Chambana Sun

Chicago venture capitalist Jeffrey Carter leaves no doubt about where he stands on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) standards in schools.

“I am against DEI,” Carter told Chicago City Wire. “If you were raised right and are an upstanding person, you treat everyone with respect without regard to the dividing classes DEI puts us in.”

Still, Carter concedes he’s not that surprised to see the trend talking hold in more places. 

"The inmates running the asylum don’t care about education they care about indoctrination,” he added.

At the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, faculty members could soon see their level of acceptance of the practice viewed as a major factor in rather or not they receive promotions.

In an announcement made by the Office of the Provost, faculty members were recently informed the “promotion and tenure process for tenure-stream faculty members” will serve to “reflect the evolving strategic priorities and current practices” of the university. As part of the change, three task forces — including the Task Force on the Revision of Promotion and Tenure Guidelines — released a proposed update to Communication #9, the school’s primary source for information on its tenure policy.

Again, Carter fails to see the logic or validation for the change. 

“I would love to see schools that engage in this lose all federal funding since it’s racist and against the Constitution/Bill of Rights and the 1964 Civil Rights Act,” he said. 

While the site claims professors interested in tenure opportunities will “not be penalized if they are not doing DEI work,” it adds they will “still need to prepare the DEI statement so that they can think about what they are already doing around DEI and what they will do in the future.”

According to the university, “Regardless of their area of expertise, all faculty are expected to make efforts toward enhancing DEI,” by such means as “integrating work by scholars from groups historically marginalized or underrepresented in academia into your curriculum, including and effectively mentoring undergraduate and graduate students in your research group, and attending workshops to develop your DEI work so that it is more effective.”