REPORT: U of Washington broke its own rules, and state law to hire a professor based on race

The University of Washington (UW) broke its own policies in service to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) agenda, according to a new report. 

The university’s Psychology department discriminated on the basis of race when hiring a professor, according to an internal investigative report from the University Complaint Investigation and Resolution Office (UCIRO) at UW, obtained by the National Association of Scholars. The incident violated a University Executive Order prohibiting discrimination in hiring, as well as state law.

University of Washington Executive Order 31 prohibits discrimination on the basis of race. “The University will recruit, hire, train, and promote individuals without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, pregnancy, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, disability, or veteran status and based upon their qualifications and ability to do the job,” the order states, defining discrimination as “conduct that treats a person less favorably” based on any of these characteristics.

[RELATED: Law prof and DEI critic stripped of teaching amid employment proceedings]

Furthermore, I-200, a ballot initiative in the state of Washington, also prohibits the state government, including public education, from discrimination or preferential treatment on the basis of immutable characteristics.  ”The state shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting,” it states.

According to the report, in 2022, the Developmental Psychology area of the Psychology Department began recruiting an Assistant Professor of Diversity in Development. One of the members of the hiring committee was a non-voting representative from the Diversity Advisory Committee (DAC), intended to ensure the process was “fair and equitable.”

Some 84 people applied for the position; after three rounds, the pool was narrowed down to five finalists. The DAC audited each applicant’s race during all the phases of the hiring process; the Dean’s office advised against the audit, but the committee did it anyway. 

The five candidates were then given a two-day virtual visit with meetings with Department faculty groups, including a joint meeting with the Faculty of Color and Women Faculty groups. But email correspondences revealed that members of the groups tried to cancel and prevent meetings with candidates on the basis of their race. It was unclear how they knew the applicants’ race, the report stated, and may have been an assumption.

When the committee narrowed the search to three candidates for offer, the three finalists were, in order: white, Asian, and black. A member of the committee reached out to the white finalist to unofficially notify him of the offer. One of the hiring members was upset at the black applicant’s place, and took it up with the department’s Strategic Planning Committee (SPC), despite the SPC not having a role in the search process. The report then says that the SPC imposed additional hurdles before the final offer, including a justification paragraph for the hiring decision. 

The DAC also made a justification paragraph a prerequisite for the committee signing off on the hiring decision, as well as a draft hiring report. The DAC declined the hiring report, and told the hiring committee to reassess. The hiring committee would not change their rankings, but one member reportedly seemed to be focused on the applicant’s race. Finally, the other members of the committee conceded to the objecting member; but the report notes that the conceding members did not suddenly agree with the objections, they simply wanted to avoid confrontation at the next faculty meeting and questions from other professors about whether they had been hired on the basis of race; or so the search would not fail and the members would not be asked questions.

[RELATED: Kamala Harris slams DEI opponents in FIU speech]

The revised order of offers was then: Black, Asian, White. The hiring committee then reportedly falsified its revised hiring report to omit the cancellation of meetings and hide the re-evaluation of applicants based on their race. The DAC signed off on the revised report, and the list was passed to the full Psychology department for recommendation. A member told the department that DEI was used to select the candidate; one member of the faculty questioned how the decision complied with I-200; the faculty were told that the decision was made in line with a “strategic goal and objective,” and that nothing done was illegal. The board approved, the black applicant was given the first offer, and was hired for the position, which began in the Fall 2023 semester.

The University of Washington also released the report to the public on Oct. 31. The university said that the Psychology department will be prevented from searching for tenured and tenure-track positions for at least two years, subject to review by the Provost; it will also have its hiring processes thoroughly reviewed and revised by the Dean’s office, and faculty will be trained in how to comply with law and policy. The university also updated its institutional hiring policies.

Campus Reform reached out to the University of Washington and the Psychology Department for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.