DEI statements analysis: University of California colleges overrun with “intellectual authoritarianism”

National Review's Jeffrey Blehar explains how UC institutions including Berkeley, UC Davis, and UCLA are excluding qualified instructor candidates based on their failure to conform to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) ideology. One applicant, for instance, was dismissed for disagreeing with the practice of requiring DEI statements—years ago, on his podcast. Read Blehar's reflections below on the implications for local higher ed.

On Friday, the New York Times published a truly shocking piece that nevertheless slid by my transom unnoticed until last night. Entitled “D.E.I. Statements Stir Debate on College Campuses,” it begins with the depressing tale of University of Toronto psychology professor Yoel Inbar, who was recently denied a position at the University of California, Los Angeles despite having been already evaluated as highly qualified and mooted to join the faculty.

His crime? You have already guessed it’s related to the ever-escalating antics of university Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion administrators and activists, and you are not wrong. But it’s even more outrageous than the standard-issue story: Inbar happily submitted a “diversity statement” that used all the proper language and ticked every box as required, but was blocked from joining when a cadre of activist graduate students discovered that, once on his podcast years ago, he had opposed the idea of requiring them for academic hires. The activist mobs usually rule at California schools — Stanford recently had to send its entire law school class to mandatory remedial education on how to tolerate conservative viewpoints — and when over 50 graduate students signed a petition denouncing his potential hiring, Professor Inbar’s application was suddenly and summarily denied. He remains in Canada, a cruel fate for any man.

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That story could be viewed as merely one more anecdote in a saga traced by observers of academia’s increasing madness and intellectual authoritarianism. What makes the Times piece different is that it then expands into a much larger examination of how DEI imperatives have completely infested the California state university system from top to bottom, at every aspect of the hiring and teaching experience. The entire article should be read — and credit where due, it is remarkable to see this sort of tough news piece coming from the New York Times — but a few key excerpts will suffice to explain the depth of the rot within the California system, a rot now spreading across the country with lightning speed:

Candidates who did not “look outstanding” on diversity, the vice provost at U.C. Davis instructed his search committees, could not advance, no matter the quality of their academic research. Credentials and experience would be examined in a later round. . .

At Berkeley, a faculty committee rejected 75 percent of applicants in life sciences and environmental sciences and management purely on diversity statements, according to a new academic paper by Steven Brint, a professor of public policy at U.C. Riverside, and Komi Frey, a researcher for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has opposed diversity statements. Candidates who made the first cut were repeatedly asked about diversity in later rounds. “At every stage,” the study noted, “candidates were evaluated on their commitments to D.E.I.”

This article originally appeared in the National Review (subscriber paywall). Read the whole thing here.

DEI statements analysis: University of California colleges overrun with “intellectual authoritarianism”

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