revealed to the establishment left how ugly it was. Same with the anti Asian rhetoric from some corners in the midst of last year's affirmative action debate.

What an absurd, dumb strawman.

Absolutely not a strawman, you've had the woke left outright arguing for discrimination in Asians in education and employment so there won't be "too many" of them, and some of the glossy progressive web magazines (forget if it was Slate, The New Yorker or whoever) were even saying violent hate crimes against Asians committed by black people shouldn't be considered hate crimes because Asians are "white adjacent". Then of course there's all the antisemitic rhetoric that's come out post Gaza conflict.

This particular strand of the white left's self hatred runs so deep that they're even taking it out on other ethnic groups who they think are too white. There should be an entire branch of clinical therapy dedicated to trying to cure these people. Someone needs to tell them slavery, segregation, and even George Floyd dying aren't their fault like that scene in Good Will Hunting, because they don't know regardless of what they try to say.

This rant is pretty emblematic of how much the DEI boogeyman is based on emotions, not fact.

[lfromnj]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

I've often wondered where this number came from too. In most schools, the filtering is done by individual departments - after all, what could a sociology prof say about a math phd's thesis? The diversity office doesnt get involved until much later in the stage, typically right before the final stage of in person interviews. Most diversity offices accept what the department picks unless everybody they pick is a white male and the applicant pool isnt.

Now its possible that the application process involves uploading assorted statements and somebody decided they didnt want to upload their DEI statement, but that would apply to all statements. For some reason, there are many who think they are qualified to be a professor - this includes undergrads who think they can be an English prof because they got an A in Eng 101.  These typically just submit a resume and have multiple missing parts. Even pre-DEI days up to half of applications were like this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/hypocrisy-mandatory-diversity-statements/674611/
Cited article.

https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3608&context=lawreview

This is not a toothless requirement. For instance, in a pilot program at UC
Berkeley in Life Sciences, all but 214 of 893 qualified applicants were
eliminated because their diversity statement did not meet the school’s “high
standard.”236 In other words, seventy-six percent of qualified applicants were
rejected without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history,
their potential for academic excellence, or their ability to contribute to their field.
As far as the university knew, these applicants could have well been the next
Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and
innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students’ lives.
At UC Davis, in some departments over fifty percent of the applicants were
eliminated using this same methodology.237 In addition, the initial review of
diversity statements is increasingly being shif

Ok so it wasn't 70% of all applicants but it was true for atleast one division. It probably depends a lot on the exact division. A division filled with less wokes would probably not have as high as a 75% rejection rate but the fact it is 75% suggests it isn't a writing sample but actively used to suppress views they don't like in that particular division. The other option is they just use it to figure out the race of each applicant .

[Ancestral Republican]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

I've often wondered where this number came from too. In most schools, the filtering is done by individual departments - after all, what could a sociology prof say about a math phd's thesis? The diversity office doesnt get involved until much later in the stage, typically right before the final stage of in person interviews. Most diversity offices accept what the department picks unless everybody they pick is a white male and the applicant pool isnt.

Now its possible that the application process involves uploading assorted statements and somebody decided they didnt want to upload their DEI statement, but that would apply to all statements. For some reason, there are many who think they are qualified to be a professor - this includes undergrads who think they can be an English prof because they got an A in Eng 101.  These typically just submit a resume and have multiple missing parts. Even pre-DEI days up to half of applications were like this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/hypocrisy-mandatory-diversity-statements/674611/
Cited article.

https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3608&context=lawreview

This is not a toothless requirement. For instance, in a pilot program at UC
Berkeley in Life Sciences, all but 214 of 893 qualified applicants were
eliminated because their diversity statement did not meet the school’s “high
standard.”236 In other words, seventy-six percent of qualified applicants were
rejected without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history,
their potential for academic excellence, or their ability to contribute to their field.
As far as the university knew, these applicants could have well been the next
Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and
innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students’ lives.
At UC Davis, in some departments over fifty percent of the applicants were
eliminated using this same methodology.237 In addition, the initial review of
diversity statements is increasingly being shif

Ok so it wasn't 70% of all applicants but it was true for atleast one division. It probably depends a lot on the exact division. A division filled with less wokes would probably not have as high as a 75% rejection rate but the fact it is 75% suggests it isn't a writing sample but actively used to suppress views they don't like in that particular division. The other option is they just use it to figure out the race of each applicant .

According to the lawsuit, Haltigan believes in “colorblind inclusivity,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “merit-based evaluation”

"I'm a fascist and I demand that be respected"

[jojoju1998]

81 percent of MIT Students are considered affluent.

So....

[Farmlands]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

I've often wondered where this number came from too. In most schools, the filtering is done by individual departments - after all, what could a sociology prof say about a math phd's thesis? The diversity office doesnt get involved until much later in the stage, typically right before the final stage of in person interviews. Most diversity offices accept what the department picks unless everybody they pick is a white male and the applicant pool isnt.

