Diversity Statements Are Not the Answer to the Urgent Need to Diversify Faculty Ranks

Reflections from a Stanford Law School conference on “Inclusive Critical Discourse on Campus”

Earlier this month, we attended a conference on “Inclusive Critical Discourse on Campus” at Stanford Law School. It featured sessions on, among other topics, “Inclusion and Belonging,” “Free Expression on Campus” and “Institutional Neutrality.” There were about 25 of us in attendance, including faculty members like ourselves as well as administrators, leaders of free expression advocacy groups and journalists. One of the journalists who participated was the New York Times columnist Pamela Paul, who wrote about the session on “Diversity Hiring Statements” in a piece titled “Civil Discourse on Campus Is Put to the Test.”

We both participated in the diversity statements session and wanted to share some of the highlights. We began by noting that Black, Hispanic and indigenous faculty members are clearly under-represented on campus. And by asserting that colleges and universities should be proactive in addressing these disparities through initiatives like cluster hires, reducing reliance on hiring norms that perpetuate institutional prestige bias and more robust retention efforts.

While the need to diversify faculty ranks is urgent, we argued that diversity statements are not the answer. First and foremost, because they are ideological litmus tests. From the Times article:

Amna pointed out that the meaning of “diversity” changes depending on the institutional context:

Part of the problem with diversity statements (and DEI more broadly) is that viewpoint diversity occupies an uncertain place. From what we’ve observed, DEI offices will sometimes offer rhetorical support for viewpoint diversity but, in practice, the focus is almost exclusively on racial diversity.

This dynamic stems from the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Supreme Court decision. Contrary to what most of our students imagine, Bakke justified affirmative action in terms of a diversity rationale, not a social justice rationale. That is, the Court rejected the argument that affirmative action could be grounded in a logic of reparations (to rectify the historical exclusion of particular ethno-racial groups). Instead, the Court maintained that diversity—broadly construed to include race, regional background, political orientation, etc.—was the only justification that would pass constitutional muster. Diverse student bodies, the Court argued, make all of us smarter, more knowledgeable and more well-prepared to participate in a multicultural society. Until Bakke was overturned in the 2022 Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. University of North Carolina Supreme Court decision, it was permissible for colleges and universities to consider race as one factor in a holistic assessment of individual applicants.

As a result of Bakke, colleges and universities have frequently invoked “diversity” when what they are really aiming for is “social justice” (more specifically, recruiting historically under-represented/excluded racial groups). Campus DEI initiatives are not typically interested in diversity factors that are not central to the conventional intersectionality matrix—so religion, political orientation, socio-economic status and neurodivergence are almost always left out of the diversity mix. In general, the whole DEI apparatus is informed by two main currents: 1. a highly ideological “progressive” antiracism framework in the mold of Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo and 2. a neoliberal, corporate approach that is focused on accountability and metrics.

Diversity statements are an example par excellence of what we call DEI, Inc. With scoring rubrics available online, job candidates will tailor their statements accordingly. And they will avoid any “controversial” or “heterodox” statements that would result in a lower score. Statements like I believe in “treating all students the same regardless of background.” Colorblindness is just one of the many widely held views that proponents of DEI, Inc. would label as “problematic.”

Diversity statements are so ideologically charged that merely questioning their utility can result in having a job offer rescinded. Just ask the psychologist Yoel Inbar. Inbar had a job lined up at UCLA last year—but then graduate students discovered a podcast interview where he had been asked about diversity statements. As the Chronicle reported:

Inbar said that diversity statements “sort of seem like administrator virtue-signaling,” questioned how they would be used in a hiring process and suggested “it’s not clear that they lead to better outcomes for underrepresented groups.”

More than 60 graduate students signed an open letter calling for the university not to hire him. They claimed Inbar’s hiring would “threaten ongoing efforts to protect and uplift individuals of marginalized backgrounds.” A few days letter, Inbar received an email informing him that an ad hoc committee had decided they could not offer him the job.

For more on diversity statements & DEI, check out:

• this Chronicle Review essay, “How to Fix Diversity and Equity”

• this So to Speak podcast episode on trigger warnings and DEI statements

• and this six-minute video that compares and contrasts *diversity training* with *education* (the crux: training is performative, education is transformative)