(NAME-MCE) Virginia Tech Concedes Overstepping on Diversity Requirement

[Anselmo Villanueva]

Virginia Tech Concedes Overstepping on Diversity Requirement

Virginia Tech's president has directed the dean of its College of Liberal
Arts and Human Sciences to rework tenure and promotion guidelines that
critics complained required applicants to show that they have done work to
promote diversity, according to the Foundation for Individual Rights in
Education. In an e-mail message shared by the civil liberties group, a
Virginia Tech spokesman confirmed that the provost, Mark McNamee, "has asked
the college to rework its proposed guidelines. The fundamental problem was a
requirement to produce materials in support of diversity."

Complete story below.  For related articles and news, go to:

http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10462.html

Victory for Freedom of Conscience at Virginia Tech: New ‘Diversity’
Requirements for Tenure and Promotion No Longer Under Consideration, But
Problematic Policies Remain

April 14, 2009

*FIRE Press Release*

BLACKSBURG, Va., April 14, 2009—The president of Virginia Polytechnic
Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) has announced that proposed
new guidelines for faculty assessment, which would have mandated reporting
of "diversity" activities in violation of academic freedom and freedom of
conscience, are no longer under consideration. The Foundation for Individual
Rights in Education (FIRE) had called on President Charles W. Steger to
rescind the proposed guidelines after a tenure-track faculty member came to
FIRE for help.

"By shelving mandatory 'diversity' requirements for tenure and promotion
candidates, President Steger has taken an important first step towards
preserving faculty rights," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "Political
litmus tests have no place in higher education, and FIRE calls on Virginia
Tech and its Board of Visitors to withdraw all other such infringements on
individual conscience and academic freedom."

Over the past three years, Virginia Tech's provost, Mark McNamee, has
increasingly demanded ideological conformity in the form of "diversity
accomplishments" from the school's faculty. Last year, in a
*memo<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10364.html>
* to all department heads and promotion and tenure committees, he insisted
that candidates for promotion or tenure "do a better job of participating in
and documenting their involvement in diversity initiatives," noting that
such participation is "especially important for candidates seeking promotion
to full professor."

In March, Virginia Tech's College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences (CLAHS)
concluded voting on *new
rules<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10361.html>
* for faculty merit raises, promotion, and tenure that would require faculty
to demonstrate fealty to a highly politicized definition of diversity in
their research, teaching, and personal enrichment activities. The results of
the vote have not been made public.

In an e-mail today, however, Steger wrote that this proposal is "no longer
under consideration." A Virginia Tech spokesman
*confirmed<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10461.html>
* that "the provost has asked the college to rework its proposed guidelines.
The fundamental problem was a *requirement* to produce materials in support
of diversity."

CLAHS *defines <http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10403.html>*"diversity"
as "the desirability and value of many kinds of individual
differences while at the same time acknowledging and respecting that
socially constructed differences based on certain characteristics exist
within systems of power that create and sustain inequality, hierarchy, and
privilege." The list of "diverse" characteristics ranges from race and
gender to "body size and condition." Accordingly, CLAHS has pledged "to
eliminate these forms of inequality, hierarchy, and privilege in our
programs and practices."

"Even without that definition, and even prior to the proposed changes,
Virginia Tech was telling faculty members across the university that they
had to conform to the university's political agenda or else put at risk
their promotion, tenure, and merit raises," Adam Kissel, Director of FIRE's
Individual Rights Defense Program, said. "FIRE will pursue this issue until
no faculty member is pressured to adhere to the university's political
orthodoxy."

FIRE *wrote <http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10357.html>* Steger on
March 25 about the ideological litmus test in CLAHS's promotion and tenure
reviews and demanded that the school's policies be revised to accord with
faculty members' First Amendment right to freedom of conscience. After the
American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA)
*wrote<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10404.html>
* the school's entire Board of Visitors, including* *FIRE's letter and
requesting a full review, the Board's Rector, John R. Lawson, II,
*notified<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10405.html>
* ACTA on April 1 that the Board would fully review Virginia Tech's
diversity and tenure policies university-wide. Although Virginia Tech later
denied that such a review would occur, ACTA published an
*account<http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10458.html>
* of the conversation that shows Lawson's intent to review these policies.

"Whether the review of existing policies is performed by the Visitors or by
the President, it must be completed promptly," Lukianoff said. "Imagine
telling faculty members that ‘patriotic accomplishments' or ‘spiritual
accomplishments' were especially important for faculty members to
demonstrate in order to be considered for career advancement. The proponents
of Virginia Tech's 'diversity' policy likely would quickly understand the
essentiality of academic freedom if the university attempted to impose
different ideological requirements. Mandatory points of view in higher
education short-circuit the scholarly process by ordaining dogmatic
'correct' answers to the deepest questions of nature, society, and
existence. FIRE hopes that institutions will start to understand that
required ideologies stifle and corrode the open-ended search for truth and
are utterly at odds with the freedom of conscience that the First Amendment
steadfastly protects."

FIRE is a nonprofit educational foundation that unites civil rights and
civil liberties leaders, scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals
from across the political and ideological spectrum on behalf of individual
rights, due process, freedom of expression, academic freedom, and rights of
conscience at our nation's colleges and universities. FIRE's efforts to
preserve liberty at Virginia Tech and on campuses across America can be
viewed at *thefire.org* <http://www.thefire.org/>.

*CONTACT:*
Adam Kissel, Director, FIRE's Individual Rights Defense Program:
215-717-3473; adam at thefire.org
Charles W. Steger, President, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State
University: 540-231-6231; president at vt.edu