WSJ Opinion: The University’s New Loyalty Oath
Required ‘diversity and inclusion’ statements amount to a political litmus test for hiring.

By Abigail Thompson (chair of the UC Davis math department)
Dec. 19, 2019

"...Earlier this year, I was invited to submit an essay to the Notices of the American Mathematical Society, the most widely read journal in mathematics. I decided to express my view that these required statements have become political litmus tests, and that this should worry us all. My submission provoked an intense controversy—confirming that this has become a dangerously politicized issue...."

"...Many emails contained a disturbing theme, typified by this line from one of them: “Some day I, too, hope to speak out on this issue, but it is simply too dangerous at present.” This is a frightening sentiment to hear in academia. If expressing a widespread but controversial view is seen as taking a tremendous personal risk, the university system isn’t healthy. Ideas cannot thrive and mistakes cannot be corrected if people are afraid to speak out...."

"Mandatory diversity statements can too easily become a test of political ideology and conformity. “No political test shall ever be considered in the appointment and promotion of any faculty member or employee.” This fundamental principle, forged in one of the most difficult periods the UC system has ever endured, must not be abandoned. "

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-oath-11576799749

You posted two opinion pieces, one of which directly references the other and relies on the other to make it's point. Try again.

With the University of California’s (UC) experiments in diversity screening underway — movielover

the pilot programs of screening for diversity expertise — movielover

Well, it's about two years later, what were the results of the experiment? Was the program fully implemented? Also, what specifically were the Social Justice Warrior (SJW) issues? It sounds like you inferred that from the article, and I don't see anything in these opinion pieces that references SJW.

A candidate who describes, in the language of the rubric, “only activities that are already the expectation of Berkeley faculty (mentoring, treating all students the same regardless of background, etc.)” is deemed to have given an unacceptable answer. — movielover

This is exactly what is going on for students applying to schools. Try getting in to Davis with a 4.5, and no extracurricular activities or community involvement. How is "How did you make your community better?" a controversial question.

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-12/covid-college-admissions-season-brings-rejection-heartbreak

"At UC Santa Barbara, which received a record 105,640 applications, faculty told admissions officers they wanted active, engaged learners who involved themselves in their school and community. Even during the pandemic, did they seek out opportunities to learn through TED Talks? Did they volunteer for online tutoring or help family members stricken with COVID-19?"

How is "How did you make your community better?" a controversial question.

The way students used to get into Davis or any premier college was via transcript courses grades and test scores. Stick to admitting the best students, How is that controversial?
You know what indicates an engaged learner? SAT scores. You don’t get high verbal ability scores without reading. You don’t score high on math without learning it.

OK I’ll offer another. Over the past 5-10 years Universities have gone full force into “diversity and inclusion” creating associate deans to oversee such efforts. Having worked at a research 1 university I have seen what is a good intention (getting rid of the good -ol boy system, turn into a self-perpetuating “goal” via these new offices and a silencing of opinions other than what is “politically correct”. We took (and I scheduled) implicit bias training which is a accepted reality. The only issue is that implicit bias seems to work in one direction only. There were times during “trainings” that faculty I knew that had differing opinions were at best patronized if opinion/beliefs were out of the acceptable norm. Regarding hiring, we would normally get maybe a 5-10 percent application rate of females (engineering department). There was at least a perceived pressure to hire females. The goal was not bad but the reality oftentimes differs from realisticallyachievable results. Our dean of engineering who was very pro shaking things up showed statistics that essentially showed thAt over the past 20 years, despite the push and programs to get more women in engineering, that the needle has not moved across the country. The problem with some of the diversity and inclusion goals is that it assumes everyone (or every “sector”) has the same interests and desires. That is not reality so there is resultant frustration. With all of these developments plus the recent gender confusion issues and focus (with encouragement to add “preferred” gender pronouns to e-mail signatures) I am glad to be retired from the university. Unfortunately it seems we cannot just treat people as human beings but need to divide by all sorts of categories real or contrived. I just think there have to be better ways for realizing fairness and treating people with respect. I will also add that these added diversity and inclusion deanships and programs seem, ironically, to be a requirement that many administrators and others treat as marketing, and a requirement of a university to be viewed positively, rather than be taken very seriously.

You can also do what I did and transfer on your own or through an articulation /TAG agreement (do they still do those)? You'll save money and still get that UC degree. It is a lot easier to transfer.

