The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the first prestigious university to declare it will no longer require DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) statements as part of their new hire criteria for oncoming faculty members. Diversity statements began in the late 2010s as a social justice cause, but now the progressive Left and the Biden Administration have imposed these standards on college campuses nationwide. Conservatives and free speech apologists decry this ideological conformity for creating a ‘political litmus test’ and promoting racial bias in our higher learning institutions.

“Requests for a statement on diversity will no longer be part of applications for any faculty positions at MIT,” a university official released. The decision to do away with DEI by MIT president Sally Kornbluth, who had the support of the Provost, Chancellor, and all six academic deans. “My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to MIT, and to make sure they thrive once here,” said Kornbluth, “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

MIT and President Kornbluth have come under criticism from House Republicans during a congressional hearing for failing to clarify if advocating for genocide against Jews violates campus policy, which is in regards to the October 7th massacre of Israeli civilians and saw a rise in on-campus antisemitism. She, University of Pennsylvania president Liz Magil, and former Harvard President Claudine Gay failed to address this matter, which led to Dr. Gay’s and Ms. Magill's dismissal.

Eliminating DEI is a step in the right direction for MIT. A Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) survey found that students and faculty needed to be sure the administration protected freedom of expression. It also found that 41% of staff said MIT's stance on free speech is 'not clear.'

A satirical school newspaper called the Babbling Beaver, published by conservative MIT students, staff, and alums, was first on the beat to report the change and noted that there was no public notification due to the unpopularity of DEI. According to an anonymous poll of professors, at least two-thirds of teachers despise diversity statements.

Required diversity statements are receiving backlash because they force faculty members to adhere to a left-wing dogma, which violates a person's academic freedom and commitment to educational integrity. MIT’s prior commitment to new-hire applications emphasized the applicant's knowledge of DEI and history of working to promote it on campus.

MIT has a reputation as an elite university by producing the best minds in science and engineering, but even those highly concentrated fields were not exempt from DEI requirements. Last year, I saw a job posting in the Nuclear Science and Engineering department that required applicants to submit "a statement regarding their views on diversity, inclusion, and belonging, including past and current contributions as well as their vision and plans for the future in these areas.”

Other top universities promote similar DEI criteria on school web pages. Columbia University presents new hires with a four-page guide to "showcase your understanding and activities" for diversity and inclusion. Princeton describes its diversity requirement as "an opportunity to highlight how you would advance an institution's DEI work."

While MIT is reversing diversity statements on an institutional level, many states are already abolishing DEI bureaucracies and diversity statements for collegiate schools and universities. Conservative states like Florida, Tennessee, North Dakota, Kansas, and Utah have passed laws that either prohibit or prevent specific funding of DEI and its objectives. Even big businesses are cutting ties from diversity initiatives due to the rise of antisemitism on college campuses.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis is a critical warrior in the fight against DEI by banning. He has forbidden teaching it in public classrooms and eliminated the DEI office and replaced DEI-supportive trustees at New College, a liberal arts school in the state. His criticism of DEI is that it is a wordplay for "division, exclusive, and inequity" and may have had innocent intentions but has the opposite effect in practice.

Dr. Christopher J. Ferguson of Stetson University’s psychology department is critical of DEI statements for their inability to ensure academic integrity or student merit. Instead, they create a “monoculture” that does not apply to diversity, equity, or inclusion. Specifically addressing UC Berkley’s diversity requirement, Dr. Ferguson wrote in Psychology Today that no “evidence provided that higher scores on this rubric are associated with better teaching, including for underrepresented groups.”

MIT may seem like an outlier as other universities struggle to deal with DEI and diversity statements. However, MIT's distinction and academic standards can persuade other colleges to join them in removing DEI and embracing educational merit.

Image: MIT