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Meanwhile, the University of California seems to have implemented a DEI litmus test on all applications for faculty positions and promotion. Does anyone know if

by onos 5y ago

Meanwhile, the University of California seems to have implemented a DEI litmus test on all applications for faculty positions and promotion. Does anyone know if this is actually true? Is this reasonable? https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/01/wokeademia.html?m=1 https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2020/01/wokeademia.html?m...

sdoering 5y ago
Just as a side note. The link to this post was flagged after being submitted to HN yesterday within a very short time frame. You might want to consider your karma points and preemptively remove it and pay your dues to the community by apologizing for not adhering to group speak. I very much stand on the left side of the political spectrum, while the linked blogpost clearly comes from the liberal to right spectrum. But I still think that the old Rosa Luxemburg quote should apply: > Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter (Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden) I valued the posting yesterday as it provided differing views that made me think, evaluate and understand my own position better afterwards. Edit: Please excuse my sarcasm in the first paragraphs, but I was troubled yesterday that the link was flagged to death and that not a civil discussion was able to arise. I was only used to this way of dealing with dissenting opinions on other forums until then.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > You might want to consider your karma points Karma points are worth less than skee-ball tickets.
  - sdoering 5y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree. That's the reason I used the term in the sarcastic part.
- skrebbel 5y ago
  I think you're mistaking groupthink for people who are simply tired of seeing the same old culture war debate on HN repeated over and over again. Plenty HN discussions about exactly this subject in the past have shown that: 1. Unlike some subjects, HN commenters have widely differing opinions here. The free speech hardliners and the anti disinformation/bigotry/*ism hardliners are both well represented, and many on both sides are capable of intelligent debate. 2. Nevertheless, the discussion never really gets anywhere. Nobody adds new information and nobody convinces anybody. I might be projecting, but i can imagine that many people flagged it with a "here we go again" sigh and not with the "must suppress anti woke sentiments!!" thought you. I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much.
  - syshum 5y ago
    On #2, I dont engage with others really to change the mind of the person I am engaging with. That is much to hard and a high bar. No, I engage to ensure there is a dissenting view point read by observers to the debate, those people I can sway with my arguments, the people that simply read HN never commenting themselves. That is my target. I want to ensure HN is not just an echo chamber of one political ideological take on a political topic >>I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much. That has not been my observation. HN is less Echo chambery than say Reddits political subs but there is still a clear political bent here
  - sdoering 5y ago
    While I completely understand the need for why underrepresented groups should be given preference in certain application and hiring processes, I still carry a desire that this would not be necessary. I do not judge people I interact with based on their gender, skin color, race, or such irrelevancies. I judge them by how they behave toward me. In the process, many stereotypical "old white men" come off very badly. Although I am almost an old white man myself. I wish for a world where it doesn't matter what gender someone identifies by or what that person is doing in bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table, or anywhere else with anyone else. And of course I know that this argument is misused to sweep systematic discrimination of social groups under the carpet. That's why I'm not in favor of judging members of such groups only on the basis of performance criteria that favor people who were born and raised in a privileged situation by a lucky coincidence. Nevertheless, I find it important to deal with the argument that, in a better world, we should not judge anyone by such criteria. It should not play a role in an ideal world. And I believe that with our ever increasing diversification we are playing into the hands of those who want a divided, disunited society/opposition. Divide et impera has always been a very successful strategy and it has always been successful to play individual sub-groups off against each other, even though they have much more in common than what divides them. So I personally consider it a gain to deal with dissenting opinions. And be it in the worst case only to sharpen and polish my own arguments.
raxxorrax 5y ago
