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Nevertheless, Kennedy excoriates both Harvard specifically and colleges generally for daring to use diversity statements to pursue what he acknowledges are worthy goals. Kennedy says such statements are nothing more than pledges of fealty to a particular ideological view that is as exclusionary as it is compulsory, alienating everyone on the right and even those on the left (like him) who are less inclined toward the “DEI bureaucracy” (a disparaging moniker for DEI efforts across higher education).
Whether from the left or the right, such critiques are misguided. The “DEI bureaucracy” did not invent the need for open, welcoming environments as some sort of cynical and self-serving sales ploy. The “DEI bureaucracy” was created as a response to that need, which has only become more acute as college campuses have rapidly diversified. Nonwhite student enrollment has increased by 125 percent since 1976 — a result of decades of efforts to expand access to higher education. But, until recently, colleges had spent much less time and effort ensuring that their campuses were welcoming and inclusive places for the diverse students they were enrolling.
Although differential experiences for underrepresented groups and disparities in achievement among racial and ethnic minorities have long plagued higher education, these problems have taken on new urgency as these groups have swelled the ranks of entering students. What could be more easily dismissed when limited to a small segment of the student body has become the defining challenge of higher education in the 21st century. How do we effectively serve an increasingly heterogeneous student population, one that has brought unprecedented levels of racial, ethnic, gender (including gender identity), sexual, religious, (dis)ability, and socioeconomic diversity to our campuses?
These student needs cannot be trivialized as some gimmick of an administrative bureaucracy run amok. Colleges have a responsibility, both moral and legal, to acknowledge the challenges faced by these students, who often report feeling isolated, unwelcome, and even threatened on many college campuses, and to ameliorate those challenges to the greatest extent possible. DEI efforts, including faculty diversity statements, are one means by which colleges can do this.
The law requires that colleges guard against harassment and discrimination, but their moral obligation to the increasingly diverse students they recruit and enroll extends much further. Colleges must ensure that campus climates are welcoming for these students, that classrooms are inclusive spaces where every student feels empowered to learn, and that curriculums are culturally responsive to these students’ diverse needs and interests. Inclusive teaching and culturally responsive curriculums can be particularly challenging for faculties that are significantly less diverse than their students. Ensuring that the faculty members hired are up to this challenge is the very point of faculty diversity statements. While they may not be a perfect measure of faculty competence in this regard, they are designed to at least acknowledge the expectation and offer some measure of accountability to it.
These student needs cannot be trivialized as some gimmick of an administrative bureaucracy run amok.
Many critics of DEI efforts mistakenly characterize them as an existential threat to the academic freedom that defines academe. But if you look at higher education today, you can scarcely find an institution that does not define its mission as bound up with a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Take Harvard University, Kennedy’s home institution and the target of his diversity-directed ire. Harvard’s mission is “to educate the citizens and citizen-leaders for our society.” The university does this not just by exposing students to “new ideas, new ways of understanding, and new ways of knowing” in the classroom, but also “through a diverse living environment, where students live with people ... who come from different walks of life and have evolving identities.” The dean of Harvard College recites among the institution’s core values “respect for the rights, differences, and dignity of others” and enshrines the “responsibility for the bonds and bridges that enable all to grow with and learn from one another.” These are nothing more than carefully crafted statements of diversity, equity, and inclusion. How then can these principles be in tension with the academic enterprise itself? Surely we cannot seek to impose these expectations on students and not also on the faculty.
Colleges cannot profess a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion without making good on that commitment. So they have attempted to operationalize DEI, a laudable effort that has drawn the ire of academics complaining of administrative encroachment. But DEI does not threaten academic freedom; it furthers the educational enterprise. It is impossible to foster vibrant learning communities if some members of that community are made to feel like outsiders, their worth questioned and their dignity assailed. DEI is less about gauging the faculty members’ ideology than it is about gauging their understanding of and commitment to stated institutional principles. It allows colleges to evaluate the professional competence of faculty members to serve a student body that is increasingly diverse in a context where that diversity has been defined as an indispensable feature of student learning and success.
Opponents of DEI have identified the wrong target for attack. Their complaint is not with faculty diversity statements or any of the other efforts that constitute the so-called “DEI bureaucracy.” Their complaint seems to be with the missions and values of colleges. They should take issue not with whether the faculty should have to demonstrate support for these values, but with whether these should be the values animating our institutions in the first place. As it turns out, few people (including Kennedy) are willing to question the values themselves. So instead they malign the efforts taken in pursuit of those values, often without offering viable alternatives.
DEI is not about ideology; it is about accountability — accountability to goals that themselves are unassailable. In an era of increasing oversight for institutional performance across higher education, from measuring student learning outcomes to reporting graduate employment rates, DEI accountability should be no more suspect than these other measures of operational effectiveness. If what Kennedy calls “facilitating a more open and welcoming environment for everyone” is the aim, measuring faculty commitment to that aim is not a political litmus test. It is a performance evaluation.