Now, I'm very interested in the way schools are demanding these statements of commitment to diversity, but there's something else going on in this story, and there's no discussion of it, and there's no comments section to smoke it out, so this is all I want to talk about for now. Look what the article blithely glosses over:
Yoel Inbar, a noted psychology professor at the University of Toronto, figured he might be teaching this fall at U.C.L.A. Last year, the university’s psychology department offered his female partner a faculty appointment. Now the department was interested in recruiting him as a so-called partner hire, a common practice in academia. The university asked him to fill out the requisite papers, including a statement that affirmed his belief and work in diversity, equity and inclusion. He flew out and met with, among others, a faculty diversity committee and a group of graduate students.... [A] few days later, the department chair emailed and told him that more than 50 graduate students had signed a letter strongly denouncing his candidacy... [i]n part, because on his podcast years earlier, he had opposed diversity statements — like the one he had just written....
This is a long article, and it's all about the problem of these diversity statements. Nothing more is said about the problem I have boldfaced. How many academics have jumped to the front of the line through "partnering" with another, more heartily recruited academic?
But it's a "common practice in academia," we're told, as if that means we shouldn't worry about it. Inbar apparently had an expectation that he deserved a position because he had a "female partner" — not even a spouse? — who already had an appointment. Look around. There are so many of these package deals — so many people to be irked if you inquire about this deviation from meritocracy.
Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?
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Senator McCarthy would be so proud.
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
It seems to me the question should be, "Isn't it mostly affirmative action for progressive elites?"
The Dean of the Creighton Law School brought his wife to the law faculty.
They are both hard-core leftists so it really didn't make much of a difference at the now low-rated Creighton Law School.
And, really, when were litmus tests required. Might as well ask people if they are now, or have ever been, a member of the Communist Party. If not, then not hired.
This is all completely insane in a free country.
There are so many of these package deals — so many people to be irked if you inquire about this deviation from meritocracy.
I don't want to detract too much from this post, but the same story plays out with "Small Disadvantaged Business". SDB definition by the US Government Small Business Administration: "a Small Disadvantaged Business, a type of small business that is owned and controlled by disadvantaged persons."
So, you put a "disadvantaged" person as "51%" owner, and all the partners jump the line. Many times, it is simply putting your female spouse as owner, since Women-Owned Small Business is just a greater "restriction" for certain contracts. The figurehead owner opens the door to opportunity, but the filled position requires the rest of the business (and partners) to be competent for the job. In short, a bias to opportunity has been imposed.
Shouldn't these job candidates have to sign a commitment to academic freedom, integrity and excellence?
Diversity Statements are leftwing political loyalty oaths meant to weed out dissenters. It's discriminatory.
Sounds like the faculty equivalent of a legacy admission. The more we get to see how universities operate, the more appalling it is that we pour so many billions of taxpayer dollars into their coffers.
I seem to recall that Michelle Obama was offered a tenured position at University of Chicago Law School because she was married to Barak.
I really hope the trend of abolishing suffocating and wasteful DEI programs (and the campus speech codes that always accompany them) continues, and finds its way to blue state universities.
We need to reintroduce the terms “colorblind” and “equality” as plausible policy alternatives, although these terms will surely anger DEI’s proponents. DEI is all about tipping the scales in favor of people based on their appearance — i.e., explicitly perpetuating racism by another name. Colorblindness and equality are about treating everyone the same regardless of race — which is the only plausible path to end racism.
I got screwed out of a university fund development job once. Went thru all the hoops, told an offer was forthcoming and then, BAM!, the spouse of a recruited faculty was given the job. She didn't even go thru the interview process.
Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?
No. It's affirmative action for the less-accomplished partner.
When that partner is a member of a favored group, then quite obviously (s)he's the beneficiary--and those benefits include the fact that his or her partner got a job, too.
>Ann Althouse said...
Inbar apparently had an expectation that he deserved a position because he had a "female partner" — not even a spouse? — who already had an appointment. Look around. There are so many of these package deals — so many people to be irked if you inquire about this deviation from meritocracy.
Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?<
I don't know, is it? And who says? Why do you assume that it doesn't go male appointee with female tagalong in roughly the same percentage? Since, you know, there are roughly equal numbers of female and male college instructors in the U.S.? (Psst, your doctrinaire, rote feminism is showing...)
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?
I'm puzzled. You've never run into this before? It works both ways. I was aware of a couple of these hires associated with male faculty we wanted to hire and we needed to find positions for their wives. As long as the spouse (and I do think it should be limited to married couples) is qualified I'm comfortable with it. You're not going to get the hire you want without them (they'll go to an institution who does hire the spouse) and from the couples point of view, they really can't move and leave the spouse behind (at least, most would feel this way).
If the spouse is qualified I do not see this as affirmative action. Affirmative action, for all the nonsense and lies surrounding it, is hiring someone who is not qualified, bases on their race. This is not that.
I'm shocked at letting students have a veto over faculty hiring. Good grief, are there no adults left running our institutions?
This is done in corporate medicine, too, not just academic medicine. And what Leland said about small business loans is also true. I know at least one person who did that and he learned about the trick from his friend who did the same.
This has, literally, been going on since my Grandfather was a prof in the 1930's. Back then the partner (always the spouse) would be offered a job at a bank or school or whatever from some alumni.
And profs today still get automatic entry to the right country and social clubs, "jumping the line" there as well.
As a side note, I am aware of one "following spouse" who won teacher-of-the-year at his university and left b/c his wife (how old fashioned) got offered a dept chair at The New School. He won again two years later at the new school and published an important book in his field. So "jumping the line" isn't always what happens.
-XC
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
Sure, but it's affirmative action for beta-male liberal men. Home at night with their PHD wife, they are wearing gimp masks and ball gags while she digs a stiletto heel into his nipple. "Tell me how much you love diversity or I'll pour more hot wax on you".
I do like the professor's [Althouse] question. Obviously women are dominating education hires...through DEI and affirmative action. Teachers, Profs, worthless administrators etc... The cronyism practice of hiring the spouse will get some men in the door. It also gets the spouses of Lesbian and Gay married couples in as well.
Colleges will continue to deteriorate and simply sell prestige. Ridiculous cultures destroying the culture, economy, and young generations of Americans.
Crazy part is, how is hiring a concentration of liberal white women considered "diverse"? What a fucking joke.
We even used to do this in the Army. If you were married to another service member, the wonks at HQ would try to station both of you at the same base. I don't see it as troubling, on its face.
The part about the professor being denounced for advocating the abolition of DEI statements is disturbing. He dutifully submitted the required paperwork, he just didn't feel it was necessary. That so many felt this was disqualifying is amazing.
[A] few days later, the department chair emailed and told him that more than 50 graduate students had signed a letter strongly denouncing his candidacy
Who is running the Department here? The Chair sounds laughably weak. I see Original Mike made the same comment.
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
How so?
There are three direct beneficiaries:
1. The University gets the professor it feels meets it needs in the primary hire by offering the partner employment.
2. The partner gets a job and career opportunity she/he would not have gotten otherwise.
3. The primary hire gets the perk of binging along her/his partner for a second income in the same location.
"A 2020 report from the American Association of University Professors shows that women comprise 43 percent of full-time tenured or tenure-track faculty and 54 percent of full-time, non-tenure track professors."
It's also fairly common in private employment, particularly when relocation is an issue.
In my higher education circle, it's called a "trailing spouse." One spouse is a highly sought-after recruit. The other has all the necessary qualifications, but is not the one the university is particularly after. You hire both, in order to get the one the university really wants.
