LOYALTY OATHS ARE ONLY BAD WHEN THEY INVOLVE LOYALTY TO THE UNITED STATES: Diversity Statements as ‘Litmus Tests.’
18 Years Earlier: You Can't Make This Stuff Up Dept.: A Loyalty to Diversity Oath!
Tennessee University Professor Glenn Reynolds says something that I've been saying for a long time. (See above.)
LOYALTY OATHS ARE ONLY BAD WHEN THEY INVOLVE LOYALTY TO THE UNITED STATES: Diversity Statements as ‘Litmus Tests.’
“In 1950 the Regents of the University of California required all UC faculty to sign a statement asserting that ‘I am not a member of, nor do I support any party or organization that believes in, advocates, or teaches the overthrow of the United States Government, by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional means, that I am not a member of the Communist Party,’” Thompson says. Those who refused to sign were fired.
Now, “Faculty at universities across the country are facing an echo of the loyalty oath, a mandatory ‘Diversity Statement’ for job applicants.”
The “professed purpose” of these statements is to identify candidates “who have the skills and experience to advance institutional diversity and equity goals,” Thompson wrote. But “in reality it’s a political test, and it’s a political test with teeth.”
What are the teeth, Thompson asks? Nearly all University of California campuses require that job applicants submit a “contributions to diversity” statement as a part of their application, and campuses evaluate such statements using rubrics, “a detailed scoring system.” She doesn’t name names, but says that “several UC programs have used these diversity statements to screen out candidates early in the search process.”
Sounds like a civil rights deprivation to me. I hope the Department of Education will investigate.
For more on the protest by mathematician Abigail Thompson (right) against diversity statements, see Diversity Statements as 'Litmus Tests', by Colleen Flaherty, InsideHigherEd, November 19, 2019.
For more on the diversity statement/loyalty oath question, see:
What I said eighteen years ago is that this "diversity" thing is something that Democrats are generally for, and Republicans generally against, therefore if you require this, you're engaging in political discrimination at mostly public universities.
I said that the
diversity oath thing is not Wrong versus Right, socialist versus free-market, or ungodly versus godly. It's much simpler than that.
It's Democrat versus Republican. And that's illegal, same as it is in the Fire Department.
Apparently Professor Reynolds is of the same mind. I mention that we've been doing all this for a long time, because we're coming up on our 20th Anniversary year, and we're engaging in a fundraising campaign to which you can donate here.
Sounds like a civil rights deprivation to me. I hope the 
