The University of Michigan will no longer solicit diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure.
The decision by Provost Laurie McCauley follows an Oct. 31 recommendation by an eight-member faculty working group to end the use of the statements, which have been criticized for their potential to limit freedom of expression and diversity of thought on campus.
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“Diversity, equity and inclusion are three of our core values at the university. Our collective efforts in this area have produced important strides in opening opportunities for all people,” McCauley said. “As we pursue this challenging and complex work, we will continuously refine our approach.”
“I’m grateful for this faculty committee, which spent months soliciting feedback from across campus, evaluating our methods and determining the best course forward.”
The university has not had an institutionwide policy on diversity statements. Accordingly, the Provost’s Office did not require units to solicit statements as part of hiring and promotion decisions, though units did have the discretion to do so. The approach reflected the decentralized and heterogeneous culture of the university.
In June, McCauley charged a faculty working group, made up of individuals with relevant expertise, to explore the use of diversity statements in faculty hiring and promotion at U-M and elsewhere, and to make a recommendation.
The group reviewed published literature, considered policies at peer institutions and issued a faculty survey that received nearly 2,000 responses.
Most responding faculty agreed that diversity statements put pressure on faculty to express specific positions on moral, political or social issues. Slightly more disagreed than agreed that diversity statements allow an institution to demonstrate a commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion by cultivating DEI in the faculty.
“Critics of diversity statements perceive them as expressions of personal identity traits, support of specific ideology or opinions on socially-relevant issues, and serve as a ‘litmus test’ of whether a faculty member’s views are politically acceptable,” the working group wrote in its report. “Thus, as currently enacted, diversity statements have the potential to limit viewpoints and reduce diversity of thought among faculty members.”
The group also noted that diversity statements can be well-written and useful in evaluating the ability of applicants and faculty to contribute to the mission of the university.
Although the university did not enact the working group’s two other recommendations — to incorporate content about DEI into teaching, research and service statements, and to bolster training on how best to write and evaluate such content — the Provost’s Office will continue to work with campus leaders and faculty to identify ways to help foster a welcoming and inclusive environment in classrooms, labs and performance spaces.
Sean Johnson
A cowardly, shameful, and heavy handed intrusion of the administration into department hiring practices. The notion that conservatives can’t write effective DEI statements is just pure intellectual laziness. These are not litmus tests. They are expressions of how an applicants views there contributions on what the provosts acknowledges are core university values.
Mariel Krupansky
First, I am very curious as to why the University chose to cherry pick recommendations made by this working group–only changing the policy about DEI statements and not moving to incorporate DEI content into teaching, research, and service statements, and not moving to bolster training on how to best write and evaluate such content. In my understanding, the recommendations from this group are holistic, meaning that all recommendations were intended to be enacted together–indeed, thinking of the recommendations in this way makes a lot more sense. If separate DEI statements are not accomplishing the intended effects, but moving the focus to other areas (teaching statements, training) would possibly improve current practices, then that is a sound and reasonable argument. It seems disingenuous and misinformed to cherry pick one recommendation to implement but not the others.
Second, this statement is not clear on the enactment of this recommendation. Does this mean that individual units are no longer allowed to solicit DEI statements as part of any of the procedures mentioned (hiring, tenure, etc.)? Or are individual units still able to decide if such statements serve their goals? Relatedly, can individual units move to enact the working group’s other recommendations to specifically request that DEI content appear in teaching statements, and to create more robust trainings on reading and evaluating such statements?
Finally, this move appears in itself political–especially considering the fact that the university is only enacting one of the recommendations from this working group. In the context of the incoming Trump Administration and their views towards DEI, and in the current threat of UM’s regents likely moving to defund DEI initiatives at UM, this policy is a shabby attempt to enact conservative ideology under the veil of “neutrality.”