At least, that's the cynical way of looking at it. I'm sure proponents of the practice would frame it in another way. Part of it is to recognize the disruption that might make it difficult for the sought-after recruit to accept the job. Suppose A & B are married (or partners, whatever that really means), and both are gainfully employed in high-status jobs in City X (let's say that they work at different universities, because City X has 3 or 4 of them). Now along comes a new university in City Y, 500 miles away, and it really wants to hire "A". City Y has no other universities around. If A & B move there, then that means that B either gets a job at the new university, or they have to change professions or take a very different job that they don't want. This means that taking the job in City Y would be very disruptive to A's life, because it would require B to make a difficult sacrifice (a not uncommon sacrifice in the corporate world if both spouses have careers). So it becomes in the new university's best interests to hire B as well, because that makes it much easier for A to accept the job and keeps A happier and more content.
I've seen it work with both genders. And it works with administrative positions as well as faculty positions.
A common practice, you say?
Huh.
Well if such practices are commonly accepted, perhaps a culture that accepts such practices is inherently corrupted.
"So, you put a "disadvantaged" person as "51%" owner, and all the partners jump the line. Many times, it is simply putting your female spouse as owner, since Women-Owned Small Business is just a greater "restriction" for certain contracts. The figurehead owner opens the door to opportunity, but the filled position requires the rest of the business (and partners) to be competent for the job. In short, a bias to opportunity has been imposed."
In Alabamistan when Federally funded roads are built (elsewhere too, of course) there were/are goals for disadvantaged businesses. I was asked to look into it since we didn't have a specialist in the field. Turns out some 95% of the goal was reached by using a single trucking firm. Owned 51% by the spouse of the largest paving contractor. Looking further I found she didn't do squat to actually run the company.
I got her pulled off the list. I was NOT a popular boy. We hired a Civil Rights Officer. Very shortly thereafter the trucking firm was back. And, apparently just fine as the largest collector of contracts/money.
Hey. It doesn’t have to be a heterosexual partner. My alma mater brought in a marginally competent lesbo to teach, then brought in her even less competent GF, to teach something idiotic like Lesbian law, that might garner (for Ann’s benefit) a couple of enrollees, while a friend of mine was teaching seminars with long wait lists. The students wanted practical classes like antitrust and IP law. They got useless seminars involving trendy leftist drivel, that would be almost worthless after graduation.
Agree with Original Mike. This is not at all unusual, especially in a place like Flagstaff or say Corning, NY where if you are hiring one of a PHD-PHD couple to to tech work you try and find a job for the other PHD spouse as well.
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
Assumes facts not in evidence.
"They got useless seminars involving trendy leftist drivel, that would be almost worthless after graduation."
Yeah, there seems to be a lot of that going around. Who do you suppose pays for it? Must cost a fortune.
In a competitive job market it is quite common for those seeking to hire to offer employment opportunities for spouses.
This is a routine practice within the military too -- partners (typically wives) of those with special skills / officers get nice jobs (or make-work jobs) wherever their partner is stationed. Instead of seeing it as employment per se, it can be a way to deliver a lot more $$$$$$$ to the primary candidate for an otherwise uncompetitive offer.
Wink wink nudge nudge. The entire world is a nepotistic mafia today.
There seem to be two things going on here: one is the "trailing spouse/partner" issue, and the other is the religious oath required to become a member of the faculty. The religious oath is more troublesome.
Here is Arizona, our universities have recently, with much squawking, been forced to stop requiring religious oaths. They will, of course, find ways around the 'ban' just as nearly all universities will find ways to circumvent the Supreme Court's so-called ban on affirmative action. But at least there is now some visibility into just how much non-work-related religious crap is forced on potential employees. The problem is that anyone hired without the religious oath will be, to greater or lesser extent, ostracized by the true believers who still run the academic departments.
Ann sounds shocked - SHOCKED - that gambling is going on in Rick's casino.
Demanding oaths and sworn statements of obedience to the Party wasn't enough of a clue that these people are Nazi's, Ann?
