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Nicole Barbaro Simovski, Ph.D.
Free the Inquiry, Heterodox Academy, Substack
Excerpt: Diversity statements started to be commonly required for applications for university faculty positions starting in the 2010s. These statements—often one- to two-page essays detailing a candidate's commitment to advancing diversity, enquiry, and inclusion goals in their academic work—have been a fierce topic of debate. On the extremes, one side sees diversity statements as simply asking faculty candidates to demonstrate how they advance the university’s values. The other side sees them as thinly veiled ideological filters in hiring.
After a decade, following intense controversy over the use of these statements in hiring, the UC system has officially put an end to the practice.
Katherine Knott
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: If colleges and universities want to receive funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), they’ll have to certify that they don’t operate any diversity, equity, inclusion or accessibility programs that violate federal antidiscrimination laws, under a new NIH policy announced Monday.
The change appears to codify parts of President Donald Trump’s executive orders that banned funding for DEI programs and builds on the strategy to leverage colleges’ research funding to compel certain behaviors. But the new policy goes even further than the president’s directives, barring colleges from boycotting Israel or Israeli businesses if they want to receive NIH grants.
FIRE
Excerpt: FIRE today filed a "friend of the court" brief in support of the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers in their lawsuit against the Department of Justice and other federal agencies. FIRE argues that the Trump administration's actions against Columbia University are unlawful and unconstitutional attacks on freedom of expression, freedom of association, and academic freedom. The brief's summary of argument follows.
J. D. Tuccille
Reason
Excerpt: Given the censorious conduct of colleges and universities in recent years, it takes a lot to get free speech advocates to treat them as aggrieved parties. But the Trump administration has accomplished that by using the power of the state to coerce changes in campus political climates, disciplinary procedures, and hiring practices. Harvard University is digging in its heels and suing the federal government in response.
But if institutions of higher learning really want to assert their independence, they should emulate a school with a lower profile and fewer resources that won its freedom by cutting ties with the government decades ago: They should follow the example of Hillsdale College.
