I've received many appreciate messages about my response to the confused CHE piece on diversity and academic freedom. This part of one message is worth sharing, since it captures, I suspect, what many find so offensive about the requirement of "diversity statements":
My entire career, my student body has been extraordinarily diverse. In fact, I would estimate that north of 80% of my students have been Hispanic and/or black. I am a middle-aged, white male. While the ideologues might find it shocking, reviews from my students consistently tell of my genuine care for them, my accessibility, the respect that I show them, the sometimes life-changing experience that they had in their time with me. Need I catalog in a "diversity statement" my commitment to those students or to those I might teach elsewhere? What I do has nothing to do with such a concept. It stems entirely from the fact that they are my students, from the fact that I am invested in their goals, their dreams, their success, regardless of their age, sex, race, sexual activities, politics, or ideologies.
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