If DEI Is DIE-ing, I Call DIBS

[Valin]

Power Line

Steven Hayward

May 16 2023

Gov. Ron DeSantis has signed legislation in Florida defunding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs in Florida’s state universities, and while the diversicrats will probably go to ground by embedding themselves with bureaucratic workarounds, it is already paying dividends. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports:

Statehouses’ Targeting of Diversity and Tenure Is Starting to Scare Away Faculty Job Candidates

Recently proposed and passed legislation that targets tenure and diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts is having a chilling effect on the recruitment of faculty members and administrators in Florida and Texas, where some of the highest profile laws and bills of that type have been undertaken. . .

In Florida, some candidates’ concerns are so profound that they’re turning down job offers in the state — despite not having other offers, said Andrew Gothard, president of the United Faculty of Florida, a union representing faculty at all 12 of the state’s public universities, a private one, and community colleges. . .

Candidates for administrative jobs are expressing hesitation, too, said Zachary A. Smith, a managing partner at WittKieffer and the search firm’s education-practice leader. “There are definitely candidates who tell us they will not look in Texas or Florida because of what’s going on around diversity, equity, and inclusion,” Smith said. WittKieffer, he said, is following its clients’ lead; at least one Texas institution has already asked the firm to remove DEI-related language in its job postings.

Here’s a simple rule: any prospective faculty member or administrator who is reluctant to take a job because of a lack of a DEI program is someone you don’t want to hire in the first place. I call this a win-win situation for Florida (and I’m usually against “win-win situations,” which ranks right below “public-private partnership” in the lexicon of soft-headed, goo-goo euphemisms).

(Snip)