Instead of requiring a DEI statement for a tenure-track at Harvard, applicants will be asked to send a “service statement,” as flagged by Steven McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. 

Aspiring tenure-track professors at Harvard can use that statement to explain their “efforts to strengthen academic communities, e.g. department, institution, and/or professional societies.” 

The original diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statement required a statement “describing efforts to encourage [DEI] and belonging.” 

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences told Fox News Digital that it has “expanded its approach to learning about candidates being considered for academic appointments by requesting broader and more robust service statements as part of the hiring process.” 

“In making this decision, the FAS is realigning the hiring process with long-standing criteria for tenured and tenure-track faculty positions,” the statement continued. “These criteria include excellence in research, teaching/advising, and service, which are the three pillars of professorial appointments.”

Harvard Kennedy School historian Khalil Gibran Muhammad attacked the decision, arguing that the removal of DEI statements from the application process “may discourage applicants who are the strongest supporters of DEI to not apply for a job at Harvard given the broader context for this change,” The Boston Globe reported. 

Former Harvard Dean Lawrence Summers celebrated the news on Monday. 

“I am glad to see that Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Science has ended the practice of requiring diversity statements and replaced them with statements on university service,” Summers wrote. 

“This should represent a major pivot towards emphasis on academic values and away from identity in appointment decisions,” he continued, adding that “Harvard is finding its way back towards the right core values.” 

Anti-DEI activist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo called the decision a “small victory” in a post on X Monday.

“This is a small victory, but a signal that our campaign is gaining momentum,” he wrote. “We will not stop until the entire DEI apparatus is dismantled and salted over.”

Harvard’s decision follows closely after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) became the first elite school to remove DEI statements from its faculty hiring process.

A university spokesperson told Fox News Digital at the time that “requests for a statement on diversity will no longer be part of applications for any faculty positions at MIT” and added that the decision was made by the school’s president, Sally Kornbluth, with the support of the Provost, Chancellor, and all six academic deans.

“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to MIT, and to make sure they thrive once here,” Kornbluth said. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

This post appeared on Fox News on June 4, 2024.

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This welcome shift recognizes the incompatibility of DEI with rigorous education, the pursuit of truth, and equality of opportunity. Now, policymakers can defeat this scourge of discrimination in public higher education by ending DEI indoctrination in the classroom — building on recent victories over the bloated bureaucracies whose shock troops promote discriminatory practices in hiring and admissions and conduct mandatory training in DEI concepts.

For instance, just last month, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill’s board of trustees voted to redirect $2.3 million from DEI programs to public safety.

In April, the Iowa legislature passed a law that abolished DEI bureaucracies at all public universities.

And the Massachusetts Institute of Technology became the first elite private university to end the use of “diversity statements” — requiring applicants for faculty positions to write a statement declaring their fealty to the DEI regime.

DEI is on the defensive across the country as Americans realize that the dogma cloaks its radical and discriminatory aims in feel-good buzzwords.

The ideology behind DEI divides the world into the simplistic categories of “oppressor” and “oppressed,” calling for discrimination against those deemed “oppressors” to achieve “equity” and “social justice.” DEI thus rejects the American ideal of equal opportunity regardless of race or religion.

The recent explosion of anti-Israel protests on many campuses represents the logical endpoint of this ideology. In the upside-down world of DEI, Jews — a group that has endured the Holocaust and countless acts of repression — become “oppressors” because of their alleged proximity to “whiteness.” The loathsome antisemitism of these protests does not contradict the principles of DEI but rather fulfills them.

Furthermore, proponents of DEI make little secret of their disdain for America’s founding principles as they seek to tear down our constitutional republic. Ibram X. Kendi, a leading academic in the “antiracism” wing of DEI, sees the United States as so fundamentally racist that he has called for a “Department of Antiracism” that would strike down any law or policy deemed insufficiently “antiracist.” For Mr. Kendi, Americans cannot be trusted to govern themselves. They require the oversight of an enlightened elite schooled in DEI theories.

The pushback against DEI bureaucracies and “diversity statements” is a commendable first step in restoring universities to their core education and research missions. But to complete this work, university decision-makers must also address DEI in the classroom.

According to a recent report by Speech First, more than two-thirds of major universities require students to take DEI courses to obtain a degree. These courses teach students concepts such as “antiracism,” identity politics and gender identity.

Yet many of those same universities that force DEI indoctrination down students’ throats fail to prepare them for citizenship by educating them in the fundamentals of American history and civics. Indeed, less than 20% of general education programs require students to take a course in American history or government, according to an American Council of Trustees and Alumni analysis of over 1,100 colleges and universities.

