DEI Giant Aban­dons Diver­si­ty State­ments For Hir­ing, Pro­mo­tion Deci­sions After Lis­ten­ing To Fac­ul­ty

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan (UM) announced Thurs­day that it will aban­don diver­si­ty state­ments for hir­ing, pro­mo­tion and tenure deci­sions after an appar­ent push from fac­ul­ty.

An eight-mem­ber fac­ul­ty work­ing group estab­lished by Provost Lau­rie McCauley sug­gest­ed the changes, rea­son­ing that requir­ing diver­si­ty state­ments has the “poten­tial to lim­it free­dom of expres­sion and diver­si­ty of thought on cam­pus,” accord­ing to a press release from the uni­ver­si­ty. McCauley insist­ed UM is still com­mit­ted to diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion (DEI) efforts.

“Diver­si­ty, equi­ty and inclu­sion are three of our core val­ues at the uni­ver­si­ty,” McCauley said in a state­ment. “Our col­lec­tive efforts in this area have pro­duced impor­tant strides in open­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for all peo­ple. As we pur­sue this chal­leng­ing and com­plex work, we will con­tin­u­ous­ly refine our approach.”

The announce­ment comes the same day the university’s Board of Regents is expect­ed to vote on whether to dis­man­tle or restruc­ture its mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar DEI pro­gram. DEI at the uni­ver­si­ty has faced harsh crit­i­cism after it was revealed that the pro­gram may be con­tribut­ing to strained race rela­tions on cam­pus. (RELATED: America’s Largest And Most Expen­sive DEI Pro­gram Is About To Go Up In Flames)

The work­ing group sur­veyed near­ly 2,000 fac­ul­ty and reviewed lit­er­a­ture and poli­cies at oth­er insti­tu­tions before reach­ing its con­clu­sion, the announce­ment stat­ed.

“Crit­ics of diver­si­ty state­ments per­ceive them as expres­sions of per­son­al iden­ti­ty traits, sup­port of spe­cif­ic ide­ol­o­gy or opin­ions on social­ly-rel­e­vant issues, and serve as a ‘lit­mus test’ of whether a fac­ul­ty member’s views are polit­i­cal­ly accept­able,” the work­ing group wrote in its report, accord­ing to the university’s news release. “Thus, as cur­rent­ly enact­ed, diver­si­ty state­ments have the poten­tial to lim­it view­points and reduce diver­si­ty of thought among fac­ul­ty mem­bers.”

The Uni­ver­si­ty of Michi­gan did not imme­di­ate­ly respond to the Dai­ly Caller News Foundation’s request for com­ment.

All con­tent cre­at­ed by the Dai­ly Caller News Foun­da­tion, an inde­pen­dent and non­par­ti­san newswire ser­vice, is avail­able with­out charge to any legit­i­mate news pub­lish­er that can pro­vide a large audi­ence. All repub­lished arti­cles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affil­i­a­tion. For any ques­tions about our guide­lines or part­ner­ing with us, please con­tact [email protected].