Diversity Statements Violate First Amendment, Professor Says in Suing U. of California

A former psychology professor this week sued the University of California system, claiming that its use of diversity statements in hiring represents “a thinly veiled attempt to ensure dogmatic conformity throughout the university system.”

John D. Haltigan, a former assistant professor in the department of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, sought to apply for a tenure-track position at the University of California at Santa Cruz that was posted last July and remains open. He left his post at Toronto because it was funded by a grant that ran out, according to his lawyer.

Courtesy of J.D. Haltigan

Haltigan argues in the lawsuit that Santa Cruz uses diversity statements to screen out job applicants who do not hold specific views, “including the view that treating individuals differently based on their race or sex is desirable.” He claims that his views on “colorblind inclusivity,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “merit-based evaluation” mean that he cannot truthfully compete for the position, which involves receiving a high score on a rubric used to evaluate candidates.

Haltigan is being represented by lawyers with the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation, which provides free legal services to people who believe they have been subjected to government overreach and abuse.

In addition to the university system, the lawsuit names various administrators at Santa Cruz as defendants. Haltigan, whose research focuses on the mental health of children and adolescents, is seeking an injunction forbidding the university to require him to submit a diversity statement to apply for the job. The university system has required diversity statements in applications for tenure-track positions and promotions since 2018.

Wilson Freeman, a lawyer representing Haltigan, said that the diversity-statement mandate violates the First Amendment because such statements are “completely disconnected from the purposes of the university or the purposes of the position or qualifications for the position.”

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A spokesperson for the university system said on Friday that it would not comment because it had not yet been served with the lawsuit. Santa Cruz did not respond to a request for comment.

Guidelines for diversity statements, posted online for job applicants at Santa Cruz, say the university is “committed to serving a student body and hiring faculty and staff who reflect the diversity of the State of California; responding to the needs of a diverse society; as well as maintaining principles of equity and inclusion.”

Diversity statements have been used in academe since the mid-2010s for hiring, promotion, and tenure bids, but grew in popularity in the aftermath of the 2020 murder of George Floyd, experts say. An American Enterprise Institute study of 999 academic job listings, posted in the fall of 2020 at two- and four-year institutions, found that 19 percent required diversity, equity, and inclusion statements.

Proponents of diversity statements believe they help employers understand how candidates can advance their institution’s diversity, equity, and inclusion goals, such as recruiting and retaining diverse students and faculty members. Diversity can encompass race, ethnicity, and gender but also religion, language, sexual orientation, abilities and disabilities, socioeconomic status, and geographic regions. Candidates can use diversity statements to write about their contributions to diversity for students, faculty, and staff through teaching, research, or service.

But critics argue that diversity statements can serve as ideological litmus tests, excluding those who disagree with prevailing views on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Haltigan, for example, argues in the lawsuit that one such prevailing view is that “treating individuals differently based on their race or sex is desirable.”

A recent survey by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which has expressed concern about the potential misuse of diversity statements, found faculty members evenly split between those who saw diversity statements as “a justifiable requirement for a job at a university” and those who saw them as “an ideological litmus test that violates academic freedom.”

In recent months, diversity statements have come under attack across the country. Lawmakers in 10 states have filed bills this year to ban colleges’ use of diversity statements in hiring, according to The Chronicle’s database of legislation to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in higher education. So far, governors in Florida and North Dakota have signed legislation banning the use of diversity statements.

Some universities and university systems have also ended the use of diversity statements in hiring. In February the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors banned “compelled speech” for prospective students and employees, which was widely interpreted as referring to diversity statements.

The chancellors of Texas A&M and Texas State Universities and the University of Houston stopped the use of diversity statements in hiring in March after Gov. Greg Abbott sent a letter, obtained by The Texas Tribune, to public-university and state-agency leaders barring the consideration of factors “other than merit” in hiring. Idaho’s State Board of Education last month banned diversity statements in hiring. Also last month Ohio State University told the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, in response to a public-records request, that it would no longer use diversity statements in hiring.