From the Cliff Mass Weather Blog
Faculty Freedom of Speech and Diversity is Threatened at the University of Washington
For a university to serve its community, produce new knowledge, and educate its students, the faculty cannot be afraid to speak freely.
For a university to provide a place where knowledge and ideas are freely shared and debated, faculty must be shielded from outside political pressure, and diversity of viewpoint must be protected for both faculty and students.
As I will describe below, there are serious threats to faculty diversity and freedom at the University of Washington. Threats reminiscent of the loyalty oaths of the late 1940s and early 1950s. Subtle and overt pressure against faculty holding the “wrong views”, with University faculty increasingly pushed towards a monoculture of political correctness.
This is not simply a faculty issue. It will influence which students are admitted to the UW and the type of education they receive.
Should All University Faculty Be Required to Actively Support A Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Agenda?
During the next few weeks, the University of Washington faculty will vote on a requirement that mandates a statement demonstrating concrete action in support of a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda.
This proposed new mandatory statement would be in addition to the current requirement that faculty demonstrate progress in teaching, research, and public service. The faculty code already states that contributions to diversity and equality of opportunity can be cited for supporting promotion; it is just not required.
Establishing DEI requirements is the current rage among major coastal universities, particularly those in blue-leaning states. It is highly political, with strong support among many progressives, but with far lesser support among those with more moderate viewpoints.
A key issue is the term “equity”, which DEI supporters generally see as meaning equal outcomes for all groups in society. In contrast, a more moderate, traditional viewpoint generally highlights equality of all individuals, with each given equal rights and opportunities, but no guarantees of success. In a university with “equity”, preferences are often made for specific groups, such as for admissions or providing special aid and support for certain “underrepresented” populations.
Requiring that all faculty support a social/political agenda favored by one segment of society not only politicizes the university but represents “compelled speech”, a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. It is probably illegal.
But the situation at the UW is even worse than that. There is no guidance on what DEI activities would represent acceptable faculty progress: the decision is left to each department or unit on campus. This pushes the door of potential abuse wide open.
Although most faculty just want to get on with their research, teaching, and service, there is a vocal minority of faculty and university administrators that are pushing their departments and the university to take on an activist, politicized, progressive agenda. These individuals, many of them idealistic and well-meaning, wish to mold the world towards their vision of social justice. And in their self-righteous worldview, it is fine to suppress the viewpoints of others, push out “unbelievers”, and discourage those with different political viewpoints.
They love to talk about diversity, but their diversity is narrow and only includes individuals with similar beliefs or members of favored groups. And I note there is no definition of what diversity and inclusion means in the new faculty requirements, again leaving the potential for abuse.
Washington State is highly diverse in the viewpoints of its citizens. This map shows the party vote in a recent presidential election (blue Democrat, red Republican).
A Serious Threat to Faculty Freedom and Diversity at the University of Washington
With no overall guidance for the mandatory DEI requirement for faculty advancement, faculty ideologues, gaining chair or other influential positions in a department, could demand that other faculty “bend the knee” to their political or social agendas by defining the DEI requirements for advancement to match their own viewpoints. This is extremely dangerous and concerning.
Is this a theoretical threat? Unfortunately not. Some faculty advocates for politicized actions are already working to punish and suppress those that disagree with them—and this serves as a stern warning of what might happen if the mandatory DEI statement passes.
For example, during the past few weeks, a faculty DEI advocate in a STEM department pushed to find a junior colleague “unmeritorious” for a pay raise because the junior faculty member opposed the DEI initiative mentioned above. Fortunately, other department faculty came to the defense of free speech.
Or consider the case of the faculty listserv run by the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). The AAUP listerv, which is the largest faculty platform for online discussion (distributed to several thousand faculty and administrators), is moderated by two far-left faculty members that facilitate messages reflecting their viewpoints; they frequently reject messages from those who don’t subscribe to their ideas. In the case of this DEI requirement, the AAUP moderators have rejected many messages from faculty that criticized the DEI plan, including my own. For example, AAUP moderator Amy Hagopian (who is running for a new faculty regent position), provided this rationale when she rejected my message criticizing the mandatory statement:
“Our concerns remain about giving so much air time to those who seem to be hostile to the university’s attempts to amplify diversity, equity and inclusion.”
