https://www.thefp.com/p/diversity-equity-inclusion-nebraska-john-sailer
The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s College of Engineering might sound like one of the last places in higher education where you’d expect to find evidence of DEI orthodoxy influencing big decisions. Nebraska is a red state and UNL is a public school. Plus, you’d expect hiring at an engineering school to be based on, well, scientific criteria.
But through a public records request, I reviewed every diversity recruitment report created by the school over the last four years. And I’ve discovered that even here, DEI has been central to hiring decisions.
For example, in 2020, when the school set out to hire a professor of National Defense/Computer Network Security, the search committee made its priority clear: each candidate’s “diversity” score—assessing how well applicants understand things like “many intersectional aspects of diversity”—was given equal weight to factors like research and teaching experience.
Another search in 2021, for a professor of Big Data/Cybersecurity, stated: “the weight of the ‘diversity’ scores were equal to the other scored areas that contributed to the candidate’s overall score.”
And applicants have been ruled out for failing to clear DEI hurdles. According to one report, from 2021, “a small number of candidates” in a search for a professor of thermal sciences “were eliminated based on absence or weak diversity statement.” In another case that year, three applicants for a role in environmental engineering “did not include diversity statements and were disqualified from the search.”
Per the college’s diversity and inclusion plan, which is still in place, the reports carry high stakes: a search that fails to show “a serious consideration” of DEI-related issues risks being canceled, resulting in no hire at all.