Rebekah Modrak
This past summer, the Regents called for diversity statements to be banned. The Provost had the discernment and appreciation for shared governance to form a faculty committee to review and discuss the merits and flaws of diversity statements. My understanding is that the committee’s first report recommended that the use of diversity statements should be up to each unit, a recommendation that honors our decentralization, independence, and academic freedom. The Regents rejected that report and central leadership didn’t support their own faculty committee. Sending a committee back to work to give a second report with preordained results is neither honest nor respectful of faculty expertise. The University Record’s erasure of the Regents’ autocratic hand in this process is also deceptive.
John Luther
Thank you for the added clarification. This “article” does not represent this context at all.
Tyler James
Thank you for mentioning this!
Eliza Hughes
The group’s recommendations seemed to be clearly meant to be implemented together. A “sacrifice” to order to bolster better DEI practices in other areas. This clearly shows that the Regents work solely in their own interests & beliefs, cherry picking recommendations to act like they care about Faculty’s recommendations.
Kathryn Lampen
If those speaking out against DEI statements are claiming they aren’t being included in those statements by being forced to name their value, they are being hypocritical to both claim they desire DEI while stating DEI statements go against their values. If they truly valued inclusion, they would value the statements of inclusion. Don’t pander to idiocy and hatred. You are better than that.
Levi Klankowski
Being able to write a strong DEI statement requires being able to articulate many ideas at a high level, many of which have only recently become accepted. It is a recency education issue, not a personal values issue; and thus failures to understand it will tend to fall along economic and age lines. Serious continued training historically works best, lip service won’t cut it. The university’s reluctance to enact it, instead focusing on statements which only reflect face value concepts comes across as disingenuous.
Removing the statements requirement is an okay idea in isolation, if even just for the reviewers: weak statements are often cynical, reaching, and oscillate wildly between sad childhood experiences and bizarre gestures at misunderstood DEI buzzwords. Demonstrating commitment through words and not actions doesn’t build the desired culture as quickly or strongly. Statements are useful tools with specific applications, but require understanding that they can’t stand in for real DEI work or screening.
Choosing to focus on the removal of the solicitation of statements rather than supporting the education of faculty will only continue to stifle diversity. This is not just about university values, lack of DEI is a productivity and safety issue, and until it is recognized as such (i.e. after other universities outpace us) it seems it won’t get the treatment it deserves.
Charlotte Karem Albrecht
Perhaps it’s time to change the tag line for the University Record from “News for faculty, staff, and retirees” to “UM reputational management brought to you by PR experts.” As others have mentioned in their comments, this is the result of the Regents’ politically-motivated desires to end “DEI” at the university, starting with diversity statements. The committee’s first recommendation was to ask departments to use or not use diversity statements according to their own unit and disciplinary needs, rather than having a university-wide mandate. This was not good enough for the regents and they demanded a different set of recommendations. The committee then recommended that units “incorporate content about DEI into teaching, research and service statements, and to bolster training on how best to write and evaluate such content” since this was a concern revealed in the survey responses. The committee’s recommendations were simply ignored. The ultimate decision that is being enacted does NOT follow the recommendation of the committee, contrary to “reporting” of this article.
Eva Hedwig Schueler
Thank you for providing this additional context, Charlotte.
Robert LaRoe
Thanks for this. I would argue that the “PR experts”, especially those supporting the Regents, are not experts at all. This has been unforced error after unforced error and a lot of that has come to down to truly poor, condescending, and obviously opaque messaging.
Kirsten Herold
I have been a member of the UM community since 1986. The University Record has always been a mouthpiece for admin. To its credit, they actually allow comments, corrections, and discussion of the articles, which is not a given.
Eva Hedwig Schueler
I’m quite curious who these individuals “with relevant expertise” were, and I find it interesting that the article provides little clarity on what that “relevant” expertise was. Without any further context, it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that this working group was wholly cherrypicked so as to come to a predetermined policy.
This strikes me as a frightening change of pace for the University, given what we have heard these last few weeks that the Regents will soon move to vote to defund DEI measures.
