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FWIW, I am a white, heterosexual male. I wrote a DEI statement that did not mention ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. I consistently got praise for my DEI statem

FWIW, I am a white, heterosexual male. I wrote a DEI statement that did not mention ethnicity, sexuality, or gender. I consistently got praise for my DEI statement in faculty interviews. I am fairly confident I am one of the only straight white males in this comment section who has applied to faculty positions and received job offers, across a variety of institution types. I am almost certain I am the only one in this comment section who meets those criteria and isn't currently in academia (I truly have no horse in this race, except annoyance that the discussion is so low-quality). Most people commenting here have never written or reviewed a DEI statement, have never applied to faculty positions, and likely don't even have the minimal requisite education to quality for these positions. What's worse is that there's a concerted effort by the political class to terrify parents. On right this manifests as "the wokes want your white boys to starve to death". It's all bullshit peddled by useless people who need your attention in order to extract money from the economy without doing anything useful. You're the mark. So, here's the actual truth about how university hiring DEI statements impact your white hetero sons: At most colleges and universities, the concern about DEI has a lot more to do with finances than "woke ideology". There's no interest in "replacing the white males". On the contrary, they'd love to have as many people of whatever background around as possible. But keeping their current enrollment numbers requires recruiting and retaining more diverse students because they are losing up to 20% of the total addressable market due to the post-2008 baby bust. They want to know faculty can serve a more diverse clientele, because they are pretty certain they cannot continue to exist if they are 80+% white. Especially from a retention perspective. And, to be blunt: the colleges are correct to be concerned and prioritize DEI. The existing tenured faculty are terrible at working with students who aren't from a very traditional socio-economic demographic. That is why colleges lose more than half of their paying customers after the first year of enrollment. Retention numbers broken out by demo paint a very clear picture. Consider this: you are a business. Your TAM is decreasing by 20% in the next decade and there's competition closing in from every side. Not just that, but you lose loses HALF your customer base in their first year as customers. And it's clear the reason you lose half your customers in year one is that your faculty either DGAF or don't know how to help that demographic succeed (aka retain customers). Wouldn't you want to hire staff who have proven experience working with the portion of the customer base you keep losing -- center that in job interviews, even? And, again, straight white males are fine candidates. Faculty who do not give a fuck about retaining non-affluent students are not okay. Because the institution will go bankrupt if that's the attitude. It's really that simple. This doesn't describe every institution, but it does describe the vast majority of America's 4,000+ post-secondary institutions.

haberman 4y ago
If the interest in DEI was primarily market-driven, rather than ideological, then we would expect to see a strong correlation between the selectiveness of an institution and disinterest in DEI. Institutions like Harvard that accept only 4% of applicants have no trouble keeping full enrollment year after year; people are banging down the door to get in. So if we follow your explanation, Harvard would have little motivation to push for DEI programs. But in practice some of the most selective institutions (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth) have some of the strongest commitments to DEI. Maybe some institutions are motivated by market forces, but that cannot be the case in these elite institutions. There must be more to the story.
- thwayunion 4y ago
  The ivy leagues are exceptional and subject to their own dynamics. I've never been at one, so I can't speak to them. (Have you been a job candidate or on the hiring committee at a top institution? If so I'm curious; if not, I don't have much interest in conjecturing about the accuracy of flame bait reporting on this topic atm to be honest.) I do, however, know that I am pretty accurately describing how the other 4000+ colleges and universities work. Based on a sampling, yes, but I'm somewhat confident here. To be a bit blunt: IDGAF about the top few dozen colleges and universities and I genuinely don't get why everyone else obsesses over them^1. Most of us will attend/work at the other 4K institutions. Let's focus on making those places good. (And, no, the ivy league and other elites aren't thought leaders in those orgs.) -- [^1]: In my own life, I see a lot of the anti-DEI stuff about those institutions combing from parents of thoroughly mediocre kids who think that their special little snowflake didn't get into Harvard because of racism or whatever. To the point where I wonder if this entire genre of reporting, especially in places like the Economist, is basically just therapy for yuppie parents with over-inflated opinions of their child(ren, but usually not).
  - ModernMech 4y ago
    > Have you been a job candidate or on the hiring committee at a top institution? I have been both, and I would say your take is basically accurate, but it’s actually more fundamental than what you describe. Diversity statements are needed because teaching a diverse classroom is part of the job today. Applicants must demonstrate that they’ve grappled with the issues that arise while teaching. Applicants who can’t articulate a salient position on real issues they will face on the job are rejected for being unqualified, not because they don’t adhere to some Marxist political agenda pushed by radical DEI administrators. I agree with what you wrote in your other post, that a lot of the discourse here is from people who have neither read nor written a DEI statement. It makes the discourse frustrating, because it means people are getting worked up over what they imagine the process looks like - which is usually a caricature of the sort you see being portrayed in other comments. The dearth of actual experience on this topic means that these 800 comment threads that crop up here are low quality echo chambers.

haberman 4y ago

If the interest in DEI was primarily market-driven, rather than ideological, then we would expect to see a strong correlation between the selectiveness of an institution and disinterest in DEI. Institutions like Harvard that accept only 4% of applicants have no trouble keeping full enrollment year after year; people are banging down the door to get in. So if we follow your explanation, Harvard would have little motivation to push for DEI programs. But in practice some of the most selective institutions (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth) have some of the strongest commitments to DEI. Maybe some institutions are motivated by market forces, but that cannot be the case in these elite institutions. There must be more to the story.

thwayunion 4y ago
The ivy leagues are exceptional and subject to their own dynamics. I've never been at one, so I can't speak to them. (Have you been a job candidate or on the hiring committee at a top institution? If so I'm curious; if not, I don't have much interest in conjecturing about the accuracy of flame bait reporting on this topic atm to be honest.) I do, however, know that I am pretty accurately describing how the other 4000+ colleges and universities work. Based on a sampling, yes, but I'm somewhat confident here. To be a bit blunt: IDGAF about the top few dozen colleges and universities and I genuinely don't get why everyone else obsesses over them^1. Most of us will attend/work at the other 4K institutions. Let's focus on making those places good. (And, no, the ivy league and other elites aren't thought leaders in those orgs.) -- [^1]: In my own life, I see a lot of the anti-DEI stuff about those institutions combing from parents of thoroughly mediocre kids who think that their special little snowflake didn't get into Harvard because of racism or whatever. To the point where I wonder if this entire genre of reporting, especially in places like the Economist, is basically just therapy for yuppie parents with over-inflated opinions of their child(ren, but usually not).
- ModernMech 4y ago
  > Have you been a job candidate or on the hiring committee at a top institution? I have been both, and I would say your take is basically accurate, but it’s actually more fundamental than what you describe. Diversity statements are needed because teaching a diverse classroom is part of the job today. Applicants must demonstrate that they’ve grappled with the issues that arise while teaching. Applicants who can’t articulate a salient position on real issues they will face on the job are rejected for being unqualified, not because they don’t adhere to some Marxist political agenda pushed by radical DEI administrators. I agree with what you wrote in your other post, that a lot of the discourse here is from people who have neither read nor written a DEI statement. It makes the discourse frustrating, because it means people are getting worked up over what they imagine the process looks like - which is usually a caricature of the sort you see being portrayed in other comments. The dearth of actual experience on this topic means that these 800 comment threads that crop up here are low quality echo chambers.