DEI Influences Hiring, Admissions at Texas A&M, Records Show

Texas A&M has prioritized “structural diversity” in its hiring and admissions with the stated goal of making the demographics of the university “representative of the demographic diversity of the State of Texas,” according to records obtained by Chris