Statement on DEI Criteria for Faculty Evaluation

The Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Ten­ure approved a statement titled Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Criteria for Faculty Evaluation, which was published online in October. The statement contends that, when appropriately designed and implemented, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) criteria for fac­ulty appointment, reappointment, tenure, and promotion are com­patible with academic freedom and may serve as an important means of fostering a diverse and inclusive academic environment.

The statement observes that colleges and universities may legitimately—and, according to AAUP recommendations, should— aim to recruit and retain diverse student and faculty bodies and to promote “teaching, research, and service that respond to the needs of a diverse global public.” An institution that has adopted such educational goals, the statement says, may also adopt appropriate strategies to achieve them. These may include the assessment of faculty members’ corresponding professional competencies, such as “how their pedagogical prac­tice and research interests might support students from historically underrepresented backgrounds or otherwise contribute to a public prepared to live and work in a globalized world and interact with many different kinds of people.” Decisions about the scope, design, and application of DEI crite­ria for faculty evaluation must, under sound principles of shared governance, rest primarily with the faculty, and such assessments should address the core faculty duties of teaching, research, and professional service rather than being tacked on as a separate criterion.

The statement rejects the claim that DEI criteria necessarily infringe on academic freedom by imposing political or ideological litmus tests concerning diversity: faculty members must retain the right to criticize or oppose institutional goals or the policies adopted to realize them. How­ever, the statement says, it is not “a violation of academic freedom per se when an appropriate larger group, such as a faculty senate or a department, collectively adopts an educational policy or goal and evaluates individual faculty mem­bers’ performance by reference to them even though they dissent.”

The statement concludes by calling for funding and protecting research and teaching that address inequity and the needs of histori­cally underrepresented groups, in light of “efforts to restrict or ban certain subjects of research and teaching—especially in fields and disciplines that expressly address histories of inequities concerning race, ethnicity, and gender.”