Letters to the Editor: Diversity statements still have their place in UC, CSU and community college hiring

To the editor: While I don’t dispute Duncan Hosie’s contention that requiring diversity statements in the University of California faculty hiring process can devolve into “ideological litmus tests — bureaucratic hurdles cloaked in the rhetoric of inclusion” and that failure “to repeat the right orthodoxies” might mean that “your candidacy was dead on arrival” in some departments, I disagree with his conclusion that universities are better off not using them as a part of the hiring process (“Why liberals should celebrate the end of diversity statements at UC,” March 26).

All three segments of public higher education in this state — the UC, the California State University and the community colleges — serve a diverse array of students who bring with them a variety of life circumstances and experiences. We serve returning students, parents, veterans, international and first-generation students, many of whom work part- or full-time, as well as economically disadvantaged students and those who have faced challenges and difficulties of many kinds.

As I have served on numerous faculty and administrative searches at the CSU system, campus, college and department levels, I have found diversity statements to be useful tools for screening applicants for interviews.
It is my experience that administrative and faculty candidates whose statements are largely performative and which lack insight into the differing needs of the diverse student populations we serve rightly do not move forward in the process.

Like any tool, diversity statements in hiring processes can be used inappropriately or even abused, but as with any tool, we should focus on using them effectively to further worthwhile goals rather than eliminating them entirely because they are misused by some.

John Tarjan, Bakersfield