The leftist ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” continues to spread like kudzu over American higher education. Almost no college or university leader dares oppose it, lest he become a target for the “woke” mob.
In today’s Martin Center article, Professor Robert Weissberg writes about developments at the school where he taught for many years, the University of Illinois. He writes, “In a nutshell, all professors up for tenure or promotion—including those in the hard sciences such as physics and engineering–must submit a statement about their personal commitment to diversity. Currently, this is voluntary, but it will soon be mandatory.”
Just being excellent at teaching and researching in your subject area won’t suffice any longer. Faculty members will have to demonstrate their commitment to a set of ideas that many academics now obsess over.
Weissberg doesn’t believe that the “diversity” agenda will do anything to improve things for the supposedly “marginalized” student groups. He sees it as merely a costly gesture that will employ more zealots. “Most obviously,” he states, “this is a make-work project for today’s massive campus bureaucracy and as such, it has little to do with promoting academic achievement among minority students. This is about hiring more administrators who will spend their days reading statements generated by faculty in fields that have nothing to do with race and attract hardly any black students and, since tenure and promotion are an ongoing university activity, this administrative ‘work’ is forever.”
Our colleges and universities graduate large numbers of students whose heads are filled with leftist notions but would have trouble finding useful jobs in the private sector — so let’s give them “diversity” jobs at state flagships!
I like Weissberg’s conclusion: “This is not the first time that learned men and women have pursued the unreachable. Education becomes an exercise in forcing smart people to genuflect and embrace the faith. Ironically, in today’s secular world, the cult of diversity again makes universities faith-based institutions.”