Exclusive: UT Austin’s “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan”
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CounterCurrent: Week of 7/26
Exclusive: UT Austin’s “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan”
CounterCurrent is the National Association of Scholars’ weekly newsletter, bringing you the biggest issues in academia and our responses to them.
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Category: Diversity; Reading Time: ~3 minutes
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** Featured Article - Exclusive: UT Austin Proposes Political Litmus Tests for Hiring and Promotion by John David ([link removed][UNIQID])
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For decades, American colleges and universities have sought greater racial and gender diversity in their students, faculty, and administrative staff. This quest has escalated dramatically in recent years both in scope and urgency with higher ed leadership adding more categories to the list of desired diversity metrics and with schools implementing increasingly aggressive tactics for achieving “proper” equity and inclusivity. At the same time, it has caused a steady decline in the value of individual merit and a dearth of intellectual diversity ([link removed][UNIQID]) on our campuses.
The University of Texas at Austin plans to outdo its peers in the pursuit of diversity, as per an unpublished plan ([link removed][UNIQID]) sent to administrators and faculty earlier this month by the Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost. The National Association of Scholars obtained the draft proposal ([link removed][UNIQID]) , titled the “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan ([link removed][UNIQID]) ” from an employee at UT.
The proposal, which I’ll refer to as the Plan, is based on a 2017 UT Austin “blueprint plan” called the “Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan ([link removed][UNIQID]) ” (UDIAP). The Plan fits within the broader framework of the UDIAP and was written to address the alleged lack of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” within UT Austin’s professoriate. In the university’s own words:
An excellent and diverse faculty benefits our educational and instructional experiences and strengthens our research, scholarship, and creativity. … UT Austin endeavors to create an inclusive environment of teaching, research, and service in which all can learn from one another, productively interact, and share in the benefits of learning and working at a diverse university. [emphasis added]
UT Austin specifically seeks faculty members that represent a diversity of “races, ethnicities, peoples, nationalities, religious backgrounds, sexual orientations, gender identities and expressions, socio- economic statuses, disabilities, and health histories.” Notably absent from the university’s initiative is diversity of ideology or worldview.
The Plan proposes four objectives for achieving faculty “diversity, equity, and inclusion”:
* Objective 1: Attract, Recruit, and Employ a Diverse Faculty
* Objective 2: Retain, Develop, and Promote a Diverse Faculty
* Objective 3: Establish an Equitable and Inclusive Climate
* Objective 4: Support Innovative and Diverse Scholarship, Teaching, and Service
The Plan’s objectives devote the entirety of UT Austin’s faculty ecosystem—recruiting, hiring, promotion, student instruction, and scholarship—to the dubious end of identity-based diversity. Its assumptions, methods, and goals are thoroughly ideological in nature and reflect core progressive dogma to a T.
In this week’s featured article ([link removed][UNIQID]) , I examine the Plan’s four objectives in detail, highlighting key proposals and providing my own takeaways. I conclude that:
The Plan is profoundly prejudiced and ought to be met with fierce opposition from University of Texas’ administrators, faculty, and students, not to mention the Texas taxpayers who would underwrite the university’s newly formed search committees, diversity officers, and training programs. UT Austin has no claim on anyone’s wallet if it refuses to uphold basic principles of liberal education—academic freedom, intellectual diversity, and merit-based success.
If implemented, the “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan” will directly threaten the very foundation of teaching and learning at UT Austin. It will also set a dangerous precedent for other schools to follow suit—after all, higher ed leaders are in a woke arms race to both save their aggrieved souls and attract the most woke students in all the land. Who’s to say more institutions won’t line up to be on “the right side of history ([link removed][UNIQID]) ”?
The National Association of Scholars condemns this insidious, unjust “strategic plan” and calls on UT Austin Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Daniel Jaffe ([link removed][UNIQID]) and Interim President Jay Hartzell ([link removed][UNIQID]) to retract it immediately.
Until next week.
John David
Communications Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read More ([link removed][UNIQID])
For more on diversity in higher education:
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May 18, 2020
** Disappearing Liberals ([link removed][UNIQID])
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David Randall
The Left in higher education seeks to destroy intellectual freedom and Western civilization. It is the very opposite of “liberal.”
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March 02, 2020
** Arizona House Passes Intellectual Diversity Legislation ([link removed][UNIQID])
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NAS
HB 2238 is now the first campus intellectual diversity bill to advance in a state legislature.
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January 17, 2020
** Partisan Registration and Contributions of Faculty in Flagship Colleges ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Mitchell Langbert and Sean Stevens
The overwhelming political homogeneity of faculty members has raised concerns that it may lead to questionable research practices, as well as lead to increased skepticism about higher education.
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January 03, 2020
** "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" Statement for a Merit Raise ([link removed][UNIQID])
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Stephen Bainbridge
Professor Bainbridge is up for promotion, but first, he has to submit a statement on his contributions to UCLA's goals in "Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion."
** About the NAS
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