A transparent attempt to suppress diversity of viewpoint that differs from her own.
There was a time when the AAUP fearlessly defended faculty freedoms and speech, such as its heroic efforts to stand against the loyalty oaths of the 1950s. No longer. Captured by a contingent committed to a certain brand of politics, AAUP now suppresses free speech while it pushes a politicized agenda.
The undemocratic academic loyalty oaths of the 1950s were wrong.Required politicized DEI attestations are equally as wrong in 2022.
I could provide many more disturbing examples of attempts by faculty political activists to publicly shame or attack other faculty with different viewpoints (including what happened to me when I did not support initiative 1631). Members of my department and others have told me they were afraid to express their ideas on socially charged issues, and both graduate and undergrad students have said the same thing.
Faculty and students should never fear expressing their viewpoints in a university, where ideas should be debated, questioned, and discussed.
Discomfit at the Top
It is clear that the UW administration is nervous about this DEI requirement. UW President Ana Mari Cauce, has shown herself willing to make hard decisions to protect freedom of speech, and her statement to the University of Washington faculty Senate made clear her concerns about the proposed legislation. President Cauce’s family was forced to leave a communist nation, and as with many of her history, she energetically defends essential democratic freedoms. But in this case, she is powerless if the faculty votes to put on the political shackles.
What Can You Do?
The threats to faculty freedom of speech and diversity of viewpoint emanating from the proposed faculty DEI requirement are clear. Demanding that faculty agree with and support a particular ideological viewpoint is not only illegal but would diminish the university in profound ways.
It will inevitably and profoundly alter the attitudes of the faculty over the long term. Would a prospective faculty member who valued freedom of expression and true diversity of viewpoint want to come to the University of Washington? The changes have already begun but will accelerate if this measure passes.
The University of Washington should serve all citizens of the State, of all backgrounds and political viewpoints. Prospective students should know that their admission to the UW will not depend on their race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic background, or politics, but on their abilities and past efforts. They should know that they will be instructed by faculty who welcome differing viewpoints.
You should be concerned, no matter your political orientation.
So how can you help?
If you are a faculty member, please vote against the proposal.
If you know a faculty member, please talk to them about it.
If you are a donor or supporter of the UW, please make your views known in whatever way you see fit.
We are long past when it’s reasonable to assume leftists are “idealistic and well meaning.” Their despotism and thuggery says otherwise. So drop the knee jerk excuses and recognize the malevolent nature of their beliefs and the evil of their actions in support of their ideology.
There is nothing new about the totalitarian nature of the left.
Their desire eliminate any speech they disagree with goes back decades. Back in the 80’s it was almost impossible for any member of the Reagan administration to give a speech if the audience was tightly restricted. Members of the left would invade any speech that they could, and then make as much noise as possible with the stated purpose of drowning out the speaker.
They also through major fits whenever a conservative was invited to give a speech, pressuring whatever group it was to rescind the invitation in exchange for peace.
Independent thought is to be squashed in favor of the collective mind, which thinks it knows better. Working on a campus, I see some sensibility in STEM and business departments, but by and large, Marxists have taken control.
In addition to the suggestions above, consider legal action if you are wronged. Even the threat of a suit can thwart some of the insanity.
The court system is rapidly falling as well. A recent example:
In the trial of the man who worked with the Hillary campaign to create the Steele Dossier and lied to the FBI in order to get them to open an investigation.
3 of the jurors contributed to the Hillary campaign, and the daughter of another juror plays on a soccer team with the daughter of the defendant.
The fix is in.
I follow several attorney blogs. They all seem to agree that it’s impossible to get a jury in DC that isn’t slanted far-left — and hard even to get a judge who isn’t. The judge in Durham’s case is so grossly biased that if she isn’t overturned on appeal, we will have to look for justice outside the justice system.
Hillary’s campaing manager for 2016 testified yesterday that Hillary was knowledgeable about promoting the Trump/Russia Collusion Lie.
