People seeking a job as professors at Ohio State University’s College of Engineering must effectively pledge allegiance to diversity, equity and inclusion to get hired.
College administrators require applicants to include a statement that describes their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, along with “specific examples such as teaching and/or mentoring students from underrepresented backgrounds, outreach activities to underrepresented groups, or conducting research that address social inequities,” according to a copy of the application rubric recently posted online by a critic of such requirements, the National Association of Scholars.
The hiring requirements apply to current positions at Ohio State’s College of Engineering, such as a tenure-track faculty position in the Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Department and a tenure-track assistant professor position at Ohio State’s Knowlton School of Architecture and Administration.
The application also tells applicants they will need to participate in and support DEI efforts, which has drawn concern from civil liberties groups and state legislators.
Jerry Cirino, a Republican legislator, introduced a bill on Tuesday (Senate Bill 83) which seeks to prohibit political and ideological litmus tests in all hiring at public universities, such as diversity statements.
“This is not a political issue for me. This is not conservative or liberal,” said Cirono to the Columbus Dispatch. “This is making sure students are exposed to different theories.”
John Sailer of the National Association of Scholars posted on Twitter images of DEI interview questions and recommended responses sent to search committee chairs for the College of Engineering.
Some sample questions ask applicants to share demonstrated or committed acts devoted to raising awareness of DEI, inquire about what each term of DEI means to the applicant, and ask about what DEI initiatives the applicant has been involved in.
Many of the questions ask about counteracting one’s biases and ask about how the candidate would advocate DEI “with colleagues who don’t understand its importance.”
The material provide by college officials to search committees includes rubrics for search committees to score candidates. These rubrics assign scores based on demonstrated awareness or understanding of DEI, experience promoting DEI, and plans to advance DEI.
Better scores are given to applicants deemed to have a “sophisticated understanding of differences stemming from ethnic, socioeconomic, racial, gender, disability, sexual orientation, and cultural backgrounds and the obstacles people from these backgrounds face in higher education.”
Applicants also get better scores if they provide many examples of how they have mitigated bias in their careers or share plans to promote DEI within their department. The rubric gives only low scores to those who “vaguely describe the importance of diversity” or are “uncomfortable discussing diversity-related issues.” Applicants also get low scores if they “merely say they would do what’s asked, if hired or speak in broad terms,” it states.
NAS’s John Sailer said these new hiring practices, while disturbing, are predictable because OSU engineering faculty promised in 2020 to add questions about DEI to their annual reviews. He also mentioned OSU’s RAISE Initiative is one of the most ideological hiring programs pushing DEI.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression last year published a position paper expressing concerning over embedding DEI mandates in hiring practices and more recently drafted model legislation on how to address potential viewpoint discrimination in hiring practices, which is a big risk from DEI mandates .
“Public universities must respect faculty members’ expressive rights when advancing universities’ initiatives on DEI,” said FIRE’s Graham Piro. Last September, FIRE sent a letter to OSU that raised objections to the mandatory use of DEI statements in faculty applications. FIRE said that “as a public university bound by the First Amendment, OSU must uphold academic freedom of its faculty and make its hiring decisions in a viewpoint-neutral manner. The university cannot reject or penalize job applicants because of their failure to progress allegiance to a particular political or ideological position.”
The University responded on October 13, 2022 that “it takes its role in protecting free speech and expression seriously and would review [FIRE’s] concerns.” But there is no sign that it ever actually did so.
Ohio State has yet to release any statements on the pending Ohio legoislation to restrict ideological litmus tests (such as DEI statements). In February, after the NAS criticized a DEI hiring requirement in Texas Tech Univesity’s biology department, the university rescinded the requirement.
State legislators in Florida, Utah and West Virginia have also proposed legislation that would ban the use of diversity statements in university hiring and admission policies, notes the Daily Caller.
