Teleforum

The University of California and other institutions in California now require academic job applicants to complete a "contribution to diversity" statement. In some programs, an applicant without a high scoring diversity statement will be rejected without any consideration of the rest of his or her application. Are these statements a benign effort to ensure that professors are competent to teach diverse students, or a modern manifestation of the odious anti-communist loyalty oaths of the 1950s and a tool for racial and sex discrimination? And is the use of these statements compatible with the First Amendment, the Equal Protection Clause, and California's Proposition 209?Featuring: -- Daniel Ortner, Attorney, Pacific Legal Foundation