December 22, 2022

"The more I push[ed] for policy change, the more resistant the leadership became. It was a highly macro-aggressive environment."

"I couldn’t take the necessary steps that were needed to lay the groundwork for innovative equity work in the department.... It’s been fairly traumatic for me.... It created such a hostile work environment for me that I literally could not return to the office... I was hospitalized because of just how stressful the work environment became and I had little support...." 

Said Jordan “JT” Turner, who resigned from his position as Princeton's first Associate Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), quoted in "3 Princeton DEI staff members resign, alleging lack of support" (The Daily Princetonian).

Turner said that soon after their onboarding, Director of Athletics John Mack ’00 and other senior leaders in the Athletics Department “began pulling back on some of the promises that had been made to me.”...

“Soon my requests to ease into important tasks were met with directives to ‘just wait a year.’ This was from everything — proposed multi-year projects to minimal two to four week project commitments,” they said.....

For example, Turner said they hoped to lead trainings about trans-inclusion policy and guidelines....

“I was basically told to put off all training for a year with a plan to revisit at a later unspecified date,” they said.... “It was made clear that approaching conflict and potential harm in ways that center the experiences of women, trans people, queer people, and other current and historically marginalized people were not welcomed,” Turner said.

Maybe they thought hiring someone with the title Associate Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion looked like progress enough for the next year or until a later unspecified date. Many people would enjoy a job that is done by merely serving as the name with the title. Ironically, the less qualified and dedicated the person is for the stated job, the better they will be at doing what the employer actually wants. Or so it seems!

65 comments:

Dave Begley said...

DEI is another liberal scam. Just like CAGW is a scam.

The University of Nebraska has over a dozen employees in its DEI department. I bet UW has more.

gilbar said...

Princeton's first Associate Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI),

What WERE they supposed to do?
Address the STUNNING disparity in demographics between Athletics and general student body?
I mean...
Aren't whites underrepresented on the basketball team? WHAT ABOUT ASIANS? WHAT ABOUT ASIANS??

Breezy said...

Games are not won by skin color or sexual orientation.

Dave Begley said...

UWM has 93 employees in its DEI department.

285exp said...

It seems the administration feels the best thing to do about trans-inclusion in athletics is nothing, which sounds like an excellent plan. JT appears to be a little too high strung for his job, but that may be a prerequisite.

Enigma said...

Welcome to every government agency for the last several decades. They all employ large, well-funded diversity staff and engage in all sorts of mandatory training. This was often successful from the 1970s through the 1990s, as women entered the workforce and as it became legal / socially acceptable to hire non-white people. But as Sandra Day O'Connor once said, remedies to discrimination cannot last forever. About 25 years and the central mission ran its course.

For the last few decades these programs have often stirred up emotions and led to conflict or tribalism. This is because less-than-sophisticated theorists and sophists present nonsensical or unworkable visions (see "unconscious bias training" of 5 to 20 years ago; see how Asians got added to White Privilege analyses).

As with many other well-intended efforts, over time the staff find reasons to keep their jobs and ways to stay busy. They logically and functionally should fade away as society adapts (e.g., trade unions). But security. But careerism. But early retirement. If you scratch the surface, diversity efforts sometimes serve as a cover for nepotism. Males bring in wives, daughters, nieces, etc.

gilbar said...

"3 Princeton DEI staff members resign,

Seriously? THREE? How Many did they Have? How Many did they think they'd NEED?

tim maguire said...

I could see less dedicated, but "less qualified"? I can't even imagine what the qualifications might look like. Is someone who checks into a hospital because they got less support then they expected really somebody you want setting up a new program?

Kudos to the athletic director for pushing this clown out.

stonethrower said...

How could anyone be under-qualified for that job?

Richard said...

Is this the same as 'irish democracy'?
Good for them.

Wilbur said...

How preposterous.

Athletics are a meritocracy; your place in the arena is based on your ability to perform. The coach's job depends on your performance. Why would the coach have the slightest interest in having a diverse, inclusive or equitable squad of players?