But if the University no longer admits students by their scholastic preparation or faculty by their expertise in their subject and capability as instructors, why would you want to get that UC degree?

Unfortunately it seems we cannot just treat people as human beings but need to divide by all sorts of categories real or contrived. I just think there have to be better ways for realizing fairness and treating people with respect. — NCagalum

If we as a society had been treating people as human beings all along, we wouldn’t need implicit bias training or a focus on diversity in our hiring practices. Unfortunately, the people in charge in the country have tended to be, and generally still are, white men. And people tend to hire people who are most similar to them. So when white men are in charge and they do interviews, guess who they tend to hire? And that trickles down.

So yes, maybe there is a better way. But what we were doing in the past was much, much worse than what we’re doing now. That’s not to say that what we’re doing now is perfect. But it’s a big improvement.

The better way is the legally mandated way, which is non discriminatory hiring.

But if the University no longer admits students by their scholastic preparation — Riveraggie

No, that's not what's happening. They did a trial to add additional criteria. If you have ten people apply for a job, and can only hire one, and they all meet the basic requirements, do you hire 10 people? No, you start adding more criteria. Also, back to my original question to Movie, this was an experiment that took place 2 years ago. What were the results, did the plan ever get implemented? Are we all talking about something for nothing?

in the case of student admissions, it clear that the goal of additional criteria is to change the student body that would otherwise exist absent those criteria.
They didn’t like the outcome of admitting a greater share of students from well performing school districts, or private or Catholic schools, so they came up with “success in a local context” to favor students who would not otherwise gain admission. When they “look at the whole person” or “overcoming adversity” that is to give room for more subjective decisions that replace better prepared students with more “deserving”. When those tweaks prove insufficient to achieve the desired outcome they dump test scores altogether. Since grade inflation essentially makes high school straight As a mere record of participation there is no objective means to identify the best prepared students. Now UC is just CSU under a different banner and with mostly better architecture.
Similar process is underway for hiring I suspect. Adding criteria as opposed to selecting the candidates based on the most important criteria, with the goal of changing the decision to favor members of preferred groups.

We're white, upper middle class people, living in the peninsula, and sending our son to a private catholic high school. So I'm acutely aware of all the reasons why my son may not get in to Davis in 3 years. But... Is that unfair? I don't know. I definitely don't have the answers. If he gets near straight As, and has AP classes, and we can pay for tutors and SAT prep courses, is he smarter and more capable than a lower income kid at a lower performing school? I don't know.

There is a good little video of a bunch of kids doing a running race toward a $20 bill. The guy leading the exercise asks a bunch of questions, and all the kids with more opportunities get a head start. Guess who wins the race? Right or wrong, I do think we need to reevaluate admissions. The UC schools are still public schools and should be accessible to the general public. But, what frustrates me most, is that with the exception of Merced, we haven't added more chairs in classrooms nearly fast enough to keep up with the increase in admissions. To me, that's the biggest failure. I imagine a lot of qualified kids will leave the state for college, and maybe never move back. And that is a big problem for the state if we keep rejecting qualified kids that will qualify for scholarships out of state.

No one suggests that the kids from low performing schools are less smart. But clearly they are less prepared for college .
The argument for fairness can be reduced to absurdity simply by considering that some schools have top 10% kids who don’t read at grade level, and don’t know Geometry. Should UC be dumbed down so those kids succeed? I’m someone who has taken classes at JC, UC, and CSUs. The difference in education is primarily a difference in expectations that we’re based on students scholastic preparation.
Is society better off if we don’t have GATE programs ? Make Lowell High School admissions not competitive?
At the other extreme if the UC Medical School class has 6 kids named Nguyen should they not have been admitted because their culture and family values gave them a head start?

I was one of two kids in my freshman calculus class that didn't take pre-calculus/calculus in HS. Dr. Kouba invited me in to the Emerging Scholars Program the summer before I moved to Davis (no longer exists, and I don't know how/why he found me). I walked in to that class (21A) very unprepared and I think I got a C that first quarter. I'd never seen a derivative before day 1. With a lot of help, I had an A- by the 3rd quarter of 21 series math. Should I not have been in that class? Sure I had A's in math in HS. But almost all of the kids in that class had taken an extra year of math, and many of them were valedictorians at more well-known schools.

Again, you keep saying these kids aren't prepared, or that these kids don't have good grades or can't read at grade level.

