U. Vermont Prof Sounds Alarm on School’s ‘Destructive’ Diversity and Inclusion Plan

U. Vermont Prof Sounds Alarm on School’s ‘Destructive’ Diversity and Inclusion Plan

This is a brave stance for a professor to take. Progressives will view it as an act of heresy.

The College Fix reports:

He took on the bias response team. Now this professor is pushing back on ‘equity and diversity’ mandates.

A University of Vermont professor who has challenged the reach of its bias response team is sounding the alarm about administration proposals to “embed equity and diversity assessment” throughout faculty duties.

The proposals in the Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan Survey are “so destructive that they should be answered publicly,” Aaron Kindsvatter, who teaches in the College of Education and Social Services, told a CESS committee that is shepherding the survey. He also emailed his CESS colleagues about the survey.

“My primary concern is that this threatens the single most important tool for under-represented groups,” Kindsvatter told The College Fix in an email. “That is the right to hold their own thoughts, and the right to choose to express those thoughts-or not-freely.”

He said universities such as UVM are the “front line of defense against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia,” precisely because “they teach students to seek truth through the principles of empiricism and skepticism.”

CESS Dean Scott Thomas asked its Diversity and Inclusion Strategic Action Plan Committee to create a revised edition of its diversity plan to “complement” a broader strategic plan scheduled for completion in 2022, committee leaders said in the survey.

The aim of the revised diversity plan is to incorporate “diversity change strategies within all aspects” of professors’ work, an effort that is underway in all colleges and divisions at UVM. The plan is set to be finalized in June and implemented in September.

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