“The theater of faculty diversification”
“The Yale Report reviewed numerous plans for diversification, focusing on hiring and promotion data. The Committee found Yale’s many such endeavors locked a “groundhog day” scenario, a “perpetual loop: Form a committee in reaction to a crisis, pledge to diversify the faculty, and then fail to follow through with action and resources needed to sustain progress”…
McMurtrie says: “more than half of faculty members in underrepresented groups said they often or always felt excluded from informal networks, had to work harder to be seen as legitimate scholars, and had more service responsibilities”…
One senior White colleague, who had offered a sympathetic ear for years, ended up on my promotion committee; under pressure from her department head (as I discovered later), she teamed up with her colleagues against me, claiming informal complaints for which there was no evidence. When I demanded evidence, she said, “Well, we know you,” the “we” being a clear flag of WE — a small number of tenured, long-standing local, White Christianfaculty who will always stick together.
Fortunately the Faculty Council, reviewing evidence, struck down the promotion committee’s claims, though this did nothing to improve the program climate.”
Related: “The Other Side of Diversity”
