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Texas Passes Ban on DEI Offices and Tenure Reform at Public Universities
- rblatz 3y ago[flagged]
- irrational 3y ago[flagged]
- local_crmdgeon 3y agoThey're the fastest growing states, with incredibly dynamic economies. Texas is currently defeating Russia through replacing oil production. Miami is the recipient of a lot of people leaving the Bay Area. You may not agree, but what they're doing seems to work.
- mlinhares 3y agoI’ve no idea about Texas but if there’s one thing that Florida doesn’t have is a dynamic economy. Per capita pay is pretty low compared to more developed states, even in areas where salaries are usually good, like tech. It’s great if you have a remote job that pays well, otherwise you’re in for a surprise for what people offer here.
- shrimp_emoji 3y agoYeah, Miami is hell. Tech pay sucks and education sucks.
- toolz 3y agoTexas is #2 and Florida is #8 for the most diverse states in the the U.S. [1] - maybe it's worth looking at this issue with more nuance if we actually care about equality. [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-diverse-states https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/most-divers...
- irrational 3y agoDiversity is hardly surprising since they used to belong to Mexico and still share a long border with that state. It would almost be impossible for them not to have a large Hispanic population. But what is their ranking for abortion rights? LGBTQ rights? Mass shootings? Quality of energy grid? Etc.
- toolz 3y agoI don't understand your metrics. What could be a better metric for gauging how diverse groups feel about living somewhere than looking at where those groups actually live? Certainly not abortion rights, mass shootings or energy grid metrics. Your implication that immigrants willing to change countries are unwilling to change states seems like a very weak argument as well.
- decremental 3y ago[dead]
- dang 3y agoPlease don't take HN threads into regional flamewar, or ideological flamewar, or any flamewar. Such threads are predictable and nasty. That's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
- Natsu 3y agoThe article doesn't seem to explain what, exactly "tenure reform" is and just says that the law here codifies what tenure means. Does anyone know what specific reforms were contemplated that are now blocked?
- ericpauley 3y agoI was honestly curious to see what TX universities would be forced to do to compete without tenure. I imagine there may be plenty of academics who would take a pay raise without tenure, but only at an institution that has no tenure at all.
- ethbr0 3y agoIt'll be curious what attracting and retaining professors for political hot-button topics becomes like for Texas, but I expect making it harder to find faculty to teach some subjects was part of the intent...
- jp57 3y agoReminder to be careful where you put your negatives with compound objects. They banned DEI offices and passed (a weak form of) tenure reform.
- watchface 3y ago[flagged]
- dataflow 3y agoWhat happens to those who already have tenure?
- jp57 3y agoThey keep it. They didn't ban tenure.
- sugarpile 3y agoBanning DEI offices is great news. I personally find the idea of striving for “equity” abhorrent (meritocracy is the gold standard and no, I do not believe that we need to make up for an “unequal start to life”) and reducing administrative headcount makes it a win win.
- watchface 3y ago[flagged]
- woooooo 3y agoBanning people from stupid, harmless stuff is bad news though? It annoys me too to see DEI people make stacks off of weaponized bullshit while us engineers keep the lights on, but that's a free business transaction. Why should the state be involved?
- molotovh 3y ago"Public universities" means state-run schools. State funding is responsible for their very existence. The state is involved by default.
- slibhb 3y agoI'm opposed to DEI but I'm not sure if states banning it sets a good precedent. As much as possible, the government should leave the academy alone.
- traviswt 3y agoShould we stop public funding of education? It feels like that monetary link is what provokes governments to interfere.
- tomp 3y agoIt’s actually pretty easy to argue for “equality of opportunity” (i.e. reducing or even making up for an unequal start of life) from a meritocracy viewpoint.
- watchface 3y ago[flagged]
- blueflow 3y agoIt is your wording that constitutes flaming and is off the limits regardless of political stance.
- watchface 3y ago[flagged]
- happytoexplain 3y ago[flagged]
- curbstompanazi 3y ago[dead]
- jp57 3y agoFor those who may have been confused, The Texan[1] is not to be confused with The Daily Texan[2]. For a moment I was cheering to see the student paper on the front page of HN. Alas. [1] https://thetexan.news https://thetexan.news [2] https://thedailytexan.com https://thedailytexan.com
- jack_riminton 3y agoI wonder what the second and third order effects of this will be?
- krapp 3y agoThe renormalization of white supremacy on the basis that "meritocracy" just happens to favor white men over nonwhites and women.
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoConsidering the affirmative action weights for college applicants, wouldn't meritocracy favour asians? Or is there another reason they get pushed so much down by the policies? And what's wrong with meritocracy?
- krapp 3y ago"meritocracy" doesn't exist. "merit" is a purely objective social construct, contingent on political, cultural and racial hierarchies designed to favor the status quo - which in the US is the power of white upper class Christian men. It will simply be used as a means of justifying entrenched power structures and prejudice. Because what people who object to DEI and equality programs always claim is the problem is too many minorities and too many women - the implication that minorities and women systemically don't deserve equal status to whites and men, and that in a fair system, they wouldn't have it.
- ajsnigrutin 3y agoBut if you look at affirmative actions, and the groups who get pushed down most by it, it's not white but asians who get pushed down the most. On one hand you have black people who benefit the most, asian people who lose the most, and people like you, who blame white people for that.
- krapp 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- teux 3y agoHow do they legally ban DEI offices? Aren’t universities basically businesses in the US? (Not an American.) Even if not, aren’t they allowed to do as they see fit? Really surprised the government has the ability to do this, but I’m not super well educated here.
- toolz 3y agoIANAL, but US states tend to have broad powers while the federal government is specifically limited by the constitution on what they can do. The supreme court could later find that these states banning DEI is illegal per the constitution, but for now the states typically have the authority to do as they please as long as it's not something already found to be going against the constitutional clauses that grant citizens rights. That reads a bit confusing, but basically the constitution exists to give citizens rights and specifically limit the federal government. States can do more than the federal government but can't trample on the rights of citizens.
- ethbr0 3y agoAlso, "public universities" (the ones this affects) in the US are state-funded. If parent was from the UK, believe there's some public/private terminology difference.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- dgrin91 3y agoThe ban only applied to public universities, which are an extension of the state government. They are not "basically business" in this case.
- gotoeleven 3y ago[flagged]
- boeingUH60 3y agoDEI folks are primarily grifters, anyways. But can someone explain more on the tenure reforms? Are those changes good or bad from the perspective of faculty?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]