At many institutions, students can graduate having mastered the ability to identify microaggressions but knowing nothing about the Civil War. They’ll read Mr. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist,” but not The Federalist Papers. And they’ll spend more time pondering the evils of “cisgender” privilege than studying the history of constitutional rights.

Thankfully, these DEI requirements are receiving more scrutiny. George Mason University and Virginia Commonwealth University recently rejected proposals to add DEI to graduation requirements.

But Americans must go further to fix these flawed curricula. The Goldwater Institute, where I work, is advancing the Freedom From Indoctrination Act — a commonsense reform prohibiting public universities from forcing students to take DEI courses to graduate. It also requires public universities, which have a crucial role in preparing students for thoughtful citizenship, to include instruction in fundamental principles of American civics. Under this policy, students would learn about important elements of the American system of self-government, including the separation of powers, equal protection under the law, freedom of speech, and landmark Supreme Court cases.

Public universities are institutions that educate the next generation of scientists, entrepreneurs and leaders. They have a responsibility to provide their students with rigorous instruction that prepares them for successful careers and responsible citizenship. The Freedom From Indoctrination Act helps to refocus universities on this crucial mission rather than promoting poisonous DEI ideology.

Americans must reform academic curricula to achieve a lasting victory over DEI.

This post appeared in The Washington Times on June 3, 2024.

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Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording. The views expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of ACTA.

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The results to this statewide survey indicate a large majority of voters support the University of Texas president calling in Texas state troopers to arrest and remove students who were violating campus regulations for large gatherings.  Support (69%) for the UT president’s actions is three times greater than opposition (23%).  Furthermore, those with intense feelings are nearly four times more supportive of the president’s actions (42% strongly support) than those who are opposed (11% strongly oppose).

Support for the UT president calling in the state troopers to arrest and remove students in violations of campus regulations increases as respondent age increases and as awareness about the protests increases.  Support reaches 75% among those who have been following the news a great deal or very much about students and faculty holding protests on campuses of Texas universities.

Other survey findings:

1. Nearly seven out of ten voters (68%) believe that police officers should be brought in to respond to campus protests that violate campus regulations.

“Should police officers be brought in to respond to campus protests that violate campus regulations?”

68% Yes
17% No
15% Unsure

2. Almost three-fourths (73%) of the Texas electorate believe professional organizers of protests should be banned from the campuses of Texas public universities.

“Over half of the people arrested in protests recently at the University of Texas are not students, are not affiliated with the University of Texas, and may be professional organizers of protests. Do you believe professional organizers of protests should be banned from the campuses of Texas public universities?”

73% Yes
17% No
10% Unsure

3. Seven out of ten Texas voters believe the university president should NOT be fired for calling in the state police.

“Some professors at the University of Texas gave objected to the president of the University of Texas calling in the state police to arrest students. These professors have demanded that the President of the university be fired. Do you believe the university president should be fired for calling in the state police?

15% Yes
70% No
15% Unsure

Interviewing was conducted May 2-5, 2024, among N=602 Texas voters. The margin of error to the results of the 602 interviews is + 4.0% at the .95 confidence interval.  This survey was conducted online among panelists, and the respondents of this survey are representative of the ages, gender, race/ethnicity and partisan vote behavior of voters who participate in elections. The partisanship of the respondents in this survey was 47% Republican, 37% Democratic and 16% Independent.

ACTA President Dr. Michael Poliakoff observed, “Freedom of speech is the bedrock of American freedom and the lifeblood of teaching, learning, and research at our colleges and universities. It can only flourish when there is rule of law. In a pluralistic, democratic society, no single group, no matter how vocal and no matter for what cause, should be allowed to commandeer indefinitely for its own, the shared public square of the university campus. This is because the university serves a special civic function as the marketplace of ideas, and it is appropriate and necessary for it to have codes of conduct that regulate the use of its campus facilities toward that end. When demonstrators insist not on peaceful protest but ‘occupation’ with the intent to disrupt campus life by force, they interfere with essential functions of the university and threaten the safety and well-being of the thousands of others who share that space. In that circumstance, university leaders must act. Sound leadership prevents the awful scenes that we have witnessed at Columbia University, the University of California–Los Angeles, and elsewhere—as well as the corrosive capitulations at Brown University and Northwestern University. University of Texas–Austin President Jay Hartzell accepted the responsibility to enforce important campus rules. Going forward, all institutions should find ways to move beyond the echo chambers, the monoculture that so miseducates students by seducing them to believe that coercion and intimidation are more legitimate than engaging in dialogue and debate with those with whom they disagree.”