1) This discussion is about a pilot program for hiring faculty.
2) Nobody has bothered to check if the program was actually implemented.
3) As far as kids getting accepted, if all applicants meet the minimum requirements, then either the academic requirements need to change, or additional factors need to be considered.

My feeling is that kids with very good grades and maybe only 1 or 2 AP classes shouldn't be passed up because some private school kid with tutors and 10 AP classes has a better academic resume. As far as SAT scores go, again, that kid that takes a few prep courses, and can afford to take the test a few times is going to do better. That does not make them a better student, or human being. Just like how Hawkins repeatedly says that his program isn't all about football, you have to consider the whole person, and how they will contribute to the good of the whole. Additionally, you have to look at someone's potential. If one kid's scores and grades aren't as great as another kids, but they have a single parent who works 12-hour days, takes a bus 2 hours to school each way, making dinner for siblings, you name it, does that mean they don't have the same potential? If anything, if you remove the additional load off of that kid's shoulders, and allow them to focus 100% on just school, I think that kid will excel, be grateful for the opportunity, and do more to give back as an adult. Just my 2 cents.

You think the admissions office is capable of weighing how important this kid’s dinner prep contributions are vs the other kids milking the cow? If it’s all subjective it’s going to come down to a counselor writing their personal statement for some favored students and the rest on their own. There will be certain phrases that will indicate ethnicity, and an exaggeration of any personal hardship. It will all come down to telling a story.
I’ve seen kids whose parent is a school counselor get her kid nominated for various rewards, over much more deserving students. That’s why fairness requires some objective metrics.
The tests do test something predictive about how kids fare after admission. Your personal story about how well you fared taking a catch-up math course doesn’t indicate what your math score was on a test that didn’t presume precalculus. I didn’t do well in trig and analytic geometry as a senior but still scored in the 97th percentile in math on the ACT, so I was able to benefit a lot from taking a course in precalculus at the JC. You have to know quite a bit to do well in a precalculus prep class. With no standardized tests no baseline exists. If someone isn’t ready for UC it isn’t a value judgement about his worth as a human being or even a scholar. It means he’s not ready, and given your observation about limited number of seats, he’s occupying someone else’s.

You think the admissions office is capable of weighing how important this kid’s dinner prep contributions are vs the other kids milking the cow? — Riveraggie

I don't know, I'm pretty sure I had to write an essay when I applied to the UC schools. So I guess my answer is yes. As for my personal story, I'm assuming my HS math teacher reached out to someone. Someone made a phone call, wrote a letter, or something. My name wasn't blindly pulled out of a hat with my grades and SAT scores (which definitely weren't outstanding for the UC system). And it wasn't a catch up math class. It was the engineering series of calculus. Had I not taken 21A-D, I wouldn't have been able to change my major to engineering a few years later. I'm always grateful that I got in to that program, and it's part of why I'm such a supporter of UC Davis.

Oh well, we can go in circles all day on the internet, and nobody ever "wins." However, it sounds like we both agree that there aren't enough seats for kids in the UC system.

You wrote: "2) Nobody has bothered to check if the program was actually implemented"

My understanding is that it is common practice and procedure at 7 or 8 UC campuses. It sounds like "DEI" is now primary over teaching or research excellence.

https://academicaffairs.ucdavis.edu/guidelines-writing-diversity-statement

https://ofew.berkeley.edu/recruitment/contributions-diversity/support-faculty-candidates

https://facultydiversity.ucsd.edu/recruitment/contributions-to-diversity.html

The Hill: What is UC Davis hiding about its use of diversity statements?

"In other words, UC Berkeley rejected 76 percent of qualified applicants without even considering their teaching skills, their publication history, their potential for academic excellence or their ability to contribute to their field. As far as the university knew, these applicants could well have been the next Albert Einstein or Jonas Salk, or they might have been outstanding and innovative educators who would make a significant difference in students' lives."

https://thehill.com/opinion/education/480603-what-is-uc-davis-hiding-about-its-use-of-diversity-statements

I hope your child gets into the school of his choice.
By the way I never said admits had bad grades. The point is everyone has good grades hence they mean little. Now no standardized test, which leaves nothing objective to base admission on. If it’s all up to the essay, that’s a bad method.

