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This on its own may or may not be a good thing, but remember to keep it in context: Our country has had a centuries-long problem with racism, sexism, homophobi

This on its own may or may not be a good thing, but remember to keep it in context: Our country has had a centuries-long problem with racism, sexism, homophobia, and classism keeping large numbers of people from accessing the mainstream of American life. We have tried to create a variety of often imperfect tools to combat this situation and create a more equitable country — something right-wingers in general and the Republican Party specifically in the last couple of generations have worked hard to tear down. Lately they've been getting extra aggressive and, sadly, successful at it. So, again, this action on its own may or may not be a good thing. But we need to make sure not to let the bigots in our country return us back to the very broken situation of thirty, fifty, a hundred years ago.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
I probably agree with you politically but I think there's no value in "keeping this in context". This is a specific policy in a specific institution which had specific consequences on hiring specific staff. Those consequences were largely negative even if you are a great advocate of diversifying our great institutions because they hamper academic freedom, period. The great Universities of America had (till recently) a reputation of being a place where tenure was so strong faculty members could think and state opinions most normal people could never try to articulate. Forcing all faculty to accept a certain ideological position in the manner of the diversity statement really hinders that ability, that academic freedom, which incubates so much intellectual work.