Discussions in bad faith

One of the things I’ve followed, at least a bit, is the issue of requiring “diversity statements” from job applicants (common for academic jobs in this era). Here is one example.

What I find discouraging is the bad faith in the discussion. Someone says “I don’t think diversity statements are a good idea” and immediately the crowd attacks them for supporting White Supremacy …or something.

It seems to be “situation X is bad/problematic/should be changed and therefore I propose policy A and if you disagree with policy A, it MUST be because you don’t see situation X as a problem.

And as evidence that policy A is good, they point out self selected testimony from groups affected by situation X think that policy A is a good idea.

Now, as far as the diversity statement stuff: if this policy was billed as “ok, we’ll try this and reassess to see if it worked” that would be one thing.

If they said “after requiring diversity statements”, we saw some tangible improvement, say, better minority student retention, increased minority student GPA, more minority student graduates, or say, a more diverse faculty, or a more productive minority faculty..or more of the “diverse faculty” choosing to stay, then hey, count me as a supporter!

But this business about “you are bigot if you are skeptical of this” or for waiting to see if things change for the better…well, the wokes are acting more and more like the old religious nutters.