Now its possible that the application process involves uploading assorted statements and somebody decided they didnt want to upload their DEI statement, but that would apply to all statements. For some reason, there are many who think they are qualified to be a professor - this includes undergrads who think they can be an English prof because they got an A in Eng 101.  These typically just submit a resume and have multiple missing parts. Even pre-DEI days up to half of applications were like this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/hypocrisy-mandatory-diversity-statements/674611/
Cited article.

https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3608&context=lawreview

This is not a toothless requirement. For instance, in a pilot program at UC
Berkeley in Life Sciences, all but 214 of 893 qualified applicants were
eliminated because their diversity statement did not meet the school’s “high
standard.”236 In other words, seventy-six percent of qualified applicants were
rejected without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history,
their potential for academic excellence, or their ability to contribute to their field.
As far as the university knew, these applicants could have well been the next
Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and
innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students’ lives.
At UC Davis, in some departments over fifty percent of the applicants were
eliminated using this same methodology.237 In addition, the initial review of
diversity statements is increasingly being shif

Ok so it wasn't 70% of all applicants but it was true for atleast one division. It probably depends a lot on the exact division. A division filled with less wokes would probably not have as high as a 75% rejection rate but the fact it is 75% suggests it isn't a writing sample but actively used to suppress views they don't like in that particular division. The other option is they just use it to figure out the race of each applicant .

According to the lawsuit, Haltigan believes in “colorblind inclusivity,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “merit-based evaluation”

"I'm a fascist and I demand that be respected"

Genuine question, are you trolling, or actually fully serious in that viewpoint diversity and merit assessments are fascist ideology? I know losing all those races in Oregon and other places lately must be very tough on the mind, but maybe I'm just out of touch with progressivism nowadays.

[Ancestral Republican]

Yeah I was thinking on the unconfirmed source that why would anyone exactly lie about that? Usually right wingers would want to make up random stuff that makes the left look crazy except this showcased sanity.


As I stated earlier 70% of all applicants in the UC's are thrown out solely based on this singlular statement.

I've run across this number before, but not with much context. Which ones are getting tossed? Is this comparable to how employers screen out lots of job applicants because the cover letter is the one place where they can't conceal poor language skills?

It doesn't seem difficult to put a decent statement together as long as you know how to write, and you could probably use an AI tool to generate ideas and help with composition even if you weren't familiar with the convention or any good at writing in English.

I've often wondered where this number came from too. In most schools, the filtering is done by individual departments - after all, what could a sociology prof say about a math phd's thesis? The diversity office doesnt get involved until much later in the stage, typically right before the final stage of in person interviews. Most diversity offices accept what the department picks unless everybody they pick is a white male and the applicant pool isnt.

Now its possible that the application process involves uploading assorted statements and somebody decided they didnt want to upload their DEI statement, but that would apply to all statements. For some reason, there are many who think they are qualified to be a professor - this includes undergrads who think they can be an English prof because they got an A in Eng 101.  These typically just submit a resume and have multiple missing parts. Even pre-DEI days up to half of applications were like this.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/07/hypocrisy-mandatory-diversity-statements/674611/
Cited article.

https://scholarship.law.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3608&context=lawreview

This is not a toothless requirement. For instance, in a pilot program at UC
Berkeley in Life Sciences, all but 214 of 893 qualified applicants were
eliminated because their diversity statement did not meet the school’s “high
standard.”236 In other words, seventy-six percent of qualified applicants were
rejected without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history,
their potential for academic excellence, or their ability to contribute to their field.
As far as the university knew, these applicants could have well been the next
Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and
innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students’ lives.
At UC Davis, in some departments over fifty percent of the applicants were
eliminated using this same methodology.237 In addition, the initial review of
diversity statements is increasingly being shif

Ok so it wasn't 70% of all applicants but it was true for atleast one division. It probably depends a lot on the exact division. A division filled with less wokes would probably not have as high as a 75% rejection rate but the fact it is 75% suggests it isn't a writing sample but actively used to suppress views they don't like in that particular division. The other option is they just use it to figure out the race of each applicant .

According to the lawsuit, Haltigan believes in “colorblind inclusivity,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “merit-based evaluation”

"I'm a fascist and I demand that be respected"

Genuine question, are you trolling, or actually fully serious in that viewpoint diversity and merit assessments are fascist ideology? I know losing all those races in Oregon and other places lately must be very tough on the mind, but maybe I'm just out of touch with progressivism nowadays.

Genuine question, are you trolling or do you not understand that people dog whistling about "viewpoint diversity" usually have repulsive views?

I'm positive this Haltigan fella's motivation is more on the "had to go to HR a few too many times" than some bollocks about academic diversity.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

     Encouraging to see this happen. I wonder if the recent pro-Hamas student protests revealing how out-of-touch universities have become with the general population played a role in encouraging them to roll back some of the features that helped create this situation.

I'd be very surprised if it had very much or anything to do with the Gaza protests. This kind of decision making (including considering legal implications) is very slow at universities so it's unlikely they'd reverse policy like this in under a month with no prior planning. (Plus it's a very weak link to connect supposedly embarrasing student conduct to faculty hiring...)

"Many knowledge economy professionals support ostensibly “radical” socioeconomic policies, but in a way that prevents even modest reforms. For instance, they tend to be much more critical of capitalism in principle than many other Americans. They tend to support “the revolution” (however defined) in the abstract, but because revolution does not appear to be in the offing anytime soon (certainly not a leftist revolution) they largely carry on day-to-day in much the same fashion as their liberal peers. If anything, under the auspices of slogans like “there is no ethical consumption under capitalism” leftist professionals may show even less willingness to make practical changes in their own lives, institutions, and communities to advance their espoused social justice goals. Individual sacrifices or changes, it is commonly argued, are futile; nothing shy of systemic change is worth aspiring towards."

A simpler, and not mutually exclusive, cause for this behavior in the quote is that for many (many) people revolutionary politics is simply an aesthetic and not a sincerely held (or seriously considered) belief system.