Diversity and Inclusion

Yep, most institutions of higher education nowadays have a statement about diversity and inclusion, and they typically back it up with a more specific Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan. Mine does, and we also have equivalents for the school and the department.

Contrary to what some people seem to think, this does not mean that we will admit students or appoint faculty who are less qualified than competitors simply because they belong to what we call Historically Underrepresented Groups, which has the unfortunate acronym of HUG. (That includes underrepresented racial/ethnic groups, and also sexual and gender minorities.) We don't hire people because they are Black, and we don't discriminate against people because they are white. Neither does George Washington University.

What it does mean is considerably more complicated. Understanding it requires understanding of history, and also how academia has traditionally functioned. Historically, of course, outright discrimination against certain groups of people was the norm, and it still is albeit to a somewhat lesser extent. Most colleges and universities did not admit African Americans at all, let alone hire them as faculty, until the 20th Century; and in the South, not until the 1960s. (They also had quotas for Jewish students, by the way, which is one reason for the existence of Brandeis University where I got my doctorate.)

Although outright segregation is now against the law, there continue to be numerous obstacles to creating a university whose faculty mirrors the diversity of the country. One, obviously, is the pipeline, as we call it. People of color disproportionately live in communities with inferior schools. They face obstacles to admission to higher education including preferences for children of alumni, big donors, and people who play preppy sports like golf, rowing, tennis and lacrosse. In spite of financial aid, they have difficulty affording it. Tuition aside, going to college requires substantial financial sacrifice including foregoing full-time employment, travel, books, and more. First generation students' can't get the mentoring that parents and other relatives can provide. They may not fit in well to the predominate culture on campus, and they will lack faculty mentors and role models who share their life experience.

That means fewer people to feed into graduate school, and for those who do make it the same obstacles still apply, along with a system of incentives and rewards which doesn't necessarily value some of the accomplishments that matter to them, such as community engagement, or the research questions in which they are interested. Furthermore, if you think that senior faculty don't harbor biases and don't discriminate, you are seriously misled. 

So our first order of business is to work to lower those obstacles, to give people a welcoming and supportive environment; to value research, teaching and mentoring that addresses matters of importance to diverse communities; to recognize, name and address racism and other forms of bias; and to provide the extra resources that people from disadvantaged backgrounds might need to succeed. It doesn't mean hiring less qualified people, but it does mean rethinking what qualifications ought to be. 

Now I suppose in the hypothetical that we had two equally qualified candidates for a single position, we might want to hire the one who contributes more to diversity. It's hard to imagine how "equal qualifications" could even be defined since potential scholars come with unique combinations of qualities, but being able to mentor a more diverse student body and junior faculty, being able to contribute diverse viewpoints and experiences to humanities and engagement with public problems, being able to enrich the perspectives of colleagues, all of these are qualifications in themselves. 

Pretending to be Black isn't going to help you if you can't convince people that you really can make these sorts of contributions. As I said, in the case of Jessica Krug, her impersonation was so inept that it was actually off-putting to many people. At the same time, her scholarship was of such quality that she would have had a perfectly satisfactory academic career without it. So maybe she thought it helped her career-wise, but it probably didn't and in the long run it destroyed her. And in fact she says she started doing it long before she applied for any academic jobs. So I really don't think that's why she did it. 

But in any case no, we don't discriminate against white people. We do try to make up for the effects of long-standing discrimination and inequality, as best we can. Some people can't seem to grasp the difference.