The dirty secret is that almost everything in life boils down to a meritocracy, try as they might to claim otherwise.

Misinforminimalism said...

Pretty savvy move by Princeton - hire the crazies to appease the crazies but then don't let them impose the craziness as policy. The cris de coeur (macro-aggressions! literal harm!) voiced on his way out are a pretty good vindication of the decision not to let him actually do anything.

Moral: You can literally never be leftist enough for these people.

wildswan said...

Real change would mean putting biological males on women's teams at Princeton. Princeton women would then soar to the top of their various leagues while Princeton men would stay at the bottom. I can see that the Princeton athletic department would not want to deal with the comments from alumni. And what if Princeton's biological males on the women's teams lost to biological women from Yale (pronouns: stand aside, or else). Then what?

Dave Begley said...

Creighton has only 2 DEI employees including one in the law school.

Temujin said...

Imagine being faced with the reality that everything you believe, the work, the cause you have immersed yourself in, is looked on as bullshit by those you are supposed to be leading? I guess if he was hospitalized because of the 'stress' of being disagreed with, he's probably not ready for most jobs in the world. But...no worries. Any other department at Princeton will, I'm sure, give him sanctuary and a hefty salary with bennies for life. Or, most any corporate office.

Really- no one likes DEI Directors except HR Directors and Democrats.

Jersey Fled said...

Three words that make my blood run cold:

“innovative equity work “

Krumhorn said...

Turner is one of those they/them types. Sounds like the tranny has fallen into a well gripped by a terrible melancholy and dissolved in a puddle of tears.

- Krumhorn

MikeR said...

"I was hospitalized because of just how stressful the work environment became and I had little support" Terrible, tragic story. Hire a raving lunatic for a job that is nothing but show - you have literally endangered his life. Support them by not hiring them.

Dave Begley said...

Looks like Princeton only has 11 DEI people.

Bob Boyd said...

Alternate headline:

Princeton Needs Top Surgery
The Boobs Are Holding Us Back.

boatbuilder said...

What a fool. Take the money, play the game, make the appropriate noises.

Hint: DEI doesn't really work in athletics (or anything else, but that is a different issue).

Tina Trent said...

Poor little racists. Someone made them try to put check a clock. How dare you.

Tina Trent said...

punch a clock. Sorry. Though putch works with the job description.

boatbuilder said...

What a fool. Take the money, play the game, make the appropriate noises.

Hint: DEI doesn't really work in athletics (or anything else, but that is a different issue).

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

We need more Equity and Inclusion for… the thin skin. Or something.

mezzrow said...

Crying and shaking.

Owen said...

These DEI people are at best a waste of space in an organization and at worst a positive danger to its mission and functioning. Think of them as a tumor. At best it will be indolent, encapsulated, extracting a modest tax of nutrients. But at worst it will be malignant, metastasizing, devouring all sustenance and choking all in its path.

They can’t help it. We shouldn’t be angry. But we do need surgery.

Iman said...

Weak weenhead.

Andrew said...

These people would not last a week in a real job.

I'd love to tell my manager that I was hospitalized because of the trauma from not being listened to.

Hey Skipper said...

“ Said Jordan “JT” Turner, who resigned from his position as Princeton's first Associate Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion …”

I hate to be the resident pedant, but DIE is misspelled.

Oh, and full points to Enigma.

AlbertAnonymous said...

What a whiny little bitch! No wonder college is so expensive these days. All these useless people in useless jobs doing useless things or nothing at all.

In the good old days, this person would be complaining to “their” therapist how unloved they were by their father and how the customers at their organic tea and honey cooperative are the only ones that “get” them.

mikee said...