When I was an undergraduate in the 1980s at an Ivy league university in a centrally remote location, my macro econ prof was bothered enough by the practice that he spent a lecture going through the economics of why the university would make such as offer. In short it is worth a lot to the star prof to have their spouse in the same city/state so the university actually saves cash by making a two-for-one deal. Making the spouse choose career or relationship has a negative utility in the prof's words.
But, the good deals are only offered to stars being lured from a rival university.
@MadisonMan: Department chairs are deliberately selected for their weakness. No faculty faction wants a chair that will stand up to them. The students then catch on.
Cartoons are language.
You wanted language policed.
This is the slope of language policing.
Blogger PatHMV said...
In my higher education circle, it's called a "trailing spouse." One spouse is a highly sought-after recruit. The other has all the necessary qualifications, but is not the one the university is particularly after. You hire both, in order to get the one the university really wants.
UC, Irvine recruited a new female professor for something they wanted. It was 30 years ago and I can't remember. A friend of mine was Chair of the Surgery Department with a good record of clinical research. The husband of this female wonder of the Academic World had an anonymous husband who was a surgeon in Utah or wherever. There was serious consideration by the University to offering the husband the Chair of Surgery to recruit his wife. I think my friend survived the threat. The mystery husband had no qualifications, as I recall.
Blogger retail lawyer said...
I seem to recall that Michelle Obama was offered a tenured position at University of Chicago Law School because she was married to Barak.
I think that might have been because she came up with a plausible reason to divert charity cases to Cook County from U Chicago Hospital.
I really hope the trend of abolishing suffocating and wasteful DEI programs (and the campus speech codes that always accompany them) continues,
More than continues - Let's expand it to abolish the employment of its authors and promoters.
When my first wife, a doctor, was considering residency at Richmond's Medical College of Virginia, they told her that they often placed spouses into jobs at local big employer, Philip Morris.
Rich said I really hope the trend of abolishing suffocating and wasteful DEI programs (and the campus speech codes that always accompany them) continues, and finds its way to blue state universities.
We need to reintroduce the terms “colorblind” and “equality” as plausible policy alternatives, although these terms will surely anger DEI’s proponents. DEI is all about tipping the scales in favor of people based on their appearance — i.e., explicitly perpetuating racism by another name. Colorblindness and equality are about treating everyone the same regardless of race — which is the only plausible path to end racism.
1. Is this a different Rich?
2. I agree and will add that I despise loyalty oaths for employment and was under the impression they were no longer allowed in this great country.
Reminds me of Saddam Hussein's Very Public Purge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLUktJbp2Ug
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
No. There's a word for what this is. Nepotism.
"Lesbian Law"
Dick Wolf should give that idea some consideration.
Althouse, it is not "affirmative action for men" unless you assume that the female partner is the one the university "really" wants, and the man is just along for the ride. Do you know this to be true? Has it ever been true? Isn't it at least as likely that the man is the university's target, and the woman's hire is part of the price?
As for DEI/DIE loyalty oaths, the Left should be ashamed. I signed off on one of those 35 years ago, when I agreed to be a TA at Cal, and I honestly do not care that the text has changed. I hated myself for signing it then, and I would now.
I don’t know why you would think it’s mostly men benefiting from spousal/partner hires. Do you have any evidence to support this? Maybe it’s mostly women? Maybe it’s 50/50?
The purpose of required diversity statements seems to be to allow successful condemnation of anyone, at any time, by a self-appointed mob. The KKK used to use that technique, until met with shotguns whenever they appeared in public wearing their hoods. Just saying, we should all learn from history!
In the 80's, my husband was recruited from one nationally-renown employer by another in a different state.. It was a job that was really central to the company. I was a well qualified computer systems analyst, and they interviewed me as well and gave me a job. It was my husband they really recruited, and they wouldn't usually have done a national recruitment and relocation for the department I was in. But I did a great job for them.
It was definitely a way to get my husband, who they wanted more. Not sure why this would be affirmative action for men.
Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?
On the contrary. If it's mainly women who are being heartily recruited and hired by universities as your question implies, and their partners (of whatever gender) are being brought along to sweeten the deal, then it's part of affirmative action for women.