It’s just a guess of mine, but I think Hillary is the instigator of this political hoax, see didn’t just “sign on to it”,and she was helped by Obama and Biden and their administration to push this Lie on the American public. All of them are traitors to their country and should be spending time in jail right now for their corruption and criminality.
These people are trying their best to take our personal freedoms away from us. Collectively, we need to wake up to this fact if we are to save ourselves.
Imagine the pressure to comply for a university that has signed onto the ‘climate emergency declaration’ under the thumb of Mark Carney as an advisor.
https://uwaterloo.ca/climate-emergency-declaration/
The impact is evident even while voicing objection. Notice how Cliff was influenced to avoid mentioning Democrat or Democrats in all of his descriptions of who is doing this.
“… there is a vocal minority of faculty and university administrators…. activists, politicized, progressive agenda. These individuals, many of them idealistic and well-meaning, wish to mold the world towards their vision of social justice. And in their self-righteous worldview, it is fine to suppress the viewpoints of others, push out “unbelievers”, and discourage those with different political viewpoints.”
In every arena this is the MO of today’s Democrats.
Suppression of other viewpoints is necessary because their ridiculous beliefs can’t survive critical inquiry.
Absolutely correct. The Radical Left cannot stand scrutiny. Free Speech is poison to them and their delusional ideas.
“The impact is evident even while voicing objection. Notice how Cliff was influenced to avoid mentioning Democrat or Democrats in all of his descriptions of who is doing this.”
I did notice that. Even Cliff has to walk on egg shells. I imagine everyone involved at the Univeristy of Washington is doing the same. I imagine just about everyone at most of our univerisities are doing the same. They are all being very careful about what they say, and how they say it to avoid getting themselves in trouble with the Radical Left. That’s the way the Radical Left likes it. That’s their goal.
“Should All University Faculty Be Required to Actively Support A Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Agenda?”
Universities should be taking in the brightest and the best irrespective of ethnicity or sex. Even among those there is no equity.
Defunding is all the rage these days, so why not defund Universities that inhibit freedom of thought and expression?
Over the last 50 years the USA has fallen from being in the top three of educational systems and achievement to Twenty Fifth! ! ! DIE is KILLING the US.
Defunding bad universities is certainly part of the answer. But the accrediting bodies are increasingly controlled by woketards as well. They will have to be retaken or evaded for any honest universities to continue to exist at all.
The same goes for licensing bodies in the teaching profession, especially at the K-12 levels.
But beware proposals to strengthen tenure. It is more likely to protect bad profs than good.
I am just rereading Animal farm and this comment seems apposite as Napoleon mounts his coup using ten vicious dogs previously hidden from view.
His spokes pig Squealer, gravely confirms Napoleon does not want power for himself as ‘no one believes more firmly than comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal and would only be too happy to let all the animals make the decisions for themselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions comrades and then where would we be?
I fear too many writing here will make the wrong decision so we should be grateful to our enlightened leaders for keeping us in the correct line.
And, after all, “some animals are more equal than others.”
You beat me to it Janice!
Great minds 🙂
I graduated from the UW in 1975 but my degree was electrical engineering and the engineering professors were focused on engineering so we weren’t really exposed to this degree of leftist nonsense. Oh, certainly there were Marxist professors around, like my phil 101 whacko prof and David Horsey, the lefty cartoonist was writing for the Daily, but it was mild compared to what’s going on today.
But when you hear stories that a professor’s livelihood or student’s grades can be affected by wrong-think, it is truly a chilling realization.
Equality of opportunity is a fundamental tenet of America but equality of outcomes is silly as well as unachievable, probably dangerous. If the upshot is that everybody gets a participation award and all races are promoted to every conceivable position (IE, from structural engineering professor to surgeon to CEO) at a rate at least proportional to their demographic percentage then merit will have meant nothing. Maybe it works in politics but not in the real world.
I read similar stories from other prestigious universities and it’s not encouraging. The boards of regents and presidents need to stay strong and adhere to principals of freedom of speech.
No sooner than I left this site I came across another example of the problem, this time at Princeton where they want to fire a tenured professor for speaking out:
https://www.foxnews.com/us/princeton-fire-professor-woke-politics
Princeton also considers itself to be in the vanguard of climate ‘science’ and ‘action’. So much so that they consistently ignore the research of one of their most esteemed physicists, William Happer, who has demonstrated that the effect of increasing CO2 will have a negligible impact on temperature.
