Rules & Policies

Eric Kelderman
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: The accrediting group that oversees about 170 colleges in California and Hawaii is considering cutting the words “commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” from the standards that its member colleges must meet.

The WASC Senior College and University Commission is considering the changes as conservative lawmakers at both the state and federal level consider ways to curb the authority of accreditors and eliminate any consideration of DEI on college campuses.

Nicholas Confessore and Steve Friess
New York Times

Excerpt: The University of Michigan will no longer require diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure decisions, the school announced on Thursday, marking a major shift at one of the country’s leading public research institutions.

The new policy, issued by Michigan’s provost, comes as the university’s regents weigh a broader overhaul of its sprawling diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among the most ambitious and well financed in the country.

Lee Gutkin
Chronicle of Higher Education

Excerpt: If you’ve taught at a college or university in the last decade, you’ve almost certainly sat through some required diversity, equity, and inclusion programming. Perhaps you were on a search committee and had to meet regularly with a diversity consultant who promised to help root out your implicit biases. Or you were a graduate student asked to attend a workshop on “antiracist pedagogy.” Perhaps you were invited, or even compelled, to attend a session on “allyship training.”

All of this stuff has been controversial for a long time, felt by many to be a form of ideological indoctrination. But a new study sponsored by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab suggests that, even on its own terms, it just doesn’t work.

Rich Lowry
National Review

Excerpt: DEI is a bad idea whose time came with a vengeance several years ago, but now its continued ascendancy is in doubt. Perhaps the most important event this year outside of the presidential election is the intellectual collapse of so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is poisonous hokum that is finally being exposed as such.

DEI has been one of the most morally perverse and damaging fads in recent American history.

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Republicans are primed to ratchet up their efforts to hold colleges accountable after securing a majority in the House and Senate.

With President-elect Donald Trump in the White House, the table is set for the GOP to make significant progress on a higher ed wish list that includes granting federal aid to nontraditional programs, increasing taxes on wealthy colleges, cracking down on campus antisemitism and busting the current model for accreditation, experts say.

Josh Moody
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: Vanderbilt University chancellor Daniel Diermeier has emerged as a strong advocate for institutional neutrality in recent years, arguing that institutions often go beyond their core mission when they strike stances on public issues. He expounded on those views in an interview with Inside Higher Ed in which he discussed the growing number of institutions that have adopted institutional neutrality and how tensions in the Middle East and related protests on campuses are driving university leaders to rethink how they engage on contentious issues at home and abroad.