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.

The post Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences to stop requiring diversity statements for tenure-track positions appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

The post Criminals Think, but Thinking is No Crime by William B. Allen appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

The post Free Speech Requires Action, Not Just Talk by Governor Scott Walker appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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.

The post Jennifer Keohane and Justin Eckstein: Teaching Students to Find Their Voice in Civil Discourse appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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.

To read the full article, visit the Chronicle of Philanthropy here. (Registration may be required.)

The post The Donor Revolt Comes to Annual Giving: Israel, Gaza, and Campus Unrest appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Provost Kotlikoff, in a statement explaining his actions, preemptively distanced himself from the always-controversial Ms. Coulter, but the rest of his explanation for inviting her back admirably sums up the reasons why Cornell needed to invite Ms. Coulter back.

“Having been deeply troubled by an invited speaker at Cornell (any speaker) being shouted down and unable to present their views, I agreed that there could be few more powerful demonstrations of Cornell’s commitment to free expression than to have Ms. Coulter return to campus and present her views,” the provost wrote in a letter to the editor of the Cornell Daily Sun. “This is certainly not because I agree with what she has to say, or because I feel that the content of her presentation is important for our community to hear, but because I believe that Cornell must be a place where the presentation of ideas is protected and inviolable. Shielding students or others in our community from viewpoints with which they disagree, or filtering campus speakers based on the content of their presentation, undermines the fundamental role of a university.”

Carve that statement into bronze and hang it in the faculty lounges and administrative offices of every college in America. Freedom of speech should be a defining value of American higher education, and we applaud Provost Kotlikoff for taking a stand for it. Good on Ms. Coulter for accepting the invitation, too.

Our inner optimist wonders whether this attempt at détente between Ms. Coulter and Cornell could set a lasting precedent with wider implications for higher education. Too often on American campuses, speakers are disinvited or shouted down, never to return. The proper response should be to invite them back and ensure they have their say without interruption. Do any other administrators have the courage to follow Cornell’s lead?

We are thinking here about University of Chicago geophysicist Dorian Abbot, whose October 21, 2021, John Carlson Lecture at MIT on the topic of the habitability of planets outside our solar system was canceled. This was precipitated by online Twitter outrage, ginned up by a sorry rump group of academics worked up over positions he had taken on matters unrelated to his lecture topic.

Then there was U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Stuart Kyle Duncan, who was shouted down on March 9, 2023, by Stanford Law School students, egged on by the school’s associate dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion. The now-former dean lectured Judge Duncan about why he had it coming and infamously asked him, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

Legal expert Ilya Shapiro ought to be invited back to the University of California–Hastings to give the talk he was scheduled to deliver on March 1, 2022. Yale Law School should reinvite its guests to finish the moderated debate they began on January 24, 2023.

If this commonsense trend gathers enough momentum, perhaps even the campuses that crossed the line into violence could try to make amends. Middlebury College could reinvite Charles Murray, while San Francisco State University could beg Riley Gaines to come back. Of course, they would have to guarantee the safety of their guests.

In each of these cases, top university officials should be the ones to extend the invitations, and they should offer to introduce their guests and participate in the full event. It is often students and sometimes faculty and staff who demand cancelations, shout down speakers, and, in some cases, assault guests. But it is school administrators who disgrace themselves and abdicate their duties to stand athwart the mobs and stop the violence, who refuse to impose appropriate sanctions on the perpetrators, and who bloviate about the institutions’ values, rather than showing the moral courage to model those values themselves.

Only when the re-invitations have been issued and the disrespected speakers have delivered their remarks and been allowed to leave the campuses unharmed will we have a sense that university administrators have, at long last, decided to reject the dark, illiberal forces on their campuses and defend the fundamental purpose of the institutions they supposedly lead: the free pursuit of truth.

This post appeared in Real Clear Education on March 19, 2024.