“ In my higher education circle, it's called a "trailing spouse." One spouse is a highly sought-after recruit. ”
I was going to discuss that term in the post, but in this particular case, I don’t think the couple was married. The term female partner was used rather than wife or spouse. It’s a funny term too because it’s kind of insulting to see the person is trailing, like being dragged along drag behind.
There are three direct beneficiaries:
1. The University gets the professor it feels meets it needs in the primary hire by offering the partner employment.
2. The partner gets a job and career opportunity she/he would not have gotten otherwise.
3. The primary hire gets the perk of binging along her/his partner for a second income in the same location
Curiously, it appears that the students, who ostensibly pay for all of this, are not one of the beneficiaries.
It’s a funny term too because it’s kind of insulting to see the person is trailing, like being dragged along drag behind.
I don't see why. Surely in most couples with two professionals, there will be jobs for which one is particularly well suited, and in an effort to "get" that one, the other could be recruited for a lesser position. It's not even insulting - pick a different job, for which the other person is better suited, and the picture flips.
My husband is way better at finance than I am. I'm way better at communication than he is. No huhu. Who wants to be the primary right now? That calculus varied over the years for us, then settled at "he can make a lot more money and I don't care as much about career," so I've been much less financially productive and he hasn't had to cook dinner or make a bed in a decade.
We have negotiated or marriage to our mutual benefit and are looking forward to a fun and busy retirement together!
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
You should look at the data, but which is probably not available to the public.
I am familiar with a company with many very rural manufacturing locations, based on local raw material supply. If a woman shows talent they will definitely give the husband a job to get her to relocate and contribute to the women in management percentage that the CEO is rated on.
What must not be spoken is that in this case perhaps the recruitment of the female partner was, for all we know, driven by the fact that she is a woman, and the only way they could make the offer to her partner was by making her the primary target. Preferential hiring of women is very strong in academia (and elsewhere too).
In any case, in most situations involving a "trailing spouse," the trailer gets a distinctly inferior offer, like a non-tenure track appointment, or an offer from a nearby lesser institution for which he or she might actually be a good catch. Still another consideration is that the school may be able to sign the primary target for substantially less money by offering something to the partner. I don't think there's anything terribly wrong with it. There are many worse things going on in academia, such as the BS that the guy in this story is being subject to for wrongthink.
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
That's a question, not an assertion.
My hypothesis is based on a belief that high-achieving women are more likely to have spouses/partners who are within the zone of qualifying for a comparable job than high-achieving men. Also, I think there's an effort to recruit strong female candidates, and these women are more likely to have the limitation that they cannot move unless their husband/partner can move with them and into a job without losing ground in his career.
It would be very hard to get a comprehensive view of this information.
Sounds like you agree that partner-hiring is generally a part of affirmative action for women rather than being a program of affirmative action for men. A man does benefit in the process, perhaps most of those who benefit are men, but that is a side-effect. The purpose and intention is to facilitate the "effort to recruit strong female candidates."
"Isn't it mostly affirmative action for men?"
To answer that question, we'd have to know if it's men or women who are more often the beneficiary in such cases. I doubt men are usually the beneficiary, but If my thesis was the above, I'd probably see if I could find any statistics on it.
Either way, the purpose of it is to incentify the desired candidate, not help some gender of partner.
Good point, Bob Boyd. If there is an effort being made to recruit strong female candidates, that is the first instance of affirmative action.
Did you really spend that much time on a college faculty without realizing what a large fraction of the women in some departments are partner hires?
If the program is affirmative action, it's not for men.
Also, questionable whether it's affirmative action at all. It's part of the hiring process, usually made in lieu of a higher salary or other parts of the startup package, and the partner might get offered a lower starting salary.
For what it's worth, I had a friend get a seemingly dream job on the Wisconsin faculty, only to leave a year later because his fiancee couldn't find a job in the area.
The two body problem remains unsolved.
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