AFN recently reported that through a Freedom of Information Act request, John Sailer of the National Association of Scholars uncovered that a number of universities employed short, written declarations meant to summarize an academic job seeker's past and potential contributions to "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) efforts on campus. The biology department at Texas Tech was among them.
Last week, after a Wall Street Journal op-ed revealed that two prospective hires in the biology department were rejected because one could not explain the difference between "equity" and "equality," the public university announced that it was immediately withdrawing its DEI initiatives.
"Texas, as well as in Florida, and it's also going on in Virginia, Oklahoma, [and] South Carolina -- these different states are pushing back against DEI in higher education," says Matt Lamb, assistant editor for The College Fix.
He suggests that Texas Tech might have also recognized that requiring DEI training could deter qualified faculty candidates from their school.
"They're not necessarily liberal or conservative, but they're definitely not leftists, and they want to go to a good university to conduct research, to help educate students," Lamb poses. "They don't really want to waste their time in anti-racism or white privilege training."
After yanking the DEI requirements, The College Fix reports that Texas Tech initiated a review of hiring practices across the entire campus.
