How college diversity statements got started as a way to weed out white and Asian job applicants

In July the Chronicle of Education published a story about University of Toronto psychology professor Yoel Inbar. The short version is that Inbar’s partner was offered a job at UCLA and she asked if they might be interested in hiring him as well. Partner hires are fairly common in academia and Inbar was invited down for an interview. It all seemed to go well but there was one out-of-the-blue question about his views on diversity statement, something he’d talked about four years earlier on a podcast called Two Psychologists Four Beers. Inbar is a progressive who supported diversity but said he wasn’t sure diversity statements were accomplishing what they were supposed to.Read More