The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that faculty candidates will no longer be asked to provide diversity statements during the application process.
Before the switch, which was announced on Monday, faculty candidates were required to “explain how they would enhance the university’s commitment to diversity,” according to the New York Times.
“Such statements have become enshrined in faculty hiring at many elite public and private universities, as well as in corporate life. Academics have defended them as necessary in judging whether a faculty member can reach out to an increasingly diverse student body,” added the Times.
MIT President Sally Kornbluth said such statements were just compelled speech and did not help the university achieve its goal of excellence.
“My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to M.I.T. and to make sure they thrive once here,” Kornbluth said in a statement. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”
Kornbluth’s statement comes as the university has faced intense scrutiny for how it has handled a wave of anti-Jewish sentiments throughout the country in the wake of Israel’s incursion into Gaza following the horrific terrorist attack on October 7 of last year.
The presidents of MIT, Penn, and Harvard seem to think that **calls for the genocide of Jews** do not violate codes of conduct, and it "depends on the context."
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 6, 2023
No. This is not a Black Mirror episode. We're living in one. pic.twitter.com/emO878af4P
Last year, the Supreme Court ruled racial preferences in college admissions to be unconstitutional, arguing that it amounts to discrimination.
“The Supreme Court upheld racial preferences — euphemistically called ‘affirmative action’ — in college admissions in the Bakke decision in 1978. Since then, debates have raged about whether to use quotas, point systems, or other ways of favoring one applicant over another based on the color of their skin, with the Supreme Court upholding some approaches while trimming the sails on others. Conservatives have insisted for half a century that the Constitution does not allow any of those approaches,” Breitbart News reported at the time.
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