> Is this reasonable? Absolutely not. This incentivises the worst characters and abuse of power. DIE is the most impotent advertising for social justice that I have ever seen. I support social justice in most cases, it a basic requirement for society and every society has some form of it implemented. But I also support humanism and enlightenment which DIE proponents very quickly leave behind. DIE put me off of it pretty quickly. I believe California is selling entitlement instead of education here. And that entitlement firmly includes knowing better than anyone else and the justification is that they do it for the greater good. We had that countless times in human history and the result was always the same. If you want to see the result of underfunded education, it may very well be California. Maybe it should not be surprising to find it there since the contrast of wealth is pronounced. It is hard not to become reactionary to DIE, they should just be ignored in the best case. It just behaves like religeous fundamentalism, they believe there are countless Nazis all around them and are themselves reactionaries.
db48x 5y ago
How can it not be true? Berkely posts a detailed rubric for grading DEI statements on their own website, for all to see: https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own.
- ModernMech 5y ago
  > It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own. That's not really what's going on here. First of all, you're not really understanding the faculty hiring process. The DEI aspect is just one of many considered, and the people who have most direct impact on the hiring process are the department and college dean, not the DEI office who produced this website. Secondly, to the extent that DEI statements/rubrics are considered as part of the application, they are done so because they relate specifically to the job. It's a faculty's explicit purpose to teach and manage a diverse classroom. If you look at the rubric, the low scoring results would indicate an applicant has no working knowledge or experience in diversity. This is a job requirement because the student body is diverse. This is not a purity test or an ideological test. Notice the rubric says nothing about beliefs. This is about knowledge and experience. Experienced teachers will be able to speak cogently about DEI issues, and they will pass this with no problem. Applicants who never taught anything, and who believe the job is to do research and treat teaching as an afterthought will not to well. That's just how it is. But it's not a litmus test or a purity test or an ideological filter. It's about ability to do the job as it's advertised.
  - zozbot234 5y ago
    The DEI aspect is "one of many considered", but the scoring rubric says that applicants who do not score above a cutoff on DEI issues will not be considered. It's in fact not scoring neutral "knowledge" of posited DEI issues but ideological belief in their relevance, and it scores "experience" in furthering DEI by matching the adherence of said 'experience' to an especially divisive and controversial approach, and demanding impact on teaching and research activities that ought to be protected from ideological bias per well-known academic norms of neutrality. The requirements are worded in a misleading manner that makes them appear like they're not demanding anything more than the status quo, but they absolutely are.
oefrha 5y ago
Damn, this is actually a lot worse than it sounds. Rather than requiring an arguably hollow oath like the infamous UC loyalty oath from the 50s, they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that. You don’t get a job without demonstrating tangible contributions to DEI in the past (no, treating everyone equally doesn’t count) and plans to promote it in the future. According to UC Davis math chair Abigail Thompson:[0] > Nearly all University of California campuses require that job applicants submit a “contributions to diversity” statement as a part of their application. The campuses evaluate such statements using rubrics, a detailed scoring system. Several UC programs have used these diversity statements to screen out candidates early in the search process. > A typical rubric from UC Berkeley[1] specifies that a statement that “describes only activities that are already the expectation of Berkeley faculty (mentoring, treating all students the same regardless of background, etc)” (italics mine) merits a score of 1–2 out of a possible 5 (1 worst and 5 best) in the second section of the rubric, the “track record for advancing diversity” category. > The diversity “score” is becoming central in the hiring process. Hiring committees are being urged to start the review process by using officially provided rubrics to score the required diversity statements and to eliminate applicants who don’t achieve a scoring cut-off. [0] https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf [1] https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... Glad I’m no longer in the academic job market… Edit: And I wonder if and when these will start to appear in PhD applications, as PhD students are employees in a sense and often need to teach, too.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  > they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that Doesn't this explicitly incent applicants to lie by misrepresenting their views and past "contributions to DEI" as more pro-DEI than they actually are? I'm not sure how this requirement is compatible with rather basic norms of academic ethics.
  - colpabar 5y ago
rsfern 5y ago
DEI - the post is talking about the diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. Most departments (including at MIT) seem to be asking for one along with research and teaching statements these days, it’s not just the UC system. Calling it a “litmus test” seems like a biased take though. Here’s some context from UT on that search Connie’ committees are looking for https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/drafting-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-statement https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/drafting-diversity-equity...

