Accreditor Should Not Drop Diversity Standards

AAUP president Todd Wolfson submitted the following comments today in response to the news that the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Senior College and University Commission is considering dropping DEI language from its standards.

The American Association of University Professors urges that the Western Association of Schools and Colleges’ Senior College and University Commission not bend to the political winds by reversing its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion in its standards for accreditation.

The AAUP has long advocated for diversity in higher education, including a diverse faculty and student body. The Association’s recent statement On Eliminating Discrimination and Achieving Equality in Higher Education noted:

While considerable progress has been made in the past fifty years in overcoming discriminatory barriers and opening doors to members of formerly excluded or disfavored groups, the dangerous and ongoing backlash against movements for equality—already recognized by the [AAUP’s] 1973 affirmative action report as a “politics of reaction” and arguably reaching a fever pitch at the current moment—demands not only rededication to the principles of equal justice espoused by the AAUP a half century ago but also a more expansive and profound understanding of those principles.

A growing ferocity in the assaults on higher education threatens progress made on racial and gender equality and directly challenges the very essence of higher education, which is essential to the common good. Attacks on efforts to advance knowledge about race, gender, class, sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability are inseparable from a larger campaign against core academic values—including shared governance, academic freedom, and tenure—and against learning itself.

Bending to these attacks will fundamentally damage higher education. It is the higher education community’s responsibility not to preemptively collaborate with such attacks, but to vigorously resist them.