DEI Loyalty

To complete yearly merit reporting, I used to have to write two mini-essays on how I promoted DEI goals in the past year. Now I have to write three. A new one was added this year. This is just my own merit reporting. Three DEI essays for only me.

This, of course, is one of many activities that require oaths of loyalty to DEI. I have to write a DEI statement when requesting permission to hire. We are no longer allowed to ask candidates to provide DEI statements. But nobody took away my obligation to write one for every single position. I have to write a DEI statement whenever I propose to convert a temporary instructorship into a permanent one, open a new course, add a general education designation to a course, support a colleague’s promotion. I could go on and on.

I was recently reproached by a reader for not caring about some anti-DEI measure in Florida. I want to give that person the benefit of the doubt. They probably don’t know what we have to deal with pretty much daily. This can’t be eradicated peace-meal. There’s too much of it. You ban the requirement for candidates to provide DEI oaths, and it all comes back from the side of the hirer where you can’t have a search committee without a DEI apparatchik on it. None of this is covered in the press because it’s assumed as a default. Any challenge to this default is screamed down as an outrage.