You caught them by surprise. They're already organizing fast, lying to you and legislators to buy time, and updating tactics. FOIA requests are not going to turn up as much in the future without insiders to provide context. Lots more will be verbal. Not going to get insiders w/o good protection because career is over if it's a faculty or…
They're already organizing fast, lying to you and legislators to buy time, and updating tactics. FOIA requests are not going to turn up as much in the future without insiders to provide context. Lots more will be verbal. Not going to get insiders w/o good protection because career is over if it's a faculty or staff member who gets doxxed. Also have to shut down the anti-tenure nutjobs if you want faculty cooperation. If your efforts get framed as anti-tenure, the only hope is the political top-down approach. And that approach is being used at exactly one university so far, which tells you the governors are hesitant about this approach and uncertain of its success.
One potential next step is building an insider network at the universities to tell the stories that FOIA do not. Students may be the best option there especially because enhancing student protections for 'student journalists exposing university corruption' is an easier frame to sell to policy makers than helping faculty. Also key for changing the climate at the university, which top down approaches often fail to do.
Thanks for the comment. We are building the relationships to make changes and a surprising number of faculty are supportive of our efforts. More to come.
If completely anonymous, I would estimate 50-75% of faculty want the DEI nonsense to go away. The classical liberal faculty hate what has happened, but lack the words and frames to push back against it. It's equal parts being *scared* of being called sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, not wanting to spend the time/energy fighting it, and wanting to be a team player. They feel helpless. Giving them words and frames helps, but most want to stay out of the fight. My guess is maybe 10% will help you, and that will be more because they hate their chair/dean/diversity hire/whoever. Chatting in person over beer or more informally will increase those numbers if you find the talkers in the department. And grad students are great at that.
I like the frame 'DEI bureaucracy' because faculty hate bureaucracy. If it can be framed as 'pro-tenure'-- prohibit a lack of DEI efforts from counting against someone's tenure/promotion, that will also help.
Another consideration might be to couple abolishing the DEI bureaucracy with spending money that is freed up by that on popular measures. Popular measures = raising graduate student salaries/stipends, raising faculty/staff salaries, or bridge/seed research grants to get preliminary data for federal grant applications. Get a financial incentive to departments for ditching DEI, and the cracks will appear.
Did you get every member of the Board of Regents at University of Texas, A&M and Texas Tech on record pro- or anti- DEI efforts? Agitating there seems like a win-win for you. If they are anti-DEI efforts, you can use that to push harder on the mission statements, culture, policies, etc at those universities. If they are pro-, you can push on Abbott to replace them. If they try playing both sides, accuse them of being pro-DEI.
A&M had the most promising statement of the three-- the other two said 'screw you', but they're all going to launder DEI through the research/teaching statements and the university mission to "serve a diverse student body".
Keep hitting them during the legislative session while they're vulnerable.
You caught them by surprise.
They're already organizing fast, lying to you and legislators to buy time, and updating tactics. FOIA requests are not going to turn up as much in the future without insiders to provide context. Lots more will be verbal. Not going to get insiders w/o good protection because career is over if it's a faculty or staff member who gets doxxed. Also have to shut down the anti-tenure nutjobs if you want faculty cooperation. If your efforts get framed as anti-tenure, the only hope is the political top-down approach. And that approach is being used at exactly one university so far, which tells you the governors are hesitant about this approach and uncertain of its success.
One potential next step is building an insider network at the universities to tell the stories that FOIA do not. Students may be the best option there especially because enhancing student protections for 'student journalists exposing university corruption' is an easier frame to sell to policy makers than helping faculty. Also key for changing the climate at the university, which top down approaches often fail to do.
Thanks for the comment. We are building the relationships to make changes and a surprising number of faculty are supportive of our efforts. More to come.
If completely anonymous, I would estimate 50-75% of faculty want the DEI nonsense to go away. The classical liberal faculty hate what has happened, but lack the words and frames to push back against it. It's equal parts being *scared* of being called sexist, racist, homophobic, etc, not wanting to spend the time/energy fighting it, and wanting to be a team player. They feel helpless. Giving them words and frames helps, but most want to stay out of the fight. My guess is maybe 10% will help you, and that will be more because they hate their chair/dean/diversity hire/whoever. Chatting in person over beer or more informally will increase those numbers if you find the talkers in the department. And grad students are great at that.
I like the frame 'DEI bureaucracy' because faculty hate bureaucracy. If it can be framed as 'pro-tenure'-- prohibit a lack of DEI efforts from counting against someone's tenure/promotion, that will also help.
Another consideration might be to couple abolishing the DEI bureaucracy with spending money that is freed up by that on popular measures. Popular measures = raising graduate student salaries/stipends, raising faculty/staff salaries, or bridge/seed research grants to get preliminary data for federal grant applications. Get a financial incentive to departments for ditching DEI, and the cracks will appear.
Did you get every member of the Board of Regents at University of Texas, A&M and Texas Tech on record pro- or anti- DEI efforts? Agitating there seems like a win-win for you. If they are anti-DEI efforts, you can use that to push harder on the mission statements, culture, policies, etc at those universities. If they are pro-, you can push on Abbott to replace them. If they try playing both sides, accuse them of being pro-DEI.
A&M had the most promising statement of the three-- the other two said 'screw you', but they're all going to launder DEI through the research/teaching statements and the university mission to "serve a diverse student body".
Keep hitting them during the legislative session while they're vulnerable.