Chronicle of Higher Education, At UC Berkeley, the Faculty Asks Itself, Do Our Critics Have a Point?:
President Trump’s second administration has targeted higher education with funding cuts, charging that colleges — particularly prestigious ones — have let antisemitism go unchecked and progressive ideology run amok.
The sector’s leaders have responded by weighing whether to give ground or fight back. Lingering inside that question is another uncomfortable one: Do Trump and his allies have a point?
At the University of California at Berkeley, two professors recently put a version of that query to their peers via survey. The results — obtained by The Chronicle — cut against the stereotype of Berkeley’s campus as an ultra-progressive monolith. Rather, they conveyed complicated feelings among a subset of the faculty about whether and where higher education has gone wrong, and how to course-correct if it has. While some respondents did not think Berkeley should recalibrate on certain issues because of Trump, they did think their university should recalibrate, period.
As one unnamed professor put it: “Over the years, I’ve been confronted by various scenarios that have caused me to mutter to myself, ‘This has gone way too far.’ Do we really have to acknowledge that we are holding a conference on stolen land when it takes place over Zoom?”
Chronicle of Higher Education Review, The Review: Berkeley Profs Say the College Discriminates:
A private University of California at Berkeley faculty survey (labeled “UC-FEYES: UC FACULTY EYES ONLY”) called the “Bearometer” finds that over half of respondents believe that “criticisms of higher education are valid.” One recurrent complaint: Faculty members worry that the university is not complying with antidiscrimination law when it comes to admissions and hiring. A sampling of comments:
UC, in general, has been operating (for undergraduate admissions specifically) this principle of “antidiscrimination” which is in fact discrimination against students … who are often denied admissions to “more popular” campuses of UC sometimes (maybe more often than necessary) because of their ethnicity or race.
UCB should review if we have been heed[ing] the admissions policies set forth in the state constitution. If we have played fast and loose on this front, we should address this through regular governance processes.
The undergraduate-admission process disregards academic excellence and needs to be revamped. The director of admissions should be replaced.
The university has been illegally implementing racial and gender preferences for admissions and hiring. Many faculty are deeply uncomfortable with this but are too timid to speak up about it.
Eliminate all aspects of DEI that constitute forced speech or discrimination against certain groups. … Restore fully merit-based admissions, hiring, and promotion protocols.
Something we must face is that universities have indeed created and applied systemic discriminatory admissions, hiring, and workplace practices while protesting innocently that these do not exist, or are not discriminatory.
Our admissions have not been merit-based for years.
Both admissions and hiring have taken race and ethnicity into account for too long under the guise of “diversity.”
It is true that we have not been following some of the existing laws, even if not to the extent portrayed in the right-wing media. All this needs to be acknowledged and corrected to regain public trust.
And so on.
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