(NewsSpace.com) – In the past few years, there’s been a heavy focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in schools and the workplace. Many companies have been trying to make a point of hiring those who are committed to DEI principles. Up until recently, anyone who was seeking a job at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, would have to commit to it as part of their application. However, the college has seemingly rolled this back, and one civil liberties group is calling the move a win.
The issue at UMass Boston initially came to light in a series of job ads for assistant professors and lecturers to write a diversity statement and commit to supporting the college’s DEI requirements. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is a civil liberties group. Founded in 1999, it seeks to protect free speech on college campuses across the country. It wrote a letter to the college earlier this year, calling it out for DEI requirements, saying they “encroach on [the] faculty’s First Amendment right not to adopt prescribed views.”
Now, the requirement to commit to and write a statement on DEI has been removed from the job listings, per Fox News. Following the win, Haley Gluhanich, FIRE’s Program Officer, released a statement saying that the organization was happy with the win, “But maybe next time, it doesn’t need to take five months of advocacy.”
When pressed for a comment, UMass Boston said it’s “fully committed to following the best practices” in hiring its staff and it “will continue to support [its] faculty’s Constitutional rights while [it] embrace[s] [its] diverse community.”
Fox News reporters happened to look at several of the college’s job ads and noted that there was no mention of DEI-specific requirements. The listings did, however, say that the university was seeking faculty that would continue to support its goal “of ensuring an inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplace.”
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