Yale Gets in on the Act
Meanwhile, in New Haven, Yale has announced a new plan for greater diversity in faculty hiring.
As InsideHigherEd.com puts it, "In contrast to many diversity plans in higher education, Yale set out actual quantitative goals. The e-mail sets the bar at 30 new minority faculty members over seven years – which would be about a 30 percent increase – and 30 new female faculty members in departments where they are underrepresented, which would be a 20 percent increase overall, and an 83 percent increase in the targeted departments, notably physical sciences."
I don't know enough about the situation at Yale to comment on this extensively, but there does strike me as something troubling about this. These numbers are, simply, quotas. And while I think there is great importance in having a faculty with ethnic and gender diversity, by stipulating a specific number to be hired, Yale concedes—it's arguable, I know, but I think this is true—that the identies of those professors are more important than their talents.
(As opposed to, say, saying that Yale plans to increase faculty diversity, but without setting quotas.)
And setting specific targets like this will, of course, raise the usual suspicions about the merits of those who are hired.
Don't get me wrong: I'm highly supportive of finding excellent female and minority professors to teach at Yale, and of the general goal of making academia more diverse. I'm just not sure that this is the right way to go about it.