The way I see it, every student brings 3 dimensions to the table: god-given ability, preparation, and interest. Standardized tests are good at measuring preparation. And it turns out preparation tends to be skewed along economic lines, which happens to incidentally often skew along racial lines too. Ability is harder to measure. Historically we might have used grades and recommendations. But both of those have become diluted in value because of grade inflation and that very few people will write a non positive letter even if so warranted. To some degree this is cultural (everyone is a winner these days) and to some degree k-12 schools are incentivized to inflate things because the administrators are evaluated on the admission rates they achieve. Interest has always been hard to quantify because it is by definition qualitative, but might be best represented by an essay or portfolio. Historically I think admissions summed those three dimensions and allocated seats to the overall high score holders. And if the goal of our university system is to increase the collective body of knowledge to benefit society as a whole, this makes sense to pick smart, interested people who are already prepared to succeed. Out of the gate they are perhaps going to be the fastest to develop a new economically important variety of tomato.

And then somewhere along the line, we as a society became concerned with “fairness,” and how to define that. Specifically what about high potential individuals, who, through no fault of their own, received substandard preparation. Simultaneously, college became less about societal benefit (who would develop the tomato) and more about individual benefit, since more college often means higher income, and how that wealth potential should be redistributed. Discussions of well roundedness are just dogwhistles for how to statistically adjust ability and preparation at scale. Ability is probably equally distributed across demographic lines. Preparation tends to be skewed toward middle and upper class. But there are two huge faulty assumptions in the academic echo chamber - 1. That interest is equal across demographic lines. It just isn’t. Culturally, a lot of Asian families deeply value education, while it is not as important in machismo culture of a lot of Latin families. Similarly, some fields just don’t have equal interest across gender lines. As much as we might want to wish into existence more young men wanting to be nurses or women wanting to be computer engineers, it just ain’t what exists no matter what elephant we try to put on the scale to adjust that among 18 year olds. 2. We assume that we can “fix” the preparation gap in the last couple years of high school or first year of college. So false. The preparation gap isn’t fundamentally based on which high school had electronic whiteboards. If only it were so simple as buying “things” we would have done it by now. But lo, it is based on things that start so much earlier in life that politically all sides refuse to address - income inequality, food security, housing, childcare, healthcare, family stability, and cultural values.

Among admissions, UC has substantially put their thumb on the scales so that white and black students are represented at proportionate levels to state population. Asian students are way over represented, Hispanic students way under represented, and men of all races somewhat underrepresented. The lightning rod is how do you take seats from one minority to another because at this point they have exhausted the number of white males to take seats from.

So how does this apply to the original debate of hiring? Research shows minority students learn better from teachers that “look” like them. But in a chicken and egg paradox, there are often few qualified minority candidates so to what extent should we lower objective standards to cater to this?

I work in private industry in a historically white male dominated field. On a macro level, some diversity is good. Best example I have is I recall sitting in a meeting of 10 old men debating which type of tampon women would prefer we stock in the restroom. I called a timeout and said maybe we should ask some women who work here, since we only identify tampons as the “green or pink” type. But on a micro level, diversity hiring quotas are horribly unfair to individuals. My company has decided they want upper management to be 60% diverse by 2025. Well, they aren’t firing white men just because, so it means right now nearly 100% of promotion opportunities are reserved for women and minorities. I’ve been passed several times for lucrative promotions because of my demographic and have often had to report to someone with less education, experience, and ability who had the “correct” equipment between their legs. Since they have exhausted the pool of qualified diversity candidates, it has become a race to the bottom on qualifications and simultaneously a race to the top on pay. It would be great if my field was more diverse and I have no qualms about fair tough competition. But that interest would have needed to have been planted 20-30 years ago. Not something you can just wave a wand and wish into existence among established professional adults.

https://www.ams.org/journals/notices/201911/rnoti-p1778.pdf
Well written article. I recently was asked to review a promotion package (name and university withheld).

One of the sections in the CV was
“Evidence of incorporating diversity, equity, inclusion and/or social justice (DEISJ) in scholarship, research, and creative artistry”. I had never seen this before in promotion packages and besides the fact that those terms are not well defined, it leaves the candidate searching for something to state in this nebulous section that certainly could be perceived as a requirement. The candidate mentioned something about a “non-binary” student which makes one wonder “how does the faculty member know and is there a student questionnaire involved - which would seem to be an invasion of privacy. Anyway a section like that really has now place in such a package. As Dr. Thompson (UC Davis mathematician) notes, these sorts of politically-charged assessments and perceived requirements can cut both ways. Anyway I pretty much ignored that section in my review.