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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Out of respect for the rights of the members of our academic community, we have restrictions on the time, manner, and place for protest, just as we have rules for those who live in our dormitories. The board of trustees has now vested in me the emergency authority to issue not ‘interim suspensions,’ but full-year suspensions that will remain permanently on your records if you do not remove your tents from the South Quad within one hour and follow university guidance on where and when you can continue your protest. The consequence of repeated infractions or occupying a building is expulsion. My staff has videotaped the encampment over the course of several hours, and we have identified many of you through your social media posts. My office has already begun informing your parents of the emergency policy. As for persons in the encampment who are not registered students, you must leave immediately, or you will be subject to arrest. And this time we will press charges. I hope you will all make wise choices.

This brief speech has yet to be uttered, though it is hardly fantasy. The University of Florida has been proactive since October 7 in preserving both order and the free exchange of ideas. The Division of Student Life has informed students in writing that speech, signs, and expressing viewpoints are permissible. Amplifiers, indoor demonstrations, camping, disruption, threats, and violence are forbidden, and students who violate the rules face suspension and a ban from campus. 

Staff who violate these rules face termination and a ban from campus. A few other university presidents have at least distinguished themselves by enforcing order and existing policies. Vanderbilt University Chancellor Daniel Diermeier stands out for expelling three students and answering the student demand for divestment from Israel by citing the school’s official procedures: “The university will not take policy positions unless they directly affect the operating of the university. . . . calling for BDS, for a boycott of Israel, is inconsistent with institutional neutrality. So from our values point, we’re not going to go there.”  

Colleges now reap the grim fruit of years of tolerating intolerable behavior. How many Middlebury College students were suspended for shouting down Charles Murray and violence that left a distinguished Middlebury professor seriously injured? Zero. How many Stanford Law School students were suspended for shouting down Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan? Zero again. Washington College students who shouted down invited speaker and Princeton University Professor Robert George? See above. 

Columbia University is the tragicomic illustration of inadequate measures. With the occupation of Hamilton Hall, Columbia had no choice but to call in the police. Now, they need to inform the students that they will never ever receive a degree from the university. If they fail to do that, Columbia can expect, and will deserve, a repeat of the situation.

We need a new campus playbook, now and for the future, and that can only originate in the boardroom. Boards have authority over and responsibility for everything that happens on campus. They must use that power. Those that do not are guilty of malfeasance and base cowardice. It is hardly reassuring that so far, with a few exceptions, the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill Board of Trustees being one, they have left it to legislators to issue the statements that should be theirs.

Real consequences must be part of the equation for the students and faculty in the encampments. Getting arrested and released is simply a badge of honor. The career consequences of a year-long suspension or an expulsion that remains indelibly on the student’s record is something else. Blighting the chances for a prestigious law school admission or a high-value M.B.A. or a job at Goldman Sachs or Google should become part of the equation for those who think they stand above the rules of the community. Under no circumstance should institutions exempt students from regular academic deadlines and examination schedules.   

A petition from the University of Pennsylvania encampment pleading that there be no disciplinary action against the students shows the obvious. Whereas those who engaged in civil disobedience in the civil rights era were typically prepared to accept the consequences, the pro-Palestinian demonstrators of today expect a free pass. They should not receive it. 

Moving forward, rather than entrusting the student code of conduct to the student assembly under the gutless supervision of student life staff, a trustee committee, in consultation with those entities, must oversee the necessary revisions to maintain order. At orientation, administrative staff must then present the code of conduct to incoming students. Similarly, a trustee committee should oversee appropriate revisions to the faculty handbook, making clear the consequences for impermissible activities in protest. 

The 1967 Kalven Report, which articulates the principle of institutional neutrality, offers a powerful preventative to the blackmail tactics of the protests. Institutional neutrality, as Chancellor Diermeier explained, means that politics do not enter into decisions about the institution’s investments and portfolio. Divestment is off the table. Student and faculty demands regarding the portfolio must be, to use a favorite phrase of protesters, “non-negotiable.”  

With a commitment to the rule of law, the campus will enjoy robust debate and academic freedom, unfettered by the mob rule that now substitutes for freedom. This is a time for firmness, not demoralizing compromise that invites more such protests and signals that the adults are no longer in charge.

This article appeared on RealClearEducation on May 3, 2024.

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Yet warm feelings for Barnard, a women’s college affiliated with Columbia University, failed to dilute Gray’s outrage watching video of New York City police round up pro-Palestinian protesters, including Barnard students, on Columbia’s campus last month shortly after the protests began.

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