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.