5 ms·

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/c

• 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.
    • ModernMech 5y ago
      > but the scoring rubric says that applicants Like I said, "the scoring rubric" is not the arbiter of the faculty hiring process. Neither is the DEI office. It's not just one of many things considered, it's quite minimal when stacked next to research experience. That said, a cutoff here is entirely appropriate. Look at what the lowest scoring entries are on the rubric. They are characterized statements of this caliber as as "vague", "little expressed knowledge", "little demonstrated awareness", "seems to be not aware", "no specifics", "brief descriptions" etc. Why would a department want to accept a faculty member who communicates vaguely, with no specifics, and seem unaware of the salient issues? This isn't about "They don't believe the right things". It's about "They don't believe anything". And anyway, you're giving the rubric more rigidity than it deserves just because it's presented as a rubric. It explicitly states this: These examples are offered as illustrative suggestions; they are neither exhaustive nor ironclad. They can be modified to fit the academic and disciplinary backgrounds of applicants in a particular search. Faculty members in individual units should use their disciplinary expertise to understand what examples are likely most appropriate for their particular department or search. So really, this whole document is just a fancy way to frame a suggestion that you should really think hard about DEI issues on your application.
      • db48x 5y ago
        > So really, this whole document is just a fancy way to frame a suggestion that you should really think hard about DEI issues on your application. This is exactly what we mean by an ideological test. Ideological tests are useful in certain circumstances, but dangerous in others. Churches want to hire people with faith, especially in leadership positions, and they certainly should ask their applicants about their faith. Should a non–religious public institution such as the University of California be using them to exclude all candidates that don’t follow a particular political movement? It is especially ironic that they are using an ideological test that claims to test for belief in diversity in order to weed out all non–conforming beliefs, because it ensures that the University of California will never be a truly diverse place.
        • 5y ago
  • vanusa 5y ago
    This is not a purity test or an ideological test. It most definitely is - in that it plainly assumes that candidates are racist / sexist / binarist / faithist / shapeist / ablist / everything-ist trolls; ignorant of social issues, and completely unable to treat others with elementary respect and decency -- until and unless they swear and affirm otherwise.
    • ModernMech 5y ago
      > it plainly assumes that candidates are... Again, as I stated in some other responses here (not necessarily to you), the rubric notes several times that it's a suggestion and a template, and that the various criteria are non-exhaustive and not "ironclad". I've never heard of an ideological test that opens itself up to multiple interpretations. > until and unless they swear and affirm otherwise. Have you been in a position to read many (or any) DEI statements? Many barely show awareness that community service is a job requirement of being a professor. The worst of the worst are just a series of vague platitudes strung together e.g. "I strive to treat all students with respect and decency"... okay. How? To what effect? How do you refine this process? Many candidates can't speak with any specificity about their views on social issues that impact the classroom, and struggle to have a cogent discussion relating to the salient issues that arise in a classroom. These candidates are often newly minted Ph.D.s or post-docs with no teaching experience, who want a full time tenure-track job but regard the teaching aspect as a nuisance.
      • vanusa 5y ago
        Have you been in a position to read many (or any) DEI statements? Thanks heavens, no. I totally agree that you don't want to hire people for instructor roles who regard teaching as an afterthought or a nuisance. That's always been a "given" (even though obviously not always adhered to, in practice). And yes, in general you want to avoid the mostly mono- and bisyllabic types, and hire people who answer important questions with more than a single sentence fragment. But to be clear: the practice of mandating diversity statements (with highly refined, and in places, what can only be described as ideologically charged evaluation criteria) is completely orthogonal to the simple matter of needing to hire teachers who actually can teach and want to to.