William is a heretic 😉
Burn the witch! Burn the witch! (/s, if necessary)
Another Princeton distinguished professor, Freeman Dyson, professed his skepticism about Human-Caused Global Warming/Climate Change.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freeman_Dyson
Princeton would be in the vanguard of climate science were they to follow Happer and Dyson, who deal in the real world. Instead, Princeton is promoting a false climate change reality, ignoring the most prominent thinkers of their university.
It’s all politics and delusional thinking (and money) with Princeton now, when it comes to climate change.
We’ve gone past the point where promoting all races equally is acceptable to the left.
The new demand is that women and minorities need to get most of the promotions, raises, etc, in order to make up for bad things that happened to people long dead.
Ah, yes, that ‘tolerance’ for which the left is so famous…
The Old Diversity, Inclusion, Equity (DIE) model.
I have a great idea, Let’s model out a University which subscribes to DIE, will not take long.
First, the definitions. Equity has been well defined, meaning equality of outcome. Let us see what it takes to achieve an equality of outcome.
Let us posit 3 types of students, Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3.
Type 1 students are smart and industrious, with a flunk out rate of ~0%.
Type 2 students lack focus and stamina, flunk out rate ~50%.
Type 3 students are the dregs of the academic world, flunk out rate ~95%
It used to be that Type 1 students were sought after and recruited, while Type 3 students were shunned as a waste of classroom space, resources and opportunity.
Now, due to diversity and equity, Types 1, 2, 3 students must graduate at the same numbers.
Therefor, your freshman class looks like this:
Type 1 – 100 students
Type 2 – 200 students
Type 3 – 2,000 students
And your campus life and culture is totally dominated by the slackers and dregs.
At this point, you just know what comes next. Academic standards slide to the bottom to “accommodate” the least able. The degree from this institution loses all value.
Just as bad, campus life will have nothing to offer the Type 1 and 2 students. Nobody could blame the Type 1 and 2 students if they gave up and went elsewhere.
This is the result of DIE.
Ron do you know what diversity is?
I believe it’s an old wooden ship.
(I posted once, seems to have gotten lost into the ozone)
Diversity might just as well be a wooden ship for all the good it does you.
Worse, diversity kills meritocracy wherever it goes.
And just like an old wooden ship, you end up pouring an endless stream of money into it and just not getting much of anything back in return.
And you will never again be able to have the best and the brightest on your team again.
(Ask about the joys of owning an old wooden boat. There is a reason the great and beautiful Clipper Ships of old were all broken up for timber or outright abandoned. Such will be with diversity once people get sick of paying constantly for nothing.)
Same for that BEAUTIFUL Chris Craft inboard. An owner now spends about as much each year in maintenance as the original purchase price.
This has been happening in K through 12 for some time now. They started passing every student and teaching to the lowest common denominator several years ago. And now they are heavy into group action and group think. The students are placed into small groups, sort of like the old lab partner groups in STEM, where one person does most if not all the work and everyone in the group gets the same grade. It is now reaching the college level and just becoming a bit more exposed. I hope it’s not too late to correct it, but I do have my doubts.
Yes, we see which way the wind blows.
So, what happens when this hits college hard?
We all know, now. We see that most college administrators and at least a majority of faculty are with the “woke” agenda or at least, will not oppose it.
This new trend of dumbed down and group think will be welcomed, not beaten back.
We say goodbye to standards and excellence.
When I went to college there was one bar, Drinking age for 3.2 beer was 18 and “only 3.2” was sold, wink wink, Wasn’t exactly “Crowded, but i was full. Typically only crowded on Friday night or after the home game. Today that same city has at least 20 bars within walking distance of the campus and if you do not get there early you do not get in Makes no difference what day it is, and most are even using half of the parking area as an “outdoor serving area.” I think Colleges now create more alcoholics than graduates.
Yup. Sounds about right. When I finally finished at one school, the fraternities were clearly getting out of control with their huge drunken parties. They had crossed the line and were causing trouble in the host communities.
