Well, I’ve written DEI statements, and I’ve also served on search committees in which applicants have had to write them, so I can answer this question. The questions are rather open-ended and allow candidates to talk about how they would promote equity in their roles (whether in an administrative or faculty role, or in my case on an editorial board of a journal). Candidates might take this opportunity to write about their own experiences in marginalized categories (if applicable) and how those experiences have shaped their philosophies of teaching. All candidates offer concrete explanations of policies, curricular choices, research interests, and other means of insuring that they are making active choices in their work to be inclusive. A DEI statement is not all that different from a teaching philosophy statement, which has long been part of many job applications. In fields where implicit biases have been shown to hurt students, it’s a positive step that employers are asking job candidates to think about how they’ll counteract such biases to expand access, interest, and participation.
I’m reminded when Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin proposed huge cuts to the University of Wisconsin. His rationale was that the young citizens of his state had no need of a world class state university, just a decent one. Luckily that went no where, and Walker was replaced as governor.
I wish education was left to the educators.
I found it helpful to look at the link @neela1 provided. If you scroll down there is also a PDF with some examples.
I bet Chat GPT could write a good one…
There are thousands of colleges and universities across the United States. In the coming years with the total # of high school grads declining a bit, there will be more competition amongst colleges & universities to convince students to attend college at their institutions.
So the marketplace will eventually determine how this goes.
Every family has to decide for themselves what their important decision factors are when choosing which college for their student to attend. When the updated Roe v Wade decision came out from the US Supreme Court, this resulted in some deciding that for their kids, attending college in certain states is a ‘no go.’
This topic in Florida will be similar.
Diversity of thought is important. The sharing of ideas both conservative AND liberal AND everything in between is important. The free exchange of ideas. There are many instances at many institutions of higher education in which individuals - both employees and students - have been faced with…difficulties because those individuals did not share the same prevailing ideas/philosophies as the rest of the most vocal groups at those colleges/universities.
Like it or not, colleges & universities are basically like large corporations. Forcing everyone to have a statement of diversity and inclusion is great, but how those corporations/organizations IMPLEMENT them is, in my opinion, even more important.
Take Wells Fargo Bank, for example. They have diversity, equity, and inclusion statements. They’ve also been under scrunity by the federal government for many things, diversity being one of them. Wells Fargo has had a policy for awhile now mandating that for every job opening of a certain type, a ‘diverse’ candidate also needs to be interviewed.
In practice, though, what has occurred is that the company already has someone tagged for that promotion, but they have to adhere to the letter of their policy…so they interview people who think that they actually have a shot at the job, when in fact, the organization had no intention whatsoever to hire them into that position. Legal challenges, of course, are underway.
If you’re a professor at a really liberal institution but you lean conservative and the head of your department knows this…and if you know that the only way you’re getting tenure or whatever is to tow the department/company line, then that’s not really diversity, is it? Or vice versa…the same thing happens of liberal professors at conservative institutions.
It’s all about liberty…the free and open exchange of ideas. Diversity of thought. Diversity of experience. Sharing conflicting ideas with one another is how we can grow as a society overall. And sometimes, many times, sharing those conflicting ideas with one another in a respectful way, in which you won’t be called names or shouted at or have stuff thrown at you or get death threats, is unfortunately hard for a lot of people to do.
So a more generic thought about allowing diversity of thought.
I think we can all agree that saying any particular race is superior is bad. Or saying that one particular sex is superior is bad. Right? Do we allow a debate on campus between a Nazi promoting the superiority of the Aryan race dominated by men and someone representing the view of merit based society, and so on? Let’s say the debate goes as expected and the view we all agree is “right” utterly dismantles the Nazis arguments and 99.9% of the people walking out of the debate leave understanding that white supremacy is bad… but one person in the audience who hadn’t thought much of the argument before heard something from the Nazi that resonated with him. Was the debate a good thing? We now have 1 new Nazi that we didn’t have before… and with certain ideologies, it only takes one person to cause serious damage.
This is obviously an extreme case, and even them I’m not sure what the “right” answer is… but I do think the idea of free speech absolutism to be a bit facile.
The case of the Michigan speaker was a case of medical students who hold a sincere belief that their oath to take care of their patients supersedes their religious beliefs. It’s much deeper than simply saying that this speaker was there to give a congratulatory speech.
Perhaps Governor DeSantis should turn his focus away from the well ranked public universities in Florida and pay some attention to the middling K-12 education provided in the state. But, of course, the attitude espoused by this double Ivy educated politician (the irony) doesn’t really have anything to do with education. It’s political theatre.
You shouldn’t give extreme cases as you point out yourself. Because then people with the opposing point of view think that that is what you think of them, and they bucket you into having an extreme point of view. And there ends the debate. And maybe you do think people with the opposite view are extreme. Who knows?
So, the reason I pointed out that it was an extreme view was to hopefully show that I’m not saying anyone is going to that point; but using an extreme view was also necessary to my point show that no one really believes in absolute free speech either. There is a line that we are trying to find.
Wow. I’m stunned. The College Board caved on this. Changing the curriculum of the course itself. Wow.
I am not surprised at all. The CB is a money making racket (IMO) and they want to “sell” a product (AP Tests)… of course they are going to do what they need to do in order to keep it on the table.
This isn’t clear. There is conflicting reporting. This is from CNN.
“This course has been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP principles and practices,” the organization said in a statement. “This course has been shaped only by the input of experts and long-standing AP principles and practices,” the organization said in a statement.
The NYT is more clear:
This. Exactly.
You could argue that non-Florida schools will now teach this course less, and/or fewer kids will take it, owed to it being diluted in this way, resulting in lower revenue overall.
Not sure diluted is fair. The Georgtown AA studies professor in charge of the project said its solid and has added a capstone project requirement, which he likes.
I’m not surprised. They did the exact same thing when there was conservative push-back against reforms to the APUSH curriculum in 2014. The AP is about profit more than anything else.
BINGO… and my guess (and again this is just a guess as I haven’t looked at stats), CB is loosing money on the SAT tests as I would assume (again assumption based on people I’ve talked to) less kids are taking the test or taking it multiple times as they go test optional.
Doubt it. Students want as many APs on their transcript as possible, curriculum is often secondary to this goal, and schools want to show that they are offering a rigorous curriculum to students with a broad array of APs available, again with actual curriculum secondary to this goal. Everyone knows how the game is played: kids who want top colleges need to take a lot APs, schools need to offer those APs to keep their ratings and parent satisfaction up, the College Board sells their product in a vicious cycle that no one can break out of it. Within this context, again, actual curriculum is of secondary concern.
Edited to add: This is precisely why some schools are doing away with AP classes altogether - because ultimately it is a canned curriculum designed to pass a test. Ambitious and talented teachers teaching ambitious and talented students can actually INCREASE course rigor when their hands aren’t tied by the College Board curriculum/test.