“Like a mutating virus, racism shape-shifts in order to stay alive; when its explicit expression becomes taboo, it hides in coded language.” — Kathy Waldman
In 2024, several states, including Idaho, Utah, Iowa, North Dakota, and Arizona, passed laws prohibiting public universities from using “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) statements as part of the hiring process. At least five other states have proposed similar legislation, and more are expected in the coming year. Although opposition to DEI in higher education has many causes, resistance to DEI statements themselves largely stems from how the statements are sometimes used as ideological litmus tests that prioritize political conformity and homogeneity over intellectual diversity and merit-based hiring while simultaneously curtailing or outright eliminating consideration of qualified applicants who do not unequivocally conform to the prescribed approach to social justice. However well-intentioned, the statements function more as what one writer described as “compelled speech” than as mechanisms for choosing the best candidates while undermining academic freedom. And that is a problem, not just for higher education but for prospective students and faculty as well.
Determined to realize my own lifelong professional aspiration of getting a tenure-track job, I probably applied for 200 positions before finally giving up. I can’t remember how many times I advanced to the semi-finalist stage of the process, but I do recall the one and only time I was one of three finalists for a good job at a small liberal arts college in Idaho.
That was about 20 years ago, but I remember the experience vividly, I think, because of the event’s singularity and because of the difficult pleasure of the event itself—that is, interviewing for three straight days and coming so close to getting the job. Had things gone differently, I would likely now be enjoying all the privileges and trappings of being a full, tenured professor and working in the field I was trained in. As Hemingway once said, it’s pretty to think so.
[RELATED: A Crisis Averted is Not a Crisis Solved: DEI Reforms Face Resistance]
Given this dearth of opportunities, I’ve asked myself some tough questions over the years. Should I just accept my situation—my ceiling—and give up my search for a better job? Why aren’t I getting interviews? What am I doing wrong?
I realize there are countless answers to why I’m not getting interviews—some within my control, most not—but that’s no reason to avoid asking the question. Honest answers could help appraise what one truly has to offer and better understand the forces shaping the job market. Yet, before asking, “Why not me?” it might be wise to first consider what—or who—“I” means.
Until a few years ago, I thought “I” simply referred to the sum of my qualifications, established through a letter of interest, a CV, letters of recommendation, and occasionally a teaching statement. Back then, I worked hard to ensure these documents accurately portrayed me without raising red flags. The only real risk of misstep lay in the teaching philosophy, where the exploratory tone might tempt me to reveal more than was prudent. Otherwise, the process felt straightforward—devoid of the ideological landmines embedded in today’s standards. All I needed was to demonstrate my qualifications through clear, largely apolitical conventions.
The general understanding back in those days was that one’s chances of getting an interview were based on one’s qualifications, which, in contrast to the rubrics used today, are fairly easy to identify and assess. This is not to say that one’s person—or, in the parlance of the moment, one’s identity—wouldn’t become important at some point, but at that early stage of the process, all that mattered were one’s professional credentials. The process was relatively straightforward, more-or-less transparent, explicit, and, perhaps most importantly, I believed, gave me a chance.
I probably don’t need to tell this to people on the job market, but for those of us who fail in landing a desirable position right out of graduate school, maintaining a healthy belief in the future and one’s professional viability is crucial. In fact, I remember times when, after not advancing in a job search, I followed up with the committee chair and asked how I could improve my chances of being considered for future positions. Sometimes, the chair encouraged me to do more service work, to publish more widely, or to present at conferences—things that, while involving various levels of difficulty, were still possible. However imperfect, under that paradigm, there were clear steps to grow professionally and thereby improve my chances of getting interviews and possibly, in the next round, winning a job.
In the context of today’s job ads emphasizing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) and treating identity as a primary basis for candidacy, “I” now often refers to racial and gender identity above all else. This shift renders follow-up conversations with search committee chairs ineffective for candidates who do not represent a target identity. For those individuals, barring drastic steps like becoming an identity imposter, rejection often signals the end of the line—troubling given all the traits that define a person beyond their appearance. While DEI—or diversity—statements, often required in job applications, aim to support efforts to recruit and retain diverse faculty, students, and staff, some practices may not achieve the goal of true diversity—defined as welcoming individuals who look and think differently. Paradoxically, these statements may discourage or preemptively exclude highly qualified candidates, undermining the broader intent of fostering a truly inclusive workplace.
[RELATED: DEI’s Silence on Religious Diversity]
Thus, job ads that prioritize DEI statements may yield exclusive results insofar as they privilege some forms of diversity to exclude others. I’ve read hundreds of job ads and talked to dozens of people about their own experiences with the job search. And I’ve never met anyone who, upon finding DEI language in a job ad, including requests for a DEI statement, thought that it included white people. One academic I interviewed for this essay—a white senior lecturer with graduate degrees from two, top five programs in the country—told me that any time he comes across a job ad that prioritizes DEI and uses “coded language,” he doesn’t even bother applying. Anyone who extols the importance of DEI should, at the very least, consider this alarming.
Abigail Thompson, a professor and chair of the mathematics department at UC Davis, would no doubt agree. A few years ago, after becoming “increasingly uneasy with the use of DEI statements in faculty hiring,” she wrote an oped calling out university administrators for implementing what basically amounts to a leftist ideological litmus test for hiring. “No longer will faculty hiring committees use their own judgment about how best to create a diverse and inclusive environment in their fields,” she writes. “Instead, each candidate’s commitment to diversity will be assigned points. To score well, candidates must subscribe to a particular political ideology, one based on treating people not as unique individuals but as representatives of their gender and ethnic identities.”
Shortly after Professor Thompson’s piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal, emeritus professor of Biology Jerry Coyne published a detailed—and deservedly unflattering—analysis of UC Berkeley’s use of diversity statements to eliminate candidates, particularly white males, who, in one search “were reduced from about 60% of the candidates to none of the interviewees.” I wonder how many other graduates and job applicants would feel demoralized and hopeless after learning about what’s happening in the UC system and other universities nationwide. This should be of great concern to everyone in higher education, but the parties most responsible for weighing the virtues of DEI statements should take special notice.
Clearly, identity will continue to play an important role in hiring. But can a hiring process that gives precedence to identity above all else ever truly reflect the values of DEI? What if, by requiring DEI statements, universities have gone too far? These are tough questions, but any honest discussion of how best to achieve a diverse workplace will make every effort to address them.
Image of DEI pamphlet at UC Berkley by Quinn Dombrowski on Wikimedia Commons
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
