Missouri is one of five states that may have a civil rights initiative, barring racial and ethnic preferences, on its ballot in November 2008. Supporters of race preferences, i.e., opponents of colorblind, neutral, non-discrimination, have so far been unable to decide whether to criticize the proposed initiative by claiming that the state of Missouri has no race preference policies, and so the initiative is unnecessary, or by claiming that continuing the preferential “affirmative action” policies (the only affirmative action policies that would be affected) is so essential to life as Missouri Democrats know it that passing the initiative would cause the sky to fall. So they have been arguing both.
Meanwhile, in the trenches, in this case from the University of Missouri Kansas City, comes this evidence of “affirmative action” run amok, requiring the continual re-education of faculty members.
“New affirmative action hiring procedures anger Faculty Senate,” reports the UMKC University News.
aculty and administration are at loggerheads over the new affirmative action hiring policy.
The plan requires faculty members to attend a training seminar each and every time they serve on a search committee for hiring new faculty. The pool of potential candidates must also be reviewed by the Affirmative Action Office, and the candidates must undergo an interview with the office.
When the Director of the Office of Diversity, Access and Equity Karen Dace and Affirmative Action Director Grace Hernandez presented a draft of the new requirements for hiring tenured and tenured-track faculty at the Faculty Senate meeting Sept. 18, it was met with a less than enthusiastic response.
Two weeks later, after consulting with their respective units, the senators were even more vocal in their opposition. Though all who spoke were in favor of the principle of affirmative action, they expressed concerns about the feasibility, speed and effectiveness of the new procedures.
Some of their complaints almost make one sympathetic with these supporters of “the principle of affirmative action.”
“We are whole-heartedly against this,” said Senator Peggy Ward-Smith, School of Nursing. “Why is the training recommended for everyone? That’s insulting. It’s not even available online. We don’t have the time.”
She said the lack of diversity in nursing is well known.
“If the [Affirmative Action] Office has a list of diverse Ph.D. candidates, bring it on, because we don’t have it,” Ward-Smith said.
Since I’m not even sure what a “diverse Ph.D. candidate” is, I’d like to see that list, too.
Senator Tom Mardikes, Theatre, wondered what good the interviews with [Director of the Office of Diversity, Access and Equity Karen] Dace’s office would do.
“They’re going to look at the person over all the research and background that the faculty has done and know ‘This person is better because of my three-minute interview’?” he asked.
Faculty Senate Chair Gary Ebersole, Arts and Sciences, said he didn’t think Dace quite understood what it meant when she said she wanted one-on-one interviews with each candidate.
“I don’t know how many hours she has in a day,” he said….
Senator Patricia Marken, School of Pharmacy, said it was offensive to have to repeat the training.
But here’s my favorite:
Senator Cory Beard said the faculty at the School of Computing and Engineering is 75 percent internationally-born.
“What really defines diversity?” he asked. “We brought in African candidates from Eritrea or whatever and they were not considered diverse. It seems like a nebulous target. We have people from all over the world. It looks diverse to us.”
Of course, Beard is an engineer. What would he know of “diversity”?
The more one sees of exactly how “affirmative action” operates in practices, the less surprising it is that even professors are not enthusiastic about it, as reported in my post immediately below.
what’s funny is that the best evidence suggests that diversity training accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of actually changing workforce demographics.