The leaders of the University of California said on Wednesday that they are eliminating a practice of years of demanding the employment applicants of the Faculty that they present “Diversity statements”, a measure that occurs after the Trump administration threatened to revoke federal funds from schools and universities that maintain diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
As part of employment or promotions requests, many departments on UC campuses have asked Employment applicants to present written testimonies of one or two pages about how they have worked to improve and support racial diversity and other types of diversity in their fields. Test requests began to appear in some UC applications in the early 2000s and gained popularity in the 2010 decade, which attracted both compliments and controversy.
UC Regents announced the decision when they were convened in UCLA, its first meeting since the Federal Government launched a series of investigations in UC and other American campuses for accusations that they discriminate against employees and white students, American Asians and Jews.
“The requirement to submit a declaration of diversity can lead the applicants to focus on an aspect of their candidacy that is outside their experience or previous experience,” said Katherine S. Newman, Provost of the UC and Executive Vice President of Academic Affairs, in a letter from Wednesday to the Provlostes of the Campus.
“The Regents declared that our values and commitment to our mission have not changed,” said the letter. “We can continue to effectively serve our communities of a variety of life experiences, background and views without requiring diversity statements.”
He added that although independent diversity statements in hiring “will no longer be allowed”, the faculty can still optionally share any “inclusive academic achievement in teaching, research and service” during the academic review process.
Oppositors to diversity statements argue that essays encourage academics who request jobs to remove their academic achievement approach. In 2023, a requirement of Diversity of Diversity of UC Santa Cruz led a former professor of psychology at the University of Toronto to sue. The professor, who lived in Pennsylvania, claimed that the job application requirement violated the protections of freedom of expression in the Constitution. Last year, a judge dismissed the lawsuit because the teacher did not request a job.
Multiple members of the Faculty of the UC familiar with Wednesday's decision said that the anti-dei actions of the Trump administration were a significant factor in the decision of the regents.
Brian Soucek, law professor at UC Davis and expert in diversity statements that has worked with the Faculty and Administration of the UC to investigate its use, legality and efficiency, said disappointment.
“It can only be explained as an attempt to advance the current threats of the Trump administration,” Souzek said. “There is nothing more than possibly motivating this change in general or this change that is made in this particular way at the present time.”
Soucek pointed out that the leaders and the Faculty of the UC “have been studying and advocating due to diversity statements on campus for years.” He said that statements are supposed to “look for ways in which our specific fields can be short in scholarship production that addresses the needs of a diverse audience.”
The Department of Education issued orientation last month to all schools and universities, which suggests that their Dei programs, such as scholarships centered on minorities and black and Latin graduation ceremonies, put them at risk of losing federal subsidies.
The letter did not highlight the diversity statements, but in general he said that the department saw the use of the breed in “admissions, financial aid, hiring, training and other institutional programming” as illegal.
In response, many schools throughout the country have made changes, such as closing offices or diversity positions or renowing them to eliminate words diversity and equity. USC closed a diversity office throughout the campus, merging it with a “culture” team, and the Faculty eliminated websites at the diversity language department level.
The Department of Education also opened research on UC Berkeley and dozens of campus last week about accusations that they were illegally associated with the PHD project, a non -profit organization based in New Jersey that promotes diversity in the workplace connecting to the faculty of business schools to students. The Trump administration accused the non -profit organization to limit the breed -based participation. The non -profit organization said last week that it has changed its policies to be open to all.
In a statement, the president of the UC Regent Board, Janet Reilly, said the university “will continue to hug and celebrate the Californians of a variety of experiences, background and points of view.”