Two years later, I saw on the regional news, the Frats had a great big party. The police showed up and two police cruisers ended up getting torched.
Even “Animal House” did not pull this crap.
When I was in college back in the early 60’s there was a bar about a block from the engineering building. I probably learned more critical thinking there than in all the college classes combined. After lab a friend who was a psych major would show up and we’d drink the first pitcher of beer. When the second pitcher showed up one of us would make a statement. That immediately define the subject and your position on it. The two of us would then debate (sometimes more like drunken arguing) that subject for the rest of the evening. If you didn’t think you did so well you might spend a bit of time in the library over the next week or so. A month or two later you could find yourself debating the other side of the subject. I guess I still carry some of that training with me since my first reaction to more technical statements is to question ’em which seems to occasionally piss off some of my acquaintenances :<)
“Just as bad, campus life will have nothing to offer the Type 1 and 2 students.”
At the UW, a dry campus, The College Inn was not far away. 🙂
Faber U…..Animal House!
“When it is proclaimed that one must become more “sensitive” to various ethnic, linguistic, sexual, or lifestyle groups, neither a reason nor a definition usually accompanies this opaque imperative.” Thomas Sewell (Inside American Education)
I do not have a cite for this quote, but, it is listed on this reputable site as being Sowell’s: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6569729-if-you-have-always-believed-that-everyone-should-play-by
Hello Janice.
Happy to help.
Search the following with the word “labeled” . . .
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/fl-xpm-1998-11-28-9811270852-story.html
Well done, John! Thank you for finding that cite!
And……. still praying….
Take care.
Loyalty oaths? These are feudal oaths of fidelity and coerced abjurations of heresy.
I’ve seen and been through this sort of nonsense for decades. Based on this the promoters are insecure, even cowardly and don’t belong in the profession. They are in the minority, but most faculty just want to be left alone pursuing their ideas. The damage done to students, faculty and others is in many forms. Leaving or retiring early, damage to research and teaching, elevating dictatorial types, are the ones that come immediately to mind. Past affirmative action is real but only part of the problem.
If they were actually busy in their jobs as they should be there wouldn’t be enough time for such nonsense. Administrators, conflicted from many sides, need to be awaken, not the current woken. Many are there with the same problems as the promoters.
“Equity” is absurd nonsense idiots have embraced to push communism. Success comes from effort and good choices. The culture of victimhood inherent in in claims of inequity serves nobody but those who want stuff for free without earning it. Nobody can succeed self identifying as a victim. Their idea of equality serves to reward the unproductive at the expense of the productive members of society.
Actually wokey equity/diversity (equality of outcomes), which is unabashedly identified as a program for non-whites, is the worst kind of patronizing racial slur against non-whites you could possibly make. This is all the more poignant given that the woke folk who invented this whole schmeer of ugly divisive social philosophy, including all the new genders, new pronouns, neofascism, cancel culture and global governance with a phoney ‘Climate Change’ front to destroy the world economy, are White, neo-left elites! I think a backlash by non-whites may eventually be the only way to destroy it.
Africans and poor countries in Asia, get it! They are going for prosperity for their citizens fuelled by cheap reliable fossil fuels against enormous pressure from wokey white neocolonial elites who would keep them in poverty.
https://m.bdnews24.com/en/detail/bangladesh/1276056
The only beneficiaries of this madness are the elite multimillionaires who will own the windmill/s. panel monstrosities getting subsidies and feed in tariffs from the pockets of taxpayers.
The culture of victimhood being foisted on minorities is a form of subjugation designed to keep them in dependence and down.
DEI = inverted reality. If they can sell that, they own you.
Can the academic equivalent of the Nicene Creed be far off? I wonder how it will go.
1) There is a difference between “the pursuit of happiness” and “the achievement of happiness”.
2) Why should the “group in society” whose preferred version of “happiness” is the one popularly known as “schadenfreude” be given special treatment ?
