University drops job posting after DEI requirement exposed, professor says ‘I would not be hired’ today

A University of Washington professor has sharply criticized the school’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) hiring requirements, saying the policies prioritize ideological conformity over teaching ability.

Stu­art Reges, a non-tenured teach­ing pro­fes­sor at UW’s Paul G. Allen School of Com­put­er Sci­ence and Engi­neer­ing, told Fox News Dig­i­tal the cur­rent sys­tem would like­ly dis­qual­i­fy him despite his long record at the uni­ver­si­ty. “You have to say that you have deep knowl­edge of the DEIs in order to get a high rat­ing on all of this,” Reges said. “Fun­ny thing is, I’m con­vinced I would not be hired if I applied today.”

The con­tro­ver­sy cen­ters on job post­ings and a fac­ul­ty eval­u­a­tion rubric that place explic­it weight on appli­cants’ DEI com­mit­ments. UW’s list­ing for an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor of school psy­chol­o­gy requires a manda­to­ry diver­si­ty state­ment, instruct­ing can­di­dates to sub­mit:

“A one-page diver­si­ty state­ment describ­ing your iden­ti­ty, posi­tion­al­i­ty, expe­ri­ence and com­mit­ment to diver­si­ty, equi­ty, and inclu­sion and align­ment to the APA’s Equi­ty, Diver­si­ty, and Inclu­sion Frame­work. In addi­tion, describe your phi­los­o­phy of teach­ing and learn­ing, includ­ing how your work will fur­ther the Col­lege of Education’s com­mit­ment to racial equi­ty and social jus­tice.”

Seat­tle radio host Jason Rantz crit­i­cized the pol­i­cy in a local op-ed, writ­ing that “this appli­ca­tion process makes it eas­i­er to dis­crim­i­nate against con­ser­v­a­tives, which is pre­cise­ly why you won’t hear the far-left fac­ul­ty speak out.” Rantz added more blunt­ly that “the uni­ver­si­ty isn’t look­ing for diverse thought; it’s enforc­ing a mono­cul­ture of approved polit­i­cal opin­ions.”

Reges described the prac­ti­cal pres­sure the require­ments place on prospec­tive hires. “I mean, look at all of the crap that you have to deal with,” he said. “You have to kind of basi­cal­ly make up a state­ment that’s going to make them hap­py say­ing the things that you’re going to do.” He warned the sys­tem is dri­ving tal­ent away: “I’ve known fac­ul­ty, very tal­ent­ed fac­ul­ty who’ve left because of this kind of pres­sure and peo­ple who won’t even apply.”

The university’s grad­ing rubric used to assess can­di­dates also explic­it­ly scores “Diver­si­ty,” rank­ing appli­cants on a scale from poor to excel­lent. A “Poor” rat­ing is defined in the rubric as dis­play­ing “lit­tle evi­dence of poten­tial to con­tribute to the UW Diver­si­ty Blue­print.”

The debate over uni­ver­si­ty DEI pro­grams has also entered the fed­er­al are­na. In Jan­u­ary, Pres­i­dent Trump issued an exec­u­tive order argu­ing that “Many cor­po­ra­tions and uni­ver­si­ties use DEI as an excuse for biased and unlaw­ful employ­ment prac­tices and ille­gal admis­sions pref­er­ences, ignor­ing the fact that DEI’s foun­da­tion­al rhetoric and ideas fos­ter inter­group hos­til­i­ty and author­i­tar­i­an­ism.” Sep­a­rate­ly, the U.S. Depart­ment of Education’s Office for Civ­il Rights (OCR) has launched inves­ti­ga­tions into sev­er­al uni­ver­si­ties — includ­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton — for alleged “race-exclu­sion­ary prac­tices in edu­ca­tion pro­grams and activ­i­ties.”

Respond­ing to Fox News Dig­i­tal, a UW spokesper­son defend­ed the school’s approach while announc­ing imme­di­ate steps to address con­cerns about one recent search. “The Uni­ver­si­ty of Wash­ing­ton does not view diver­si­ty and access as being in oppo­si­tion to mer­it and excel­lence, and we remain com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing access to excel­lence for all,” the spokesper­son said. “Our hir­ing prac­tices adhere to state and fed­er­al laws in ensur­ing that race is not a fac­tor in hir­ing, and the UW has act­ed proac­tive­ly when such a vio­la­tion is known to have occurred.”

The spokesper­son added that indi­vid­ual schools and col­leges “have sig­nif­i­cant lat­i­tude in their hir­ing prac­tices, how­ev­er all must adhere to state and fed­er­al laws.” Regard­ing the con­test­ed Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion post­ing, the uni­ver­si­ty said:

“The Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion search ref­er­enced in a recent local commentator’s blog post was in com­pli­ance with these laws, but to pre­vent any ambi­gu­i­ty or mis­in­ter­pre­ta­tion, we are can­cel­ing it and pro­vid­ing addi­tion­al guid­ance on hir­ing prac­tices before it is repost­ed. We are also review­ing hir­ing prac­tices more broad­ly to ensure that they fol­low state and fed­er­al laws.”

Fox News Dig­i­tal report­ed it reached out to the White House but did not receive a response.

“The uni­ver­si­ty isn’t look­ing for diverse thought,” Rantz wrote. “It’s enforc­ing a mono­cul­ture of approved polit­i­cal opin­ions.”