Following President Trump’s executive orders and threats aimed at ending diversity, equity, and inclusion policies at universities across the country, many institutions have apparently fallen in line. Among them are some of the most prestigious and famously liberal including Columbia, Rutgers, the University of Michigan, and the University of California system.
Much has been said about how these universities and institutions are “bending the knee” to the subjugating power of Trump. To those unfamiliar with how academia works, this might sound like DEI is being quickly scrubbed from our colleges – Trump is delivering on his promise to bring an end to the madness generated by the liberal fixation on diversity and social justice.
I have either good news or bad news depending on what sort of reaction you had to seeing Snow White being turned into Snow Person-of-Mixed-Descent: DEI at most universities isn’t going anywhere.
Despite what the presidents of universities say in their press releases, their faculty will not stop using DEI hiring and admissions practices. It has been demonstrated in the past that attempts to halt diversity policies simply lead to hiring and admissions committees finding workarounds.
After affirmative action became illegal in California in the 90s, the UC system and other universities simply enacted policies like eliminating standardized testing requirements and taking into consideration the performance of the applicant’s high school of origin.
Turning back to this current wave of anti-diversity initiatives set by the administration, even if universities do not have DEI hiring policies and even if they explicitly forbid DEI considerations during hiring or admissions, DEI will almost certainly remain a consideration.
Existing faculty and hiring committees do not need to be given a DEI hiring policy to enact their own. There is no need for them to discuss their diversity agenda amongst themselves or expressly plan to hire someone of a particular background. They already know what they want and they’ll hire and admit accordingly.
Could this be resolved by holding universities accountable for their failure to comply? Prospective faculty should be encouraged to sue perhaps, like a case last year that cited Eugene Volokh, a white man, being passed over by Northwestern in favor of Destiny Peery, a Black woman.
Lawsuits like these often fail because it is exceedingly difficult to prove that discrimination on the basis of race has played a role in someone’s failing to receive a job offer. In fact, it may be even more difficult to prove if universities don’t have explicit DEI practices such as asking applicants for diversity statements, which is what Trump’s policies are removing.
Departments receive hundreds if not thousands of applications. At the level of university faculty, the candidates are often difficult to distinguish in terms of qualifications where it would be quite difficult for someone to argue that their academic background very clearly sets them apart, not least of which because an applicant’s quality of publications and alma mater are only two of many considerations that hiring committees may reasonably take into consideration.
They take into consideration anything from how well the person seems to fit the specialization needs of the department to whether they expect the candidate to be poached by some other university to how “nice” someone seems during an interview. These are all perfectly acceptable reasons that can be cited in court.
So many factors go into these decisions precisely because most of the candidates are nearly professionally indistinguishable from each other – they are all highly qualified, and yes, that includes non-white applicants. All this is to say that there are all manner of reasonings that a hiring committee can offer for why they chose some particular candidate.
The same is the case with the content taught in classrooms. The instructor for a course nearly always has complete discretion over what is covered and, unless Trump installs a Steve Bannon in every auditorium, faculty will continue to teach social justice content. These DEI-backtracking announcements by universities are all to give Trump an illusory win. Trump can claim that he got DEI out of universities like Berkeley, UCLA, and Columbia, but in reality, he’s being played.
Thus is the folly of Trump’s crusade against DEI at universities. He has stepped into a fight that he cannot win because it’s not winnable. Trump can go ahead and take his fake victory and give those universities their money because the battle here was lost long ago.
Rafael Perez is a columnist for the Southern California News Group.