The Arizona Board of Regents (ABR) announced Tuesday that it would no longer use diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) statements in job applications, according to the Arizona Republic.
A Goldwater Institute report published in January found that up to 80% of job applications for the three major universities in the state asked applicants to submit a statement verbalizing their support for DEI. The ABR announced this week that the state’s public universities have removed the requests for diversity statements from their job applications and Arizona State University (ASU) spokeswoman Veronica Sanchez explained that the statements were “not essential to ASU’s commitment to inclusive excellence found in the ASU charter,” according to the Arizona Republic. (RELATED: Companies Are Throwing Thousands Of Diversity Officers Overboard: REPORT)
“The Goldwater Institute’s report rang the alarm bell, exposing the intentions of campus DEI officers to impose these political litmus tests on every single faculty job applicant to Arizona’s public universities,” a Goldwater Institute spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Diversity statements function as little more than political litmus tests that actually reduce diversity of thought in higher education. Their elimination from Arizona’s public universities will help ensure that qualified candidate of all backgrounds will be welcome to apply to the institutions.”
BREAKING: The Goldwater Institute just struck a death blow against the use of political litmus tests in Arizona’s public universities! Arizona now joins the ranks of multiple other states following Goldwater’s lead in ditching mandatory DEI statements.https://t.co/xGdLU5EOLX
— Goldwater Institute (@GoldwaterInst) August 8, 2023
A Board of Regents spokesperson emphasized to the DCNF that the statements were “never” a requirement.
“The use of DEI statements has never been required by ABOR or the public universities,” the spokesperson said. “While in the past, some departments at the universities may have included a request for a DEI statement in a job application, the universities have discontinued any requests for such statements in job applications.”
A May job posting for a postdoctoral research scholar for ASU, however, shows otherwise. Under the “required materials” section it states that all applicants must submit a “statement addressing how your past and/or present potential contributions to diversity and inclusion will advance ASU’s commitment to inclusive excellence,” according to the posting.
ASU began using DEI statements in 2021 and 81% of its job postings since that time have asked for applicants to prove their commitment to diversity, according to the Goldwater Institute report. Northern Arizona University used DEI statements in 73% of its applications, while the University of Arizona used them 28% of the time.
ASU and NAU did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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