Harvard Law Professor: Mandatory DEI Statements Make Me Wince

Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School. He has written a series of controversial books about race and racism and is clearly on the left, but is also considered a strong voice for free speech (a combination that used to be more common than it is today). 

This week, Kennedy wrote an opinion piece for the Harvard Crimson in which he argued that mandatory DEI statements were essentially ideological pledges which should be done away with as a clear case of overreach.

On a posting for a position as an assistant professor in international and comparative education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, applicants are required to submit a CV, a cover letter, a research statement, three letters of reference, three or more writing samples, and a statement of teaching philosophy that includes a description of their “orientation toward diversity, equity, and inclusion practices.”…

Playing ball entails affirming that the DEI bureaucracy is a good thing and asking no questions that challenge it, all the while making sure to use in one’s attestations the easy-to-parody DEI lingo. It does not take much discernment to see, moreover, that the diversity statement regime leans heavily and tendentiously towards varieties of academic leftism and implicitly discourages candidates who harbor ideologically conservative dispositions…

Candidates for academic positions at Harvard should not be asked to support ideological commitments. Imagine the howl of protest that would (or should) erupt if a school at Harvard asked a candidate for a faculty position to submit a statement of their orientation towards capitalism, or patriotism, or Making America Great Again with a clear expectation of allegiance? Such pressure constitutes an encroachment upon the intellectual freedom that ought to be part of the enjoyment of academic life…

By overreaching, by resorting to compulsion, by forcing people to toe a political line, by imposing ideological litmus tests, by incentivizing insincerity, and by creating a circular mode of discourse that is seemingly impervious to self-questioning, the current DEI regime is discrediting itself.

Kennedy closes the piece by affirming that he is personally on the left and “committed to struggles for social justice.” And yet, he adds, “mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince.”

It’s worth noting that in addition to a long history on the left, Professor Kennedy is black so it’s going to be difficult for critics to accuse him of some kind of latent or unexamined racism. Instead, he is simply standing up from free speech and academic freedom over compelled speech and litmus tests.

It would be great if this sort of thing were the norm on the left but, on the contrary, it seems rare enough to be noteworthy these days. Professor Kennedy has made a brief but, in my opinion, undeniable case that DEI statements should be abandoned. That combination of something that is so obviously true and yet so rarely voiced is pretty striking. One of the commenters pointed it out.

Outstanding piece, full of truth.

But the sad part is how OBVIOUS it is, and how absolutely EVIL it is that we are where we are, that this has to be written, that we are already in a place, have been for many years, where Harvard and others with the same practices have gotten away with this?

Is it not obvious that this is patently illegal, a gross violation of our constitutional rights of free speech and free expression, of what our nation fundamentally stands for? Is it not OBVIOUS that DEI statements are a new manifestation of the gross human rights violations in communist regimes, just a “softer” form of mass coercion and indoctrination?

HOW DID WE GET HERE? How is it that leaders support and allow it go to on? If for no other reason than this, Prof. Gay and everyone like her in the DEI priesthood should be kicked to the curb.

Let’s hear from the ardent defenders, the progressive zealots who think there’s no problem here, just move along please? I DARE someone to defend this absolutely despicable practice.

One more good point from another commenter. 

Superb statement. One point I think must be added. Behind the diversity statements required of applicants is a powerful, entrenched DEI bureaucracy that is absolutely NOT committed to any sort of open discussion of its ideology. It is, in essence, opposed to the very idea of the university. I believe it must be dismantled, or at least hemmed in by a rigid prohibition against it ever exercising any coercive power, or even hint of or threat of such, over any student, professor or administrator.

The DEI pledges are just that, a pledge of allegiance. More worrisome than the pledge itself is the body of bad ideas and the zealous bureaucracy installed to enforce them. Getting rid of the pledge is a good first step. Getting rid of the ideologues is an even better idea.