Bates College appears to make DEI statements optional following FIRE letter

Bates College in Lewiston, Maine has made mandatory Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) statements optional for faculty applications after the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) sent the institution a letter.

In June, Bates had posted two open positions that required applicants to submit statements addressing their commitments to “equity and inclusion”; the roles were for a Visiting Professor of Physics and Astronomy and a Visiting Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences and Physics.

On July 22, FIRE wrote to Bates explaining that mandatory diversity statements could weed out applicants with dissenting or minority viewpoints, and that such statements go against the school’s goal of academic freedom. FIRE requested that Bates either stop making DEI statements mandatory or remove them altogether.

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According to a Wednesday announcement from FIRE, the school never responded to the letter, but took swift action in removing the language requiring DEI statements, and gave job candidates the option to include a DEI statement in a “separate, additional document or integrated into the teaching and research statements.” 

“As we head into a new school year, FIRE encourages institutions to be mindful of how their requirements may discourage dissent,” FIRE wrote in the press release. “We commend Bates College for taking this important step to protect free inquiry on its campus.”

In May, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discontinued the use of mandatory DEI statements, becoming one of the most prominent schools to do so. 

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Last August, the University of Colorado Boulder required a DEI statement to apply for a position as a Visiting Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy. According to Daniel Jacobson, the Director of the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, the DEI statement was mandatory because it was considered a “university requirement.”

FIRE had also written to UC Boulder during September of last year, suggesting that such DEI statements led to First Amendment concerns. The school notified FIRE in October that it was “updating its guidance for assessing diversity statements.”

Campus Reform has reached out to Bates College for comment. This article will be updated accordingly. 

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