Kirsten Herold
If you click the link, the three reports are provided, including a list of the committee members, with titles and departments. You can decide for yourself how relevant you think the expertise is. 😉
KH
Rajeev Batra
If you really care about intellectual diversity of views on this issue: I am a faculty member who DOES support DEI goals philosophically, but I’ve also felt for a long time that requiring these DEI statements from faculty candidates was DEI overreach. So I welcome this announcement.
I wish the University would also now get rid of the Rakham requirement that applicants to PhD programs also submit similar DEI statements. This requirement is totally unrelated to the criteria we use (or should use) to select who to admit for our PhD programs. In addition, we should also get rid of the Rakham “diktat” that faculty selecting doctoral program applicants are not allowed to ask for, or see and use, the applicant’s GRE scores. Both of these Rakham requirements were imposed without broad faculty input (beyond a narrow-viewpoint committee) as far as I know.
Christopher Godwin
Thanks for this Professor Batra.
I figured that DEI statements were required in at least some departments and units, particularly in the humanities and “studies” programs, where I think they could be relevant and helpful, but for the majority of STEM programs they seem irrelevant. However, the fact that “faculty selecting doctoral program applicants are not allowed to ask for, or see and use, the applicant’s GRE scores” is as you say, “DEI overreach.” It seems that this kind of important information would be crucial to the selection process, especially in a “wholistic” evaluation of the candidates where more background information would seem to better than less. What good could possibly be gained by actually **forbidding** faculty to even *ask* for, let alone use that sort of relevant information?
Christopher Godwin
Reading these comments so far is depressing: All but one of the faculty weighing in on this topic so far seem to be essentially saying “How *dare* the Regents not do what we tell them to do!”
The reality is that as elected officials, the Regents represent the voices of the voters of the State of Michigan, and thus, people who financially support and who have a direct stake in the functioning of the U of M. If my data and math are correct, there are about 9,250 faculty members on the U of M campuses, while there are approximately 7.2 million eligible voters in Michigan. Given that each of us gets one vote and assuming all the faculty are eligible to vote in Michigan, that makes the faculty approximately 0.13% of the eligible voters. To my faculty friends, your voices have plenty of influence, but you only are a minuscule proportion of us; many of us share your views on this matter, but many do not. That’s why we have the Board of Regents – they represent *all* of us.
Another issue that is germane to this topic is political: A number of these comments seem to be suggesting that the Board of Regents is somehow bowing to a conservative/Republican cabal, towing the line of the GOP. The BOR now has, and after this most recent election will continue to have, six Democrats and two Republicans on it. That’s hardly evidence of a conservative takeover of the BOR.
As the latest elections, both nationally and in individual states have shown, DEI is a controversial topic. As another said, one can support the philosophical goals of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” but take issue with the implementation thereof. That’s where the Regents come in.
Rebekah Modrak
We elect the Board of Regents as stewards who have “control and direction of all expenditures from the institution’s funds.” You might find this 2002 interview with Board of Regents Chair Laurence Deitch interesting. He notes that the President, and the President alone, is the leader of the University and the Regents are not to micro-manage “the daily affairs of the University.” “Regarding his view of the regents’ role in faculty personnel decisions—such as hiring, tenure and termination—Deitch says it is a ‘hands-off situation for us.'” https://record.umich.edu/articles/deitch-discusses-boards-role-with-faculty/
Christopher Godwin
Right, of course. I read the blurb on the U of M website about the role of the Regents.
I’m not suggesting that it would be appropriate or even possible for the Regents to “to micro-manage ‘the daily affairs of the University,'” however, this issue is not related to routine, “day-to-day” functioning of the university. For me it’s on the same over-arching level as other policies, e.g., Title IX compliance, investing in companies in apartheid South Africa, etc. From the article you cited, Deitch also said “‘In my view, the president and the president alone is the leader of the University,’ he said. The regents, however, determine the general direction and tone of the University.” This issue is directly related to the general direction and tone of the University.
The residents of Michigan deserve a voice in this, and the Regents are our voices.