Harvard's largest department drops DEI pledge of allegiance requirement

Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) will no longer require new faculty members to pledge allegiance to diversity, the department announced Monday.

Pledge to ‘diversity, inclusion, and belonging’ no longer mandatory

For the past five years, new hires at the FAS Department, the largest faculty department in the institution, have been required to submit a statement pledging to use their work to promote “diversity, inclusion, and belonging.” The department has received “feedback from numerous faculty members” opposing the requirement, according to the Boston Globe.

On Monday, Dean of Faculty Affairs Nina Zipser announced that a diversity pledge will no longer be mandatory. Instead, new faculty members will be required to submit a “service statement” in which they must describe their “efforts to strengthen academic communities, e.g. department, institution, and/or professional societies.”

Both the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and the University of North Carolina have also scrapped diversity pledges, while other universities are considering doing the same.

Diversity of skin color, not ideas

Diversity, which has been blamed for a “shocking” drop in student competency at universities, refers strictly to skin color and sexual orientation. It does not include diversity of thought.

In a free speech ranking of nearly 250 colleges across America, Harvard came in last. Speakers, scholars or students who express diverse ideas are often sanctioned by the university, and over 70% of students feel it is acceptable to shout down speech they do not find permissible. Only “39% of students say they are not worried about damaging their reputation because someone misunderstands something they have said or done.”

Students at Harvard describe being forced to introduce themselves using pronouns and being ostracized for stating an opinion. Some students report abstaining from posting to social media under their real names for fear of reprisal from other students.

In August, Harvard Environmental Law Professor Jody Freeman was forced to resign after it became known that she sat on the board of oil giant ConocoPhillips.

Last year Harvard canceled a lecture by feminist Dr. Devin Buckley after the university learned about her belief that men should not be allowed in women’s sports and prisons, even if they claim to be women.

Harvard also canceled a course on policing techniques, which it called “tools of oppression” and “supporting violence against marginalized communities.” The professor who was slated to teach the course, Kit Parker, told Fox News in September that service members at Harvard are afraid to admit they served in the military.