From the opinion page of the Utah Deseret News:

Perspective: The excesses of equity politics in higher ed

Utah State University needed an insect ecologist. Applicants had to show a track record supportive of DEI

By John D. Sailer
Nov 2, 2023, 8:00pm PDT

Last year, Utah State University sought a professor in solid earth geohazards. To apply for the job, scientists had to submit a “statement of contributions and vision of approach toward diversity, equity, and inclusion.” For a position in insect ecology, the university likewise sought scientists with a “demonstrated capacity” to contribute to “justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.” And the job advertisement for a role in lithospheric evolution noted successful candidates would likewise “advance diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Each of these jobs was a part of a Utah State cluster hire in the sciences. Cluster hiring involves recruiting multiple faculty in different fields focusing on the same general topic. For Utah State, while the jobs were mostly in the hard sciences, the overarching theme of the cluster was “justice, equity, diversity and inclusion”—sometimes called “JEDI.”

To apply, scientists had to submit a separate statement on diversity. …

For Utah State’s cluster hire, diversity statements played a significant role. Through a public records request, I acquired the scoring rubric for several of the jobs. They show how diversity, equity and inclusion contributions were weighed heavily in the selection of faculty, at times on par with research and teaching abilities.

For a position in mathematical biology, for example, candidates could receive 20 points for “Teaching Efficacy,” 15 points for “Research Potential” and 15 points for “JEDI.”

So, DIE pokemon points are equal to “research potential.”

…DEI often connotes a wide variety of controversial social and political views. A University of California, San Francisco, DEI toolkit defines racism as “the prioritization of the people who are considered white and the devaluation, exploitation, and exclusion of people racialized as non-white”—defining away the prejudice of those who aren’t white. A University of North Carolina School of Medicine DEI task force proposed requiring all of the school’s medical students to advocate for “radical reform of the U.S. criminal justice system.” An “equity lens framework” adopted by the Utah System of Higher Education takes “Critical Race Theory” as its conceptual “cornerstone.”” …

Mandatory diversity statements echo an earlier controversy in American higher education—namely, the mandatory anti-communist “loyalty oaths” of the McCarthy era. In a decision deeming one such loyalty oath unconstitutional, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the First Amendment “does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.” …

John Sailer is senior fellow and director of university policy at the National Association of Scholars. His writing has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Tablet Magazine and City Journal.