Back in the 1980s I knew an adminstrator at Texas A&M University. He told me over dinner once about a meeting he attended where the University President introduced the new VP for "Women's Inclusion" or some such, a position created to get more women to take, and graduate, Engineering instead of Education, and to make sure women were treated fairly by the ridiculously sex-biased professors of that era. She was introduced, and gave a short self-description about how she was experienced in dealing with sexist professors and administrators, and would work very hard to make women as succesful as men at Texas A&M. When she sat down, everyone respectfully gave her a bit of applause. And then one smart-ass dean asked how she was gonna solve "the problems caused by the male and female students trying to f**k each other all the time." She didn't have an answer for that. DEI still hasn't solved that one.

JPS said...

"It’s been fairly traumatic for me....I literally could not return to the office... I was hospitalized because of just how stressful the work environment became"

This beautifully illustrates one of my big objections to DEI as practiced in academia: It inculcates fragility in the people it's supposed to be helping.

And sometimes I think that's the idea. The actual last thing some of these people want is a basically fair society where the formerly downtrodden can stand and succeed on their own.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Games are not won by skin color or sexual orientation.

They are when your women's teams are all staffed by men posing as women. After all, a man pretending he's a woman is a better woman than a born-woman.

hawkeyedjb said...

There is an unlimited amount of Other People's Money for this shit. Across the nation, there are thousands of these metastasizing cancers in virtually every organization. It's how East Germany functioned - half the population is in charge of watching/snitching/overseeing the other half. Professors must like the fact that such twits now run their schools - I don't hear many objections from them.

Tom T. said...

Remember that Princeton's president famously said that his institution was guilty of systemic racism, and the Trump administration took him at his word and opened a civil rights investigation.

Michael K said...

The crazies are upset at any resistance. "Give us what we want or we will go even nuttier,"

Dude1394 said...

You should be in a hospital, you are a racist bigot.

Dude1394 said...

I’m starting to think we need a lot more John Dutton’s in life. “What do these people do? They are your advisors”. You are fired I’ll advise myself.

Anthony said...

Well, it's a good start. . . .

Old and slow said...

"JT" Turner does not appear to be a man, of course... .

Amadeus 48 said...

I wonder what JT's pronouns are? What are John Mack's?

Haw, haw! This shows that not all the people that run Princeton University are stupid. They want someone to hold the title and to put the crazy in the ninth year of the ten year plan.

Milo Minderbinder said...

Tip of the cap to the resistors....

And my heart just breaks for the traumatized....

Yancey Ward said...

Jesus Christ- I would be embarrassed to have such a ridiculous job title and job.

hombre said...

So the snowflake in charge of diversity, inclusion and equity (DIE) in athletics at Princeton had to be hospitalized because of the stressful work environment? Does this mean a delay in replacing women with trans men on Princeton teams?

Are these universities such bubbles that no one points out to these people how ridiculous they appear to normals?

Amadeus 48 said...

It is instructive to read the article in the Princetonian. Jordan Turner clearly has mental health issues. By the way, JT's pronouns appear to be I/they. That is somewhat revealing, isn't it?

Owen said...

JPS @ 8:53: “… And sometimes I think [inculcated fragility is] the idea….•

Bingo. Creating a nation of spiritual cripples is the project. Call me old-fashioned but I call that evil.

iowan2 said...

At work if I get push back from multiple perspectives, I immediately search for what I have got wrong, and re-evaluating exactly what my (company) goal is.

Freeman Hunt said...

Of course they turned off the comments.

iowan2 said...

"It’s been fairly traumatic for me....I literally could not return to the office... I was hospitalized because of just how stressful the work environment became"

Remember 20 years ago when conservatives mocked the 'participation trophy' idiocy?

This is why.

Compare this snow flake to what Trump has endured for the last 7+ years. This kid would have committed suicide by 8pm the day he come down the Golden Escalator.

(we are still making everything about Trump, right?)

iowan2 said...

People like Trump learned from watching their mentors/father/peers, for clues to success.
One such learned talent is to form a coalition of supporters of your goal, before announcing your goal. You have built in support, and multiple sources answering objections. If you can't build any coalition....your idea sucks and will never gain purchase.

That this guy couldn't find, or know to try to find a group of like minds, tell you as much about the person, as the idea.

