You may not have noticed, but the websites at IU have undergone a significant change. Instead of promising “equality” they now advertise “equity.” The difference is not trivial. “Equality” means equal opportunity for all regardless of how people were born. “Equity” means the percentage of people with various characteristics in IU’s workforce, especially skin color and gender, needs to reflect the same percentage in the population. Nobody voted on this change. Nobody has ever found any evidence that equal opportunity has ever been denied to anyone at IU. The goal of “equity” was simply imposed by the administration and various faculty and student groups.
How are they enforcing “equity?” A primary tool is to require all new faculty to fill out a “diversity statement.” Candidates for faculty positions are required to describe exactly what they have done in their careers to support the ill-defined goals of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” Administrators now carefully comb through these statements to determine if a candidate supports these goals, and, if the candidate is not sufficiently supportive of, or heaven forbid, are opposed to these goals, they will not be interviewed. One wonders what the university would do if a black female candidate said she is opposed to diversity efforts.
Currently schools such as Notre Dame and the University of Illinois do not require faculty candidates to submit a “diversity statement.” As a result, when IU competes for faculty with these schools, it will be a competitive disadvantage. IU is essentially telling candidates that the administrative burden is greater here and that some political views are not tolerated.
Abigail Thompson, chair of the University of California Davis’s math department, opposes diversity statements in her state because they are inevitably political. She observes that politics reflects how you believe society should be organized. Her view and mine is that Americans should aspire to treat every person as a unique individual, not as a representative of their gender or their ethnic group. In contrast, a diversity statement is a loyalty oath to a political view that celebrates identity politics. Employers who demand a diversity statement are looking for a political perspective that promotes hiring based on characteristics a candidate has never been able to change, including their age, race, ethnicity, disability, gender, or nationality. IU’s “diversity statement” makes these characteristics relevant for employment and requires new faculty to be loyal to the goal of promoting “equity”.
The imposition of a “diversity statement” allows administrators to be biased against candidates who are not “under-represented minorities,” mainly whites and asians, and against those who think hiring should be based purely on merit. Units of IU who try to achieve equality of opportunity through meritocratic hiring, as opposed to “equity,” can be denied permission to interview candidates. There is simply no room at IU for those who will not submit the university’s “diversity” oath.
To gain perspective on “diversity statements,” it may help to compare them with a different type of oath. Loyalty oaths have a long history in US higher education. In 1950 the University of California required all faculty to sign a statement asserting that “I am not a member of, nor do I support any party or organization that believes in, advocates, or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government, by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means, that I am not a member of the Communist Party.” Thirty-one faculty members were fired over their refusal to sign. Among them was David Saxon, an eminent physicist who later became the president of the University of California. Indiana went to the extreme of requiring all professional boxers and wrestlers to sign a similar loyalty oath. These oaths were repeatedly challenged in court and eventually the Supreme Court ruled they violated freedom of speech and freedom of association.
University education should allow a wide range of opinions addressing every issue from all points of view. The political loyalty oaths of 1950 and of 2021 are an attempt to discredit certain views and to make universities homogenous bodies. The 2021 oath is used by administrators to hinder or exclude those who are defined as “non diverse” or who are opposed to diversity efforts. These oaths should be resisted by all who believe that universities are intellectual centers with freedom to explore all ideas. Taxpayers should never support a public university that requires loyalty oaths whether these oaths are against communism or for “diversity.” IU needs to drop the requirement to fill out a diversity statement and should change “equity” to “equality” on all websites. The new IU President can certainly make this happen and move IU forward. Elected officials should make sure she does so and our competitors will no doubt force us to change if she does not.
Charles Trzcinka is the James and Virginia Cozad Professor of Finance at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business and serves as the faculty sponsor for the IU College Republicans.
To all: So far IU is only forcing applications for new faculty existing faculty do not have to fill this out.