The post It’s Time for a Re-invitation Revolution appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

The post Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act, H.R. 7683 appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

Dr. Loury is the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of the Social Sciences in the Department of Economics at Brown University. He is one of the nation’s leading social critics on the topics of racial inequality, the black family, affirmative action, and identity politics. Dr. Loury’s podcast, “The Glenn Show,” is one of the nation’s most vibrant forums for fearless discussion of the urgent issues of our times.

The post What Has Become of the Partnership Between Blacks and Jews? by Glenn Loury appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

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.

The post George Will: Restoring the Value of an Academic Degree appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.

“The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic,” stated the University of Chicago’s Report on the University’s Role in Political and Social Action, issued at the height of protests over the Vietnam War and the need for civil rights. The report further stated, “to be true to its faith in intellectual inquiry, (a university) must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.”

But that’s not happening at many universities. Viewpoints are either morally superior or wrong, shout-downs replace debates and dissenting speakers are canceled or heckled. Most recently, Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel ignited firestorms on campuses. As a result, fear and anger have spread on campuses. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s College Free Speech Rankings revealed that 26% of college students censor themselves at least a few times a week in conversations with friends. One in four are more likely to self-censor now than when they started college.

To ensure freedom of speech and safety on campuses, Gov. Glenn Youngkin convened a summit of Virginia’s public and private college presidents and asked VMI’s superintendent, Major General Cedric Wins, U.S. Army (retired), to address VMI’s program for promoting civil discourse through debates. The debates are not competitive, nor seek to change minds. Their purpose is to enlighten and show how to disagree thoughtfully and respectfully. This is in keeping with VMI’s leadership development, which emphasizes service, respect and civility.

The debates have examined such divisive topics as diversity, equity and inclusion, social media, women in combat and divides between student athletes and nonathletes. Debates follow a light parliamentary format that promotes discussion, listening and critical thinking. Following presentations, speakers and audience members may address comments to the trained debate moderator, thus avoiding personalizing clashing viewpoints.

In November, VMI pushed the program’s bounds. It invited students from Mountain Gateway Community College, Southern Virginia University and Washington and Lee University to participate in an intercollegiate debate on book banning in K-12 schools. The debate attracted over 100 participants from these schools. The following student comments attest to the program’s value:

“I have never in my life been involved in such a thought-provoking discussion, getting to understand the ideas and thoughts of not only other VMI cadets but also students from other colleges. Braver Angels has helped me gain a new perspective on discussion and communication in my generation,” said VMI cadet Isabella Bruzonic. “I got to hear perspectives I would have never thought of. I gained respect for the people who were willing to have a conversation without anger and animosity.”

“I was grateful for the opportunity to speak my mind candidly in an environment where candid opinions were welcome,” said Jared Smith, a Southern Virginia University student. “During this time of political and ideological polarization in America, we need more events like these! We have the freedom of speech in America, but it hardly serves our society if we do not implement the structure and activities that give people the opportunity to exercise it productively and peacefully.” 

VMI initiated the program in 2021, based on the acclaimed College Debates and Discourse Program, jointly sponsored by Braver Angels, American Council of Trustees and Alumni and Bridges USA. In January 2023, VMI was named one of 10 colleges in the country in the program’s Community of Practice, enabled by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation. These institutions are collecting data on the debates, which the University of Delaware will use to assess students’ performance, and leadership skills.

Alex Morey of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression states, “The college campus is the place to have people’s different authentic views come together, where we can have discussions in a scholarly and civil way.”

That’s VMI’s civil discourse program and universities need similar programs. But VMI provides another example. VMI “introducing Braver Angels debates and civil discourse to other colleges in the surrounding area is exemplary for the nation,” said Doug Sprei, director of the College Debates and Discourse Alliance. Higher education needs more champions of civil discourse.

This post appeared on the Richmond Times-Dispatch on January 2, 2024.

The post Now, more than ever, civil discourse is critical. VMI is leading the way appeared first on American Council of Trustees and Alumni.