Either he was too stupid to look, and got blindsided
Or
He looked and could find no fellow travelers. But barreled ahead anyway.

Rick67 said...

DEI is another liberal scam.

With respect, it is a Marxist scam. And I have no sympathy whatsoever with a political commissar (and that is what DEI administrators are) who encounters resistance to his efforts to help spread the virus of critical consciousness.

JAORE said...

Coststo attend college are skyrocketing beyond the means of average families. Now why, oh why, could that be? (...Associate Director of Athletics for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI))

'Tis a mystery beyond solution.

JAORE said...

"... hospitalized because of the 'stress' of being disagreed with..."

To be fair, the first time is often traumatic.

n.n said...

Diversity (i.e. color judgment, class-based bigotry)., Inequity, Exclusion (DIE)

n.n said...

Diversity of individuals, minority of one. Lose your Pro-Choice ethical religion, your twilight faith, your progressive liberal ideology, your wicked solutions.

Narr said...

I'm a Hutchinsite at a few removes.

Sports and the like are distractions from what should be the business of a university; adding the absurdity of DIE-chasing to the already bloated and overstaffed athletic departments seems like a sort of justice from where I sit.

My hope is that it helps to discredit the entire higher ed racket in the eyes of those who pay for it. It's too far gone now to be saved.

KellyM said...

Blogger hombre said...
"...Are these universities such bubbles that no one points out to these people how ridiculous they appear to normals?"

Most of those who populate these hallowed halls have all been steeped in this stuff for years (courtesy of the current education system) and thus do not see what you or I do. Even the so-called 'normals'.

If you're noticing, it's because you're not a "normal".

hawkeyedjb said...

The jargon-filled article in The Princetonian is an exercise in describing institutional sickness. From the cutey "they" (to refer to a single human) to the assumptions stated by Turner and the university, it is all self-centered gibberish and escalation of self-importance in a field that literally everyone knows is nonsense.

"The role of equity in athletics is critical to the future of sports..." Is it? Or maybe it's a gigantic distraction for people trying to do their jobs.

“Some of my fellow colleagues with little background in DEI were quick to push back on trusting my more than 10 years of experience in this work.” This goofball who is going to bring no measurable value to a department expects his self-appeal to authority to work? In a group of functioning adults?

Turner had apparently "proposed multi-year projects to minimal two to four week project commitments” and expected busy people, with actual jobs and responsibilities, to take days-weeks-years to absorb his bullshit? Maybe they actually wanted to get on with coaching athletes and managing teams.

This is what happens when organizations create and staff these positions without ever having identified an actual problem to be solved, or having developed any metrics to determine accomplishments. This was all done so administrators could pat themselves on the back, and preen to their fellow elitists. They didn't know or care that they were creating a problem, not solving one.

The worst outcome, and one that is 100% guaranteed? Turner's position will multiply into dozens, with Directors and Associates and Assistants, with power to force their unfortunate targets to bend the knee. Turner's cries will be heard across the land, and the only remedy will be to expend vastly greater effort to force this rubbish on the poor drones who didn't have the foresight to achieve an education "with a specific interest in Queer theology."

Jupiter said...

Here's what it looks like.
"Jordan is a proven leader and they will be an invaluable asset as we continue to foster a diverse and inclusive culture in Princeton Athletics."

If its pronoun is "they", shouldn't that be "Jordan are some proven leaders"?

What a crock of shit. Princeton. Knock it down. Let not one stone stand upon another. Sow the Earth it stood upon with salt.

PM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
pacwest said...

The similarity to young children is striking. Mommy, mommy, their being mean to me.

Ambrose said...

"highly macro-aggressive" - ooh I'm stealing that one....

RMc said...

All these useless people in useless jobs doing useless things or nothing at all.

If only! People like this actively make things more difficult for everyone else!

RMc said...

All these useless people in useless jobs doing useless things or nothing at all.

If only! People like this actively make things more difficult for everyone else!