by onos 5y ago

sdoering 5y ago

Just as a side note. The link to this post was flagged after being submitted to HN yesterday within a very short time frame. You might want to consider your karma points and preemptively remove it and pay your dues to the community by apologizing for not adhering to group speak. I very much stand on the left side of the political spectrum, while the linked blogpost clearly comes from the liberal to right spectrum. But I still think that the old Rosa Luxemburg quote should apply: > Freedom is always the freedom of the dissenter (Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit der Andersdenkenden) I valued the posting yesterday as it provided differing views that made me think, evaluate and understand my own position better afterwards. Edit: Please excuse my sarcasm in the first paragraphs, but I was troubled yesterday that the link was flagged to death and that not a civil discussion was able to arise. I was only used to this way of dealing with dissenting opinions on other forums until then.

pessimizer 5y ago
> You might want to consider your karma points Karma points are worth less than skee-ball tickets.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I wholeheartedly agree. That's the reason I used the term in the sarcastic part.
skrebbel 5y ago
I think you're mistaking groupthink for people who are simply tired of seeing the same old culture war debate on HN repeated over and over again. Plenty HN discussions about exactly this subject in the past have shown that: 1. Unlike some subjects, HN commenters have widely differing opinions here. The free speech hardliners and the anti disinformation/bigotry/*ism hardliners are both well represented, and many on both sides are capable of intelligent debate. 2. Nevertheless, the discussion never really gets anywhere. Nobody adds new information and nobody convinces anybody. I might be projecting, but i can imagine that many people flagged it with a "here we go again" sigh and not with the "must suppress anti woke sentiments!!" thought you. I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much.
- syshum 5y ago
  On #2, I dont engage with others really to change the mind of the person I am engaging with. That is much to hard and a high bar. No, I engage to ensure there is a dissenting view point read by observers to the debate, those people I can sway with my arguments, the people that simply read HN never commenting themselves. That is my target. I want to ensure HN is not just an echo chamber of one political ideological take on a political topic >>I bet comparably inflammatory articles from the woke side of the debate are flagged equally much. That has not been my observation. HN is less Echo chambery than say Reddits political subs but there is still a clear political bent here
- sdoering 5y ago
  While I completely understand the need for why underrepresented groups should be given preference in certain application and hiring processes, I still carry a desire that this would not be necessary. I do not judge people I interact with based on their gender, skin color, race, or such irrelevancies. I judge them by how they behave toward me. In the process, many stereotypical "old white men" come off very badly. Although I am almost an old white man myself. I wish for a world where it doesn't matter what gender someone identifies by or what that person is doing in bed, on the couch, at the kitchen table, or anywhere else with anyone else. And of course I know that this argument is misused to sweep systematic discrimination of social groups under the carpet. That's why I'm not in favor of judging members of such groups only on the basis of performance criteria that favor people who were born and raised in a privileged situation by a lucky coincidence. Nevertheless, I find it important to deal with the argument that, in a better world, we should not judge anyone by such criteria. It should not play a role in an ideal world. And I believe that with our ever increasing diversification we are playing into the hands of those who want a divided, disunited society/opposition. Divide et impera has always been a very successful strategy and it has always been successful to play individual sub-groups off against each other, even though they have much more in common than what divides them. So I personally consider it a gain to deal with dissenting opinions. And be it in the worst case only to sharpen and polish my own arguments.

raxxorrax 5y ago

> Is this reasonable? Absolutely not. This incentivises the worst characters and abuse of power. DIE is the most impotent advertising for social justice that I have ever seen. I support social justice in most cases, it a basic requirement for society and every society has some form of it implemented. But I also support humanism and enlightenment which DIE proponents very quickly leave behind. DIE put me off of it pretty quickly. I believe California is selling entitlement instead of education here. And that entitlement firmly includes knowing better than anyone else and the justification is that they do it for the greater good. We had that countless times in human history and the result was always the same. If you want to see the result of underfunded education, it may very well be California. Maybe it should not be surprising to find it there since the contrast of wealth is pronounced. It is hard not to become reactionary to DIE, they should just be ignored in the best case. It just behaves like religeous fundamentalism, they believe there are countless Nazis all around them and are themselves reactionaries.

db48x 5y ago

How can it not be true? Berkely posts a detailed rubric for grading DEI statements on their own website, for all to see: https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own.

