https://issuesinsights.com/2024/08/14/the-dei-retreat-demise-or-disguise/
For months, skeptics of DEI mandates have celebrated as Silicon Valley, Wall Street, and even the Ivy League have rolled back DEI programs. The Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling against affirmative action appeared to cool Americans’ re-infatuation with treating people differently according to race.
But history should temper our optimism. Some recent policy changes look less like a full-fledged rout and more like a strategic maneuver.
Take, for instance, the universities that have recently abandoned mandatory diversity statements from job applicants. For decades, hiring committees have used such statements as a tool to discriminate against right-of-center viewpoints and white or Asian applicants.
Now, MIT and the Harvard Department of Arts and Sciences have scrapped diversity statements. Some critics of the practice seem to take this move as a sincere change. The New York Times quoted the former dean of the Harvard Medical School as saying “the large, silent majority of faculty who question . . . these diversity statements — these people are being heard.” Likewise, some observers called MIT’s move a “watershed moment.”
But, as Hamlet warned, “one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.” The Harvard deans themselves claim they’re ditching the requirement because it doesn’t work, not because these policies are wrong or illegal. They said diversity statements are “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather” and “confusing” to international candidates.
And the Harvard deans still want to consider candidate “efforts to increase diversity, inclusion, and belonging.” They will now use two statements: a “service statement” about how an applicant has strengthened academic communities and a “teaching and advising statement” about how an applicant has fostered an open learning environment.
MIT’s move appears more genuine, at least on the surface. MIT President Sally Kornbluth issued a statement recognizing that these statements “impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.” The MIT decision is also university-wide and supported by MIT’s general leadership. But even here, we should not let optimism overrun skepticism. President Kornbluth herself confirmed that MIT remains committed to DEI by other means.