Cliff Mass is in a tough spot. He has been the pacific northwest’s beloved weather guru for decades. Then he got cancelled from his public radio gig for speaking out against BLM riots in Seattle. He remains a powerful voice for the scientific analysis of weather trends–actively confronting the mobs touting the impending climate apocalypse. To do this effectively, he’s trying to avoid being labeled a right-winger and, therefore, a climate denier. It’s a tough tightrope to tiptoe; Steven Koonin tried using his role in the Obama administration as a shield, and that hasn’t worked. Still, the notion that science should be separate from politics seems like something worth aspiring to. So I wouldn’t blame Cliff for avoiding the use, in print, of accurate terminology to describe the nature of his colleagues at UW.
It’s not just the University of WA.
https://www.foxnews.com/us/princeton-fire-professor-woke-politics
and discourage those with different political viewpoints.
If only they were limiting themselves to only “discouraging” differing opinions.
They have long since advanced to punishing those who don’t agree with sufficient vigor.
Ciao meritocracy.
This was the ideology pushed by the Chavistas in Venezuela and was a tool used to remove those who did not have their minds “right” (think “Cool Hand Luke”).
In one fell swoop, 20,000 scientists and engineers were fired from PDVSA, the national oil company.
Groups of individuals were assigned to make lists of people who had not bought in to the revolution, and they were fired, 20,000 in one fell swoop. Many did not find out they were fired until their names appeared in lists published in newspapers which supported the “revolution”.
PDVSA oil production dropped from 3.5 million barrels per day to 450 thousand barrels per day.
By getting rid of competent professionals and replacing them with those who had their minds right, they killed the goose who laid the golden egg.
The people from this diaspora have been a blessing to their adopted countries.
The same thing happened in Europe in the run-up to WWI and WWII. The U.S. benefitted from the knowledge and innovation of these refugees.
The Universidad Central; founded in 1721, one of the earliest universities founded in the Americas, is now a smoldering junk pile. Buildings and equipment have been looted, professors salaries are well below poverty. Those who have managed to get out are contributing their vocations elsewhere.
Hopefully, the highly education professionals and academics in the US, that are pushed out of ‘institutions of higher learning” will flee to those institutions that value their scientific contributions and land on fertile ground that appreciates the scientific contributions for them to better humanity.
Unfortunately, the indoctrination has infected elementary and secondary schools. When meritocracy is replaced by social engineering and ideology, we are hosed.
Think Pol Pot and others of his ilk.
I hesitate to offer an old joke. (Well, one I made on this very site about ten years ago). But I’ll do it anyway.
Q. What’s the opposite of diversity?
A. University.
Named after a slaveholder. In a State named after a slaveholder. In a nation founded by slaveholders. Clearly they have no standing given their extensive slaveholding traditions.
… and located in a city named after Chief Seattle that held slaves.
“Like many of his contemporaries, he owned slaves captured during his raids.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_Seattle
At least he wasn’t in the same league as Massasoit namesake of that deep blue stronghold Massachusetts who was the largest slave trader in the new world.
As I read the title of this post I immediately thought of the fall of the Roman Empire I learned in Highschool 70 years ago. Searching the internet for “Fall of the Roman Empire” I found and read “Fall of the Western Roman Empire” on Wikipedia. You can almost literally change Roman Empire with United States and the Wikipedia history applies: Failure to enforce its rule, Failure to exercise effective control over its provinces, Increasing pressure from invading barbarians, Climatic changes and both endemic and epidemic disease, unmanageable numbers of Goths and other non-Roman people, fleeing from the Huns, entered the Empire.
The Fall of the United States has begun.” Buy Gold or other hard currency, NOT CRYPTO – but you may need to prevent its detection by the new government. Hopefully the “Woke” will go “Broke” and we will have an administration that believes in the constitution.
Dear Mr. Maas:
It sounds like “equity” is affirmative action by another name. Affirmative action violates the 14th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.
Suggestion: Contact the UW School of Law
Here are 2 faculty members who, I believe, are likely to be helpful:
bailew2@uw.edu
(206) 543-4917
Mr. Bailey was an exceptionally successful and respected (for his integrity) trial attorney in Seattle for many years before joining the UW law staff. He helped to create the Seattle chapter of Inns of Court (I was a member; it is now defunct, I think) which was HIGHLY concerned with fairness and practicing law according to objective, above-and-beyond, professional ethics standards — forcing UW faculty members to support affirmative action against their conscience would, I think, be something Bailey would be against.
