The Massachusetts Institute of Technology said Monday that it will no longer require candidates applying for faculty positions to write diversity statements, which have been rejected by conservatives and free speech advocates as forcing a kind of ideological conformity.
In their statements, which were typically a page long, candidates were required to explain how they would enhance the university's commitment to diversity.
Such statements have become entrenched in faculty recruitment at many elite public and private universities, as well as in the business community. Academics have defended them as necessary in assessing whether a faculty member can reach an increasingly diverse student population.
Announcing the change, MIT President Sally Kornbluth said diversity statements constituted a form of coerced speech that doesn't work.
“My goals are to tap the full scope of human talent, bring the very best to MIT and ensure that they thrive once here,” said Dr. Kornbluth said in a statement. “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but coercive statements infringe on freedom of expression, and they don't work.”
MIT and Dr. Kornbluth is under scrutiny from Republicans in the House of Representatives over the university's handling of allegations of anti-Semitism. In December, Dr. testified. Kornbluth along with two other presidents, Claudine Gay of Harvard and Elizabeth Magill of the University of Pennsylvania, during a congressional hearing on anti-Semitism, which contributed to the resignation of Dr. Gay and Mrs. Magill. And MIT, like many other campuses, is struggling to cope with an increasingly intense pro-Palestinian encampment.
Conservatives and many academics have long resisted diversity declarations because they force a kind of ideological conformity. MIT's decision to drop them could encourage other universities to take a second look. a 2021 study of the American Enterprise Institute found that selective universities were more likely than less selective universities to require such statements.
MIT, whose students are required to immerse themselves in science and technology courses, has been at the forefront of pushing back on measures that some say could undermine the rigor of education. After the pandemic, it was one of the first universities to reinstate standardized admissions testing, saying it helped predict academic success.
The practice of screening candidates for their diversity statements, sometimes before their academic qualifications are taken into account, has been attacked as particularly corrosive in the sciences, where maintaining academic rigor in research projects can effectively be a matter of life and death. Dr. Kornbluth is a research cell biologist.
Dr. Kornbluth took the step to remove diversity statements with the support of other top officials, including the provost, chancellor, all six academic deans and the vice president for equity and inclusion, her statement said.
It was not immediately clear whether non-faculty jobs would require diversity declarations, or whether this was a first step in dismantling MIT's broader diversity, equity and inclusion infrastructure.
Diversity statements are an important instrument for supporters, now that the Supreme Court has banned race-conscious confessionsby creating a more welcoming environment for students of all backgrounds and ethnicities, and by bringing diverse life experiences into the classroom.
But diversity, equity and inclusion programs have come under concerted attack from conservatives, free speech advocates and some academics who say they stifle open research.
“They require faculty to endorse or apply specific positions on race, gender, and related issues as if they were beyond dispute, and as if any professor who challenges them is ipso facto incompetent,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression says on its website.