Woke Ideology And Conduct Now Mandatory For Faculty At University Of Illinois At Urbana-Champaign

By Mark Glennon of Wirepoints

The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has finalized its requirement for diversity-contribution statements from all faculty members for tenure and promotion.

As reported Friday by Inside Higher Ed, the new policy says that the departments’ evaluations of teaching, service and research and future potential “must, where appropriate, consider the candidate’s diversity, equity, and inclusion activities and their impact.” Few institutions of UIUC’s size, according to Inside Higher Ed, have considered requiring diversity statements—and, effectively, DEI (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) —from all professors who hope to be tenured or promoted. Their column goes on:

The provost’s office describes the new DEI requirement as a one-page-maximum personal statement detailing “specific individual and/or collaborative activities aimed at supporting diversity, equity, and inclusion, as well as access.” Candidates should “include a discussion of the context, importance, and impact of their contributions along with their future plans for contributions. The candidate may choose to organize the statement by topic, activity, domain (e.g., research, teaching, and service), or in another manner.”

We wrote about the absurdity of this policy last year when it was in draft form. We asked, what happens if the teacher’s specialty is, say, high energy particle theory, or Chinese history or genetic markers for cancer risk?

Sorry, all faculty are expected to make efforts toward enhancing DEI.

In announcing the new policy, Andreas C. Cangellaris, UIUC’s provost, said that in order to meet the goals of its current strategic plan, the university must “catalyze innovation and discovery, find novel and proactive ways to educate students from all walks of life, and develop ever-deeper connections with the public we serve.”

This is tyranny by a minority. Americans overwhelmingly think DEI has gone too far. The most recent polling says huge majorities don’t even think race should be considered in college admissions. But the minority includes college administrators and they make the rules.

We wrote last week about a study showing how bloated American universities are with DEI staff, with U of I being among the worst. It now turns out that was vast understatement. All faculty are now DEI enforcers. As the Inside Higher Ed headline says, U of I is now “where DEI work is faculty work.”

What a tragedy to see an otherwise exceptional university trash its reputation in this manner.

If this isn’t a violation of the “compelled speech” doctrine under the First Amendment, I don’t know what is. Under established First Amendment law, government supported institutions like U of I cannot force people to make statements embracing any particular ideology. This violation is flagrant. Somebody needs to sue the daylights out of U of I.