^ I am a Cal grad, hired under diversity initiatives. Never know UC had more than one Kampus. Mind blown!!
UC is already filtering out applicants with a low-scoring diversity statement!
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Let me get this straight: you want to get a life-long paycheck from the state, funded by the tax dollars of a diverse citizenry, but you're mad at having to write out a statement discussing how you'll approach the task of teaching and interacting with your diverse employers?
Oh, the horror.They don't want to know if you are capable of teaching different people. They want to know if you agree with or submit to wokeness.
In your paranoid little world where you’re always the victim, sure. Don’t worry, bro, you didn’t fail the market because your research is uninteresting or poorly constructed, you failed because you’re white, so it’s not your fault. Sweet sweet absolution!
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One of the principal motivation for going into an academic career as opposed to government or the private sector is freedom. People don't like to be compelled in their speech. In my experience, the more intelligent, the less tolerance for this kind of crap. I.e., methinks you do alienate strong, intelligent, independent researchers
Schools without this nonsense will rise, Berkeley et al will decline. Let the market do it’s thing.
Everyone is doing this (even HYPSM), though the private schools are more subtle in their hiring discrimination. No school will pay a price because it is a coordinated action.
Every school has some diversity initiative or another going on, and that is totally ok. UC stands out in that they seem to have implemented some sort of lexicographic hiring system by which you must FIRST pass a diversity test, before you can even be considered based on your scholarship. This is just completely insane, and the fact that diversity is defined extremely narrowly makes it even more so. I do not think other schools have gone nearly as far (please correct me if I'm wrong).
Back to the question if this will hurt a school like Berkeley. Imo, eliminating 3 out of four applicants in this way is a sure way to go from "best public in the world" to "mediocre at best." And that's assuming that the surviving 25% aren't scared to s**t by this process, which is probably not a realistic assumption. As a previous poster pointed out, if you are actually good and have other options, you should probably decide to decline a UC job if it's offered to you, because one misinterpreted comment you make in a lecture can get you canned. So, effectively UC is eliminating 75% of applicants ex ante for reasons completely unrelated to quality, and is most likely not an attractive place for the upper x% remaining 25%. There certainly will be other universities that benefit from this insanity. Some of these schools will be LRMs or schools outside the US. They may not reverse rankings with Berkeley, but they will rise.You misunderstand a couple of points. The first is that quality applicants are strong enough to be able to write what is wanted by administrators in these statements. The exception is principled conservatives, but there are very few of those. So this does not filter out the quality applicants. The second is that most people do not know this but UC is in some cases allowing the preferred candidate a chance to update their diversity statement ex post after being coached by UC on what to write. I agree the whole practice is despicable. But it will not impact quality any worse than the diversity/discriminatory practices other universities are doing.
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You misunderstand a couple of points. The first is that quality applicants are strong enough to be able to write what is wanted by administrators in these statements. .
If you want quality scientists who are able to do good honest scientific work, then its probably best not to explicitly seek out careerists who are willing to lie and play beuracratic games, and explicitly filter out honest people who aren't prepared to "write what is wanted".
The sort of people who "write what is wanted" by administrators to further their career are the _exact_ sort of people who are going to p-hack and manipulate data in papers in order to further their career. The system is explictly filtering for liars and charlatans, and discriminating against honest people.Indeed
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One of the principal motivation for going into an academic career as opposed to government or the private sector is freedom. People don't like to be compelled in their speech. In my experience, the more intelligent, the less tolerance for this kind of crap. I.e., methinks you do alienate strong, intelligent, independent researchers
You thought academia provides you with freedom, even more so freedom of speech? Really? In the US?
Really?
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One of the principal motivation for going into an academic career as opposed to government or the private sector is freedom. People don't like to be compelled in their speech. In my experience, the more intelligent, the less tolerance for this kind of crap. I.e., methinks you do alienate strong, intelligent, independent researchers
You thought academia provides you with freedom, even more so freedom of speech? Really? In the US?
Really?Compared to the private sector and government: yes.
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The main issue is too many job applicants. One way to filter out is the diversity statement. I think this case will not happen for field where the demand surpasses the supply.
This is selecting for exactly the wrong types of researcher though.
Most people think someone who is opposed to racism and sexism is actually the right type of researcher. Controversial, I know.
The process isn't trying to find "someone who is opposed to racism and sexism". It's trying to find someone who supports a particular kind of racism and sexism, one that discriminates against men, whites, and asians.
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In your paranoid little world where you’re always the victim, sure. Don’t worry, bro, you didn’t fail the market because your research is uninteresting or poorly constructed
In this case, the candidates didn't fail due to poor research. They didn't even look at their research. They failed due to their diversity statement.
Can't wait for the conservative backlashm
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Can't wait for the conservative backlashm
Lol. Cons can't do s**t. They abandoned academia long ago and left it all to the crazies. Now enjoy the fruits of your labor, Americans.
You may be confusing cause and effect here, but whatev.
It doesn't matter if I am. The fact is, cons abandoned academia decades ago. Hence, they can't influence what happens. Why doesn't matter anymore.
And the rest of society outside of academia, not to mention the culture, doesn't look much better for cons. If not much worst than academia.
So what exactly have cons succeeded in "conserving" in the past 30 years? They have lost everything, and everywhere. Constantly losing. That's the problem with cons (not just in academia but society at large). They don't backlash. They retreat into their gated communities in the hope that the barbarian horde will not reach them. That is a losing strategy.