Texas Tech Revises Hiring Procedures After Conservative Backlash

LUBBOK, TX (CNN) — One of the largest universities in Texas is currently reviewing its hiring procedures after one department scrutinized candidates for their knowledge of diversity, fairness and inclusion, better known as DEI.

“We could see that this could be seen as a possible exception,” Texas Institute of Technology president Lawrence Schovanek said in an interview with CNN. “And so we wanted to take a step back and rethink the whole process.”

The Department of Biology at Texas Tech University, located in deeply conservative West Texas, asked faculty candidates in 2021 to submit statements of their commitment to DEI. Some candidates received negative marks if their answers were considered insufficient, for example, for not knowing the difference between “equality” and “fairness”.

The trial, which was revealed earlier this month, sparked a quick reaction from conservatives to the storied institution, with critics denouncing DEI reviews as litmus tests that discriminate on the basis of ideology. The term DEI has become the latest target among conservative politicians in the recent era of racial reckoning, echoing the heated debate over critical racial theory in schools.

DEI programs have become commonplace in the worlds of business, government, and education to promote multiculturalism and encourage the success of people of all races and backgrounds. But they have also become the focus of attention for those who describe them as yet another example of extreme political correctness.

In Florida, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said earlier this month that he intends to ban public universities from spending money on DEI initiatives. “We need education, not indoctrination,” he said at an event in Jacksonville.

And in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott this month issued a memorandum to government agencies and universities arguing that using DEI as a verification tool is illegal. “When a government agency adjusts its hiring practices based on factors other than merit, it is not following the law. Renaming this employment discrimination to “DEI” does not make the practice any less illegal,” the memo said.

Schowanek said the school’s lawyers insist the biology department’s actions weren’t illegal, but the university is halting attempts to use the DEI as a faculty vetting tool while it faces scrutiny of its campus hiring practices.

Red flags for poor understanding of DEI

A group called the National Association of Scientists disclosed the situation at Texas Institute of Technology for the first time by obtaining DEI-related notes and documents from the biology department’s recruitment process through requests for open records. The group has published about 100 papers online, along with a Wall Street Journal article titled “How ‘diversity’ protection is failing science.”

According to the university, the DEI portion was just one component of the selection of candidates for the biology department. Each applicant was asked to submit curriculum vitae, three representative publications, separate statements of research and teaching interests, three potential judges, and a “diversity statement that addresses any past contributions to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and outlines plans and actions to promote “. DEI” at the Texas Institute of Technology. The finalists were also interviewed by the DEI committee.

According to the documents, candidates were marked for “unwillingness” to answer questions about DEI or for having a “good understanding” of the concept. In the “weaknesses” section of one candidate, it was noted that the candidate repeatedly used the pronoun “he” when referring to professors. The same candidate was “red-flagged” and members of the hiring committee wrote that they had “reservations about sending him to a large and diverse student class with his current understanding and strategies.”

Another candidate’s weakness was listed as: “Mentioned that DEI is not a problem because he respects his students and treats them equally.”

Although the names of the candidates in the documents have been redacted, Texas Tech University confirmed to CNN that some of the candidates listed in the documents have been hired and not all positions have yet been filled.

Steve Balch is a former Texas Institute of Technology professor and founder of the National Association of Scholars, who has done significant research on DEI activities in universities to illustrate what she sees as an obstacle to academic freedom.

“My fight is not with people who think diversity, equality and inclusion are good,” he told CNN. “My argument and the NAS argument is to turn them into dogma and then use them to test faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students – creating a repulsive environment where you feel like you have to swear allegiance to a certain creed. I think it’s wrong.”

Caught in the political sight

The issue at Texas Tech also came up in a February 8 State Senate hearing. Senator Joan Huffman questioned Texas Tech Chancellor Tedd Mitchell, saying she was “troubled and embarrassed” by the incident.

“I don’t believe in any litmus tests,” Mitchell said. “Asking someone about their position in the DEI is no more appropriate than asking them if they are Christian or Muslim. When we know something like this has happened, we stop it.”

Schovanek acknowledges that the Institute of Technology is in the conservative part of the conservative state, and many key conservative stakeholders, donors and legislators are involved in school funding.

“We have to be pragmatic in recognizing the issues that are being raised,” he said. “Our legislators are reacting to their voters. And there are a lot of challenges facing education right now in this country.”

He stressed the importance of diversity in the school, which has its own DEI chapter. According to the Texas Institute of Technology, 46% of this year’s new students are students of color, and 30% of faculty are faculty of color.

“Therefore, we are fully committed to a diverse campus community, but such hiring practices can give the impression that certain candidates will be excluded due to their ideological views, as opposed to the real excellence associated with this discipline and the ability to decide priorities. our mission here,” he said.

Schovanek said the school needs more diverse faculty, and he acknowledged that some potential applicants may see the school’s recent move to end DEI selections and question Tech’s commitment to diversity.

“Teachers and students should judge us by our actions. Do we support them? Are we here creating an environment where they feel they belong and a place where they can thrive? This is a much bigger problem than some elements of the hiring process. , – he said. “But this is the challenge we have.”

“Misappropriation of Work in Progress”

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, said the political storm surrounding the Texas Tech incident is simply “an attempt to fuel the base” among those who disagree with long-standing efforts to increase diversity.

She is concerned that DEI will go down the same path as Critical Race Theory or CRT and become a term distorted and misrepresented for political purposes.

“This is a demonizing effort, not only in higher education, but I think within this country, to create a fairer, fairer United States,” she said. “On some levels, it is the misappropriation of work in progress and use of it as a basis for claiming that we are discriminating against others.”

Granberry Russell said she wants people to understand the nuances of the DEI and that it is designed to empower people who have historically been marginalized or underrepresented in higher education or the labor market.

“I hope that when we start thinking more broadly about inclusion, people will better understand that this is not a situation where some intend to deny access, but to increase access,” she said.