Editor's note: HxA published a longer piece on the AAUP's statement here.

It is a mistake for the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) to deem the use of DEI statements in academic hiring compatible with academic freedom, so long as the process is developed with faculty involvement. DEI statements, and the rubrics used to evaluate them, commonly assess job candidates’ personal views on a complex and hotly debated set of topics.

Although ostensibly measures of professional competence, these statements are often scored in explicitly ideological terms, with point-by-point assessments of candidates’ opinions, attitudes, and extracurricular activism. Such screening is appropriate for a political party, not an academic department. When DEI statements are used to filter out dissenters, the practice is incompatible with academic freedom.

As with its recent about-face on academic boycotts, the AAUP overlooks the fact that threats to academic freedom can come, not just from donors and lawmakers, but also from other professors. If academic freedom principles no longer protect professors who disagree with the majority of their colleagues, those principles mean very little at all.