Thought of the day

Someone on the Twitters was asking for ideas about what to say in response to faculty that say, dismissively, that other faculty members are “diversity hires”. The implication, stated or not by such folk, is that persons of color, or of nonXY chromosomal identity, are clearly inferior merely because of such identities.

In context of prospective new faculty during a hiring cycle, the VeryConcerned person often asserts that they are only concerned with keeping up the standards of the department.

“Can’t have all these inferior diversity hires dragging us down, chaps! Hrm, hrm.”

My thought is this.

In science, the young, new hires are always better than the department’s current average. They have more cutting edge techniques, fresher ideas, less historical baggage and/or likely better collaborative relationships. They are not yet burned out, quite the contrary.

So the VeryConcernedColleague can rest at ease. The new hire is going to improve the Department, no matter who is hired out of the Long List of reasonably attractive candidates.