Harvard Ditches DEI Statement Requirement For Employee Applications, Promotions
Harvard University’s Arts & Sciences College announced it eliminated the requirement for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statements for prospective employees and employee promotions, according to a report from The Daily Wire.
Nina Zipser, the Dean of Faculty Affairs and Planning, announced that numerous faculty members pointed out that DEI requirements may be confusing for foreign applicants. The standards were considered “too narrow in the information they attempted to gather,” according to Zipser’s statement to the Harvard Crimson.
“This border perspective acknowledges the many ways faculty contribute to strengthening their academic communities, including efforts to increase diversity, inclusion, and belonging,” Zipser continued.
Applicants for faculty positions at Harvard will now submit two other statements in lieu of the DEI statement. Among the statements is a service statement focused on an applicant’s “efforts to strengthen academic communities” and another statement on how they, as educators, will develop a “learning environment in which students are encouraged to ask questions and share ideas.”
The university’s arts and sciences department instituted DEI statement requirements approximately five years ago, per the Boston Globe.
The DEI statement requirement received pushback across the ideological spectrum, including pushback from self-described social justice activists like Randall Kennedy. In an article for the Harvard Crimson, Kennedy argued that DEI statements are merely a litmus test for an applicant’s political point of view.
“By requiring academics to process — and flaunt — faith in DEI, the proliferation of diversity statements poses a profound challenge to academic freedom,” Kennedy said.
“I am a scholar on the left committed to struggles for social justice. The realities surrounding mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince,” Kennedy continued. “The practice of demanding them ought to be abandoned, both at Harvard and beyond.”
The change in DEI requirements came after the university’s former president Claudine Gay was ousted following accusations of anti-Semitism and plagiarism.
