University of Michigan Ends Required Diversity Statements

The University of Michigan will no longer require diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure decisions, the school announced on Thursday, marking a major shift at one of the country’s leading public research institutions.

The new policy, issued by Michigan’s provost, comes as the university’s regents weigh a broader overhaul of its sprawling diversity, equity and inclusion programs, among the most ambitious and well financed in the country. At a public meeting on Thursday afternoon, Michigan’s regents and its president, Santa J. Ono, also announced a major expansion of the school’s signature scholarship program for lower-income students, the Go Blue Guarantee.

Some regents have indicated they are likely to seek cuts to the school’s large D.E.I. bureaucracy to offset the expansion, though those decisions will not be finalized until Michigan formulates its next annual budget.

The new policy on diversity statements effectively overrules a hodgepodge of practices at the university’s undergraduate and graduate schools, most of which began using the statements in hiring in recent years.

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Michigan’s decision may add momentum to growing efforts to restrict the use of diversity statements, which have proliferated widely in academia in recent years. Schools that employ them typically ask job applicants to discuss how they would advance diversity and equity through their scholarship, teaching or community service. In states like Michigan and California, which ban direct racial preferences in hiring, the statements have been credited with helping public universities hire more diverse faculties.

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The University of Michigan has promoted the statements far beyond its own campuses. Colleges around the country use versions of a scoring rubric for diversity statements devised by the National Center for Institutional Diversity, part of Michigan’s central D.E.I. office, or other hiring practices developed at the university.

John D. Sailer, a senior fellow at the conservative Manhattan Institute who has written widely about diversity statements, called Michigan’s decision a “watershed moment” in higher education.

“The University of Michigan championed diversity statements,” Mr. Sailer said in an email. But “now, it will represent a milestone in the movement to roll back this misguided practice, a clear victory for academic freedom.”

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The decision followed intense internal debates among professors and administrators. A faculty committee appointed by Dr. McCauley to consider diversity statements initially proposed that the university leave their use to the discretion of its colleges and schools, while providing more training.

“Outright elimination of diversity statements at U-M would send an inaccurate and discouraging signal regarding U-M’s commitment to DEI values,” the committee wrote in July.

But a survey conducted for the committee found that more than half of Michigan faculty members believed diversity statements placed pressure on professors to express specific moral, political and social views.

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Hours before Thursday’s meeting, several dozen people organized by the school’s Black Student Union staged a protest outside Dr. Ono’s home. The union has criticized Michigan for not moving aggressively enough to diversify its campuses.

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Regents have said they do not plan to cut programs like Pathways. According to a review conducted last summer, more than half of the school’s overall D.E.I. spending has gone to staff salaries and benefits.

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At Thursday’s meeting, the school officials warned that universities like Michigan will face a dramatically different political landscape when former President Donald J. Trump returns to the White House next year. {snip}

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