2. Lisa Manheim, Professor of Law
manheim@uw.edu
(206) 685-2546
Ms. Manheim’s areas of expertise include: U.S. Constitutional Law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions. She knows the 14th (and related law) Amendment and could help you make a case for why the UW “equity” proposal, if not illegal in its entirety, needs serious revision to withstand a court challenge.
Also,
The ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice), Jay Sekulow’s group, might be helpful (and there are other such Constitutional Law/Liberty defender groups)
Here: https://aclj.org/get-legal-help/get-our-legal-help
GOOD FOR YOU to stand up for fairness and the constitutional rights of the UW faculty.
Sincerely,
Janice Moore
UW Law Alumna
Please forgive my misspelling your name (I’ve known people with the name “Maas” — my excuse *blush*). CORRECTION: Mass. Aaaand, you probably won’t even read this. Meh. I’m still glad I made the correction.
Equity is the same as poverty and restriction of rights for all, except of course the elites pushing for equity. George Orwell proven right again.
Higher level education has been co opted by the Marxists for years. Try and find a Conservative professor on any college campus …. or at least one that would admit it. When you look at some of the majors being offered at these institutions you wonder what the real goal of universities is today.
“Our concerns remain about giving so much air time to those who seem to be hostile to the university’s attempts to amplify diversity, equity and inclusion.”
Personally sad. I did a PhD at UW for a Professor who could claim to be ‘minority’, but was too honourable and proud to ever want to claim that when he was denied tenure for, basically, not bringing in the big bucks.
Take heart! There are still many competent, ethical, judges out there:
Superior Court Judge Maureen Duffy-Lewis, a woman, said that the law implemented a gender-based quota and violated the right to equal treatment as guaranteed in the California constitution.
The lawsuit was filed by Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, on behalf of California taxpayers.
(https://freedomrockradio.co/news/judge-strikes-down-california-law-requiring-women-on-corporate-boards-as-unconstitutional/ )
Hooooraaaayyyy!!! Women don’t need affirmative action to succeed. As if….🙄🙂
So how can you help?
If you are a faculty member, please vote against the proposal.
If you know a faculty member, please talk to them about it.
If you are a donor or supporter of the UW, please make your views known in whatever way you see fit.
IF YOU ARE NOT AT, OR ASSOCIATED WITH UW, DON’T LET THE ROT BEGIN TO SET AT YOUR INSTITUTION.
There is quite a fair way to address this issue. University students must pay for their own studies and prepare for a non-government job that will enable them to provide food and clothing, housing and transport, and other necessities from their hard work. Universities should receive no government support nor from ultra wealthy people.
The task of the universities should be to prepare people for productive jobs but they can be given a choice which path they want to follow. Students will soon discover where best to go and support from their hard earned savings. This will, however, be a death knell for those worthless courses and for the jobs of those who have been paid to present them. Good riddance because we will be forced back to the kind of education that made universities great places that truly benefitted society.
Which is why leftists are pushing to make college free for all. Including room and board.
God forbid the little snowflakes should have to pay for their own indoctrination.
I wish you’d stop using this horrifying image. It makes me physically ill, seriously. I finally found an image blocker that turns off all of the images on WUWT, but it really limits the usefulness of the site.
Here ya go — some eye wash 🙂
Very nice, indeed! Thank you!
: )
I can’t wait for my alma mater to contact me every year looking for financial support. I say the same thing to them every year. Yeah get back to me when you make white, male, heterosexual, Christian, Republicans feel welcomed on campus.
And if they’re not woke enough at uni for my precious I want some money to get over it-
University discriminated against student who took own life, judge rules (msn.com)
I might need a holiday or a new car.
I can’t help but notice that the same universities which champion diversity initiatives for students and faculty never seem to apply those practices when recruiting for their sports teams.
The CDC says that around 42% of adults are overweight. Does the commitment to diversity and inclusion mean that open recruiting for faculty and staff positions will be halted until enough overweight people can be recruited to bring personnel into balance with the population as a whole? That will ensure academic excellence, will it not?