The newly approved DEI plan enshrines political litmus tests in UT’s faculty policies
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CounterCurrent:
It’s All Blue at UT Austin
The newly approved DEI plan enshrines political litmus tests in UT’s faculty policies
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: Intellectual Diversity; Reading Time: ~2 minutes
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** Featured Article - UT Austin Approves Orwellian “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity” by Louis K. Bonham ([link removed])
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI, or as some have chosen to style the acronym, DIE) is taking over every level of American higher education. We have seen this on the student level for decades, primarily in the form of “affirmative action” and other discriminatory admissions practices. But now, DEI mandates are being imposed upon university faculty at an ever-increasing and ever-more-explicit rate. This does not bode well for an already-languishing American professoriate, one flooded with progressive activists, pseudo-scholarship, and starved for honest, disinterested research and teaching.
Faculty “diversity” (hiring for census categories over intellectual capacity) was previously an unspoken goal pursued by university deans and department chairs behind closed doors. In other words, leadership would pull the strings necessary to appease the woke police, making sure that faculty websites have a proper distribution of melanin and estrogen. Now we’re seeing them “say the quiet part out loud,” so to speak. Administrators are explicitly requiring people from “underrepresented groups” to be given preference in faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure, and all applicants to the university—underrepresented or not—must affirm their allegiance to DEI ideology before even stepping foot on campus.
One example of this top-down DEI strategy has come from the University of Texas at Austin, who in July proposed its “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan ([link removed]) ,” a document the National Association of Scholars received from an anonymous source. I wrote about the plan ([link removed]) , finding that it amounted to little more than a political litmus test for faculty hiring and promotion. Any academic interested in winning or retaining a job within UT Austin’s professoriate would have to swear fealty to DEI dogma, effectively screening out all those who take issue with the ideological claims therein (and refuse to compromise on their beliefs in the application process).
After we pushed back against the proposed plan, UT Austin’s Director of Media Relations and Newsroom, J.B. Bird, doubled down ([link removed]) , claiming that the proposed plan would not interfere with faculty performance or intellectual diversity. I was less than convinced by this boilerplate PR statement, but there was ultimately nothing the NAS could do but wait for the plan to be finalized and, presumably, approved. That day has now come.
Last Wednesday, April 14, UT Austin announced its newly enacted plan, now called the “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity ([link removed]) .” In this week’s featured article ([link removed]) , Louis K. Bonham, an alum of UT Austin both for his BA and JD, examines the finalized plan, specifically looking for differences from the original proposal. His findings are not encouraging:
… given that the entire thrust of the plan is to increase the numbers of faculty from “underrepresented” groups; that “diversity skills” are the new touchstone for all faculty personnel decisions; that the Provost’s Office (which seems to be the nerve center at UT for all things woke) and dedicated diversity commissars will be the enforcers of these edicts; and that viewpoint diversity is never actually addressed in the plan at all, the concerns voiced by NAS and FIRE about the working draft of the plan do not appear to have been seriously considered.
UT Austin proves once again that it cares little for intellectual diversity, or for institutional neutrality, and has instead chosen to violate civil rights law, encourage state-sponsored employment discrimination, and entrench ideological conformity. This has left UT alumni such as Bonham fed up: “Like a growing number of alumni across the country, I simply can no longer support my alma mater.” We urge UT Austin to rescind this plan, and if it does not, for academics who care about equal opportunity and the fruits of their labors to take their talents elsewhere. Furthermore, the Texas state legislature and Governor Abbot’s handpicked university trustees should take action to eliminate state-sponsored discrimination at UT Austin.
Until next week.
David Acevedo
Communications & Research Associate
National Association of Scholars
Read More ([link removed])
For more on the University of Texas and intellectual diversity:
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April 08, 2021
** Free Speech at UT: An Open Letter to President Jay Hartzell ([link removed])
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Louis K. Bonham
President Hartzell: Is your defense of free speech merely a set of platitudes meant to mollify critics and the state legislature, while behind closed doors wokeism takes over UT?
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March 30, 2021
** UT Law School’s First Amendment Center: An Update ([link removed])
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Louis K. Bonham
In this piece, Louis Bonham investigates the University of Texas Law School's First Amendment Center, which, after further research, he demonstrates is not so concerned with the First Amendment.
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August 07, 2020
** Under Pressure, UT Austin Asserts Commitment to Intellectual Diversity ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
UT Austin has asserted its commitment to faculty merit and ideological diversity amid backlash over its proposed “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan.”
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July 28, 2020
** Exclusive: UT Austin Proposes Political Litmus Tests for Hiring and Promotion ([link removed])
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David Acevedo
The University of Texas at Austin has proposed the “Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Strategic Plan," exchanging merit-based success for identity-based diversity.
** About the NAS
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