>I'm not sure how it squares with a university's First Amendment right to freedom of association.
The short answer from the courts is - if you take money from the federal government, in any way, or have students who take money from the federal government, in any way, or distribute funds from the federal government, in any way, as a corporate entity you lose out on many of the rights entailed to a private citizen.
Hard for Europeans and some Americans to comprehend this but the US Constitution restricts the government not the other way. The Bill of Rights is meant to protect natural human rights from government systems. US funded academics are bound by it so I suspect these schools would loose in court. And I work for a government research lab and this nonsense is foreign to me.
As a practical matter the meaning of the Constitution is determined by the courts. In many, many cases, the Constitution is simply ignored (or, if you're trying to be charitable, "interpreted") in favor of the political convenience of the Supreme Court justices.
The argument is that the University, by requiring a DEI statement/commitment, is creating a situation where it's forcing speech. "Forced Speech" is one of those things the First Amendment/government get tetchy about. It's not a "right to not have DEI statements," it's a "right to not have to say things I don't believe."
Compelled speech, at least for public employment. Some states like California also designate political affiliation as a protected class. Can a company mandate that employees take a pledge condemning abortion as immoral and murderous?
DEI statements are absolutely viewpoint statements, and DEI statements are graded according to their adherence to a specific political ideology (and frankly, it’s closer to a religious ideology than a political one).
If a public school’s “organization goals” have extended into the realm of advancing DEI political ideology, then the organization is operating outside its remit.
> DEI statements are absolutely viewpoint statements,
No, they aren’t. They are “how have/would/will you achieve specific goals” statements. Some actual prompts (with institution names removed as a distraction here, if included) [0]:
“Applicants should submit a statement explaining how their teaching at the College will contribute to a culture of inclusion and campus diversity.”
“A description of how the applicant would contribute to the development of a diverse and inclusive learning community at <institution> through her/his teaching, research, and/or service.”
“[…] discuss how the candidate would help achieve <institution>’s goal to attract and graduate more women, Hispanic, and students from other underrepresented groups.”
“Qualified candidates should submit […] a diversity statement (describing how you incorporate diversity into your teaching, research, and/or service)”
“Pursuant to the college’s vision for cultivating a diverse and inclusive community, the search committee will ask all applicants to address how their past and/or potential contributions might serve to advance <institution>’s commitment to teaching and mentoring young people from a variety of personal experiences, values, and worldviews that arise from differences of culture and circumstance.”
> If a public school’s “organization goals” have extended into the realm of advancing DEI political ideology,
Diversity is well-established (in cases both supporting and striking down particular diversity policies) as a compelling government interest under; promotion of diversity is not outside the remit of public universities, and, therefore, neither is asking prospective employees both their track record on advancing, and their plans going forward to advance, that interest in their work.
You are downvotes but you are of course correct. The worst kind of DEI statement you could write would be one that just blindly parrots progressive ideology. Sometimes we get those and they are given a very low score. To say the essay is supposed to express a political viewpoint is to admit one has never been involved in this process.
And yet the First Amendment doesn't protect a tenured professor from being fired for failing to disclose relevant information (https://www.dailynebraskan.com/news/breaking-news-board-of-r...), so I'm not sure where the "compelled speech" protection ends and the requirements of the public university begin.
By this logic, anything on any employment form for a government job would be compelled speech. This is so facially stupid, yet you are here arguing it with no shame.
Is there a threat of legal penalty stopping a person from responding to a DEI prompt with " I wouldn't do anything to promote diversity"? A person doesn't have a right to employment with a university and the interview process is chock full of questions for which not saying the right answer is grounds for elimination.
This is of course a separate issue from whether or not the statements are a good idea, but my layman's perusal of supreme court cases around compelled speech found that this almost certainly doesn't rise to the level of a first amendment violation.
The short answer from the courts is - if you take money from the federal government, in any way, or have students who take money from the federal government, in any way, or distribute funds from the federal government, in any way, as a corporate entity you lose out on many of the rights entailed to a private citizen.