CHE: Reverse Discrimination: A Hire Rescinded?

[Wahoo Redux]

CHE: I Was a Diversity Hire. Then They Unhired Me.
What a nightmare job search says about equity and the academy.

This official offer never arrived because, two weeks later, the search was upended by a complaint of reverse racial discrimination. Dan said little about the source of this complaint, though he revealed that it had come from within the English department. This puzzled me; I had connected well with every member of the hiring committee, we had spoken substantively about my teaching philosophy, and I later learned that they had voted unanimously in my favor. I had remained in touch with a few of these faculty members, discussing their research and recommending books, though our communication ended at the time of Dan's final email to me. In the hazy days afterward, I drank too much, reread email exchanges, and tried to square the warmth of those budding collegial relationships with the silence that suddenly followed.

But there is a critical truth that nobody acknowledged over the course of these long conversations. Race did boost my candidacy. Even in a tight circle of like-minded friends, this is a difficult point to concede because advocates for affirmative action — myself included — are more comfortable speaking to the larger policy benefits of race-based consideration than to stories of individual beneficiaries. We have good reason to be afraid that, by acknowledging the impact of race-conscious policies on a particular candidate, we are both denigrating that candidate and feeding a culture of grievance hungry for stories of well-qualified white people who were unjustly turned down. For candidates of color, there is a material cost to this discourse. It is one thing to publicly support affirmative action, and it is another to accept a permanent asterisk next to one's name.

Yet if we believe in affirmative action, then we have to justify the role of race, not just systemically, but in the narrow world of each particular example. In the case of Mississippi State, I could point out that the English department was in dire straits and the happenstance of three people's skin color would have transformed it from egregiously white to cosmetically diverse in the span of a single hiring cycle. Here, the push was never about the candidates, but about the face of the institution. This is not a great reason, but it is a reason.

[research_prof]

So last year, I was told I would be receiving an offer from a university and once the offer went all the way up to the Dean, it was shut down due to some internal politics.

Should I also write an article about it?

[Mobius]

The department chair made a mistake. Do not mention an offer will be coming.

[marshwiggle]

CHE: I Was a Diversity Hire. Then They Unhired Me.
What a nightmare job search says about equity and the academy.

Even in a tight circle of like-minded friends, this is a difficult point to concede because advocates for affirmative action — myself included — are more comfortable speaking to the larger policy benefits of race-based consideration than to stories of individual beneficiaries.


For candidates of color, there is a material cost to this discourse. It is one thing to publicly support affirmative action, and it is another to accept a permanent asterisk next to one's name.

Yes, identity groups are made up of individuals. Everything bad that happens to one member of a group does not hurt every other member of the group, and everything good that happens to one member of a group does not help every other member of the group.

And in other news, water is wet.

[RatGuy]

What I liked about the essay is her contextualizing the diversity plan of MSU. I don't think the "someone complained and rescinded my offer" is her main point. The culture of Mississippi being what it is, and the University's attempt to address and perhaps rectify some of the long-entrenched systems, makes for some interested drama -- especially for a writer who tackles such issues as part of her research. And she's not the only one who didn't get hired -- English lost two other candidates as well. I'd imagine that Dan's frustration at having three lines approved, three searches conducted, then once again shut down for "external reasons" is great, but only exacerbated by the University's seeming push for Diversity Initiatives. Shows how easily such initiatives, maybe sincere, maybe mostly driven by PR campaigns, can be derailed.

[dismalist]

It is pretty clear that advertising for people of certain races is not legal. What's legal is the fiction the Supreme Court set up -- 'ya gotta be holistic.

It might be interesting to consider this as a problem for a detective. Who dunnit, uninterestingly, and with what motive, interestingly?

It could be that there is an angel in the English Dept. at MSU who fights for upholding the law! At every juncture? Not strangely, I think the likelihood of that being true is near zero.

Or, it could be a racist! Have they used their [correct] interpretation of the law to block minority hiring at every prior juncture? Somehow, I doubt it. Probability it's a racist is near zero.

It could be envy. Possibly an internal candidate was glossed over, and that person came out wanting to do damage to the winning competitor. I'd bet heavily on that as the cause. It's consistent with how most human beings act, most of the time.

If that is true, what we learn from the article is that someone is angry that she lost, and complements her anger at the human condition with high sounding rhetoric.

[Anon1787]

CHE: I Was a Diversity Hire. Then They Unhired Me.
What a nightmare job search says about equity and the academy.

But there is a critical truth that nobody acknowledged over the course of these long conversations. Race did boost my candidacy. Even in a tight circle of like-minded friends, this is a difficult point to concede because advocates for affirmative action — myself included — are more comfortable speaking to the larger policy benefits of race-based consideration than to stories of individual beneficiaries. We have good reason to be afraid that, by acknowledging the impact of race-conscious policies on a particular candidate, we are both denigrating that candidate and feeding a culture of grievance hungry for stories of well-qualified white people who were unjustly turned down. For candidates of color, there is a material cost to this discourse. It is one thing to publicly support affirmative action, and it is another to accept a permanent asterisk next to one's name.

Apparently she considers Asian-Americans to be "white adjacent" rather than persons of color, which is the justification for discriminating against them. SCOTUS will be weighing in on that practice soon.

[financeguy]

This is the first time I have heard the term "egregiously white," which is how she describes the current department composition. Shocking that this type of rhetoric gets occasional pushback!

[marshwiggle]

This is the first time I have heard the term "egregiously white," which is how she describes the current department composition. Shocking that this type of rhetoric gets occasional pushback!

Well, when she contrasts that with their chance to be "cosmetically diverse", that sounds like a Freudian slip.

[dismalist]

...by acknowledging the impact of race-conscious policies on a particular candidate, we are both denigrating that candidate...

Denigrating? Forsooth!

[jimbogumbo]

Or, it could be a racist! Have they used their [correct] interpretation of the law to block minority hiring at every prior juncture? Somehow, I doubt it. Probability it's a racist is near zero.

I agree with most of what you wrote re the possible rationales (not that it is clearly illegal, since IMHO it IS whatever SCOTUS has decided.

However, this one may in fact not be near zero since it is Mississippi. I base that on the possibility that at least one faculty member in the Department could be in their late 70's or early 80's.

[Mobius]

Is the chair also "brown?" Browsed the department webpage and seems fairly young. Seems like the most senior folks in the department started there in the mid '90s.

[Hibush]

I thought it was a compelling read. The department was trying to do a good thing in strengthening some obviously weak areas. The author is a good writer and tells the story well. It is not the usual complaining opeds we often get.

That a complaint had any weight whatsoever must have come from a legal defect in how they set up and conducted the search despite efforts to do it right. Was that due to inadequate support from counsel or intentional sabotage?

The faculty member who kneecapped the departments efforts might find the climate going forward to be a little chillier. If they had a problem with it, quite a bit earlier would have been the time to raise the concern.

[dismalist]

Was that due to inadequate support from counsel or intentional sabotage?

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
--Hanlon's Razor

[Wahoo Redux]

It is pretty clear that advertising for people of certain races is not legal.

It could be that there is an angel in the English Dept. at MSU who fights for upholding the law!

On another thread, I asked about this.  Perhaps it did not sound like an objective question but a "gotcha" question.

I am wondering if what the Ole Miss department tried to do was legal?