ModernMech 5y ago
> It is clear that they won’t hire anyone who doesn’t express beliefs identical to their own. That's not really what's going on here. First of all, you're not really understanding the faculty hiring process. The DEI aspect is just one of many considered, and the people who have most direct impact on the hiring process are the department and college dean, not the DEI office who produced this website. Secondly, to the extent that DEI statements/rubrics are considered as part of the application, they are done so because they relate specifically to the job. It's a faculty's explicit purpose to teach and manage a diverse classroom. If you look at the rubric, the low scoring results would indicate an applicant has no working knowledge or experience in diversity. This is a job requirement because the student body is diverse. This is not a purity test or an ideological test. Notice the rubric says nothing about beliefs. This is about knowledge and experience. Experienced teachers will be able to speak cogently about DEI issues, and they will pass this with no problem. Applicants who never taught anything, and who believe the job is to do research and treat teaching as an afterthought will not to well. That's just how it is. But it's not a litmus test or a purity test or an ideological filter. It's about ability to do the job as it's advertised.
- zozbot234 5y ago
  The DEI aspect is "one of many considered", but the scoring rubric says that applicants who do not score above a cutoff on DEI issues will not be considered. It's in fact not scoring neutral "knowledge" of posited DEI issues but ideological belief in their relevance, and it scores "experience" in furthering DEI by matching the adherence of said 'experience' to an especially divisive and controversial approach, and demanding impact on teaching and research activities that ought to be protected from ideological bias per well-known academic norms of neutrality. The requirements are worded in a misleading manner that makes them appear like they're not demanding anything more than the status quo, but they absolutely are.

oefrha 5y ago

Damn, this is actually a lot worse than it sounds. Rather than requiring an arguably hollow oath like the infamous UC loyalty oath from the 50s, they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that. You don’t get a job without demonstrating tangible contributions to DEI in the past (no, treating everyone equally doesn’t count) and plans to promote it in the future. According to UC Davis math chair Abigail Thompson:[0] > Nearly all University of California campuses require that job applicants submit a “contributions to diversity” statement as a part of their application. The campuses evaluate such statements using rubrics, a detailed scoring system. Several UC programs have used these diversity statements to screen out candidates early in the search process. > A typical rubric from UC Berkeley[1] specifies that a statement that “describes only activities that are already the expectation of Berkeley faculty (mentoring, treating all students the same regardless of background, etc)” (italics mine) merits a score of 1–2 out of a possible 5 (1 worst and 5 best) in the second section of the rubric, the “track record for advancing diversity” category. > The diversity “score” is becoming central in the hiring process. Hiring committees are being urged to start the review process by using officially provided rubrics to score the required diversity statements and to eliminate applicants who don’t achieve a scoring cut-off. [0] https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf [1] https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/rubric-assessing-candidate-contributions-diversity-equity https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversit... Glad I’m no longer in the academic job market… Edit: And I wonder if and when these will start to appear in PhD applications, as PhD students are employees in a sense and often need to teach, too.

zozbot234 5y ago
> they actually grade each applicant against “DEI” rubrics and eliminate applicants based on that Doesn't this explicitly incent applicants to lie by misrepresenting their views and past "contributions to DEI" as more pro-DEI than they actually are? I'm not sure how this requirement is compatible with rather basic norms of academic ethics.
- colpabar 5y ago

rsfern 5y ago

DEI - the post is talking about the diversity, equity, and inclusion statement. Most departments (including at MIT) seem to be asking for one along with research and teaching statements these days, it’s not just the UC system. Calling it a “litmus test” seems like a biased take though. Here’s some context from UT on that search Connie’ committees are looking for https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/drafting-diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei-statement https://facultyinnovate.utexas.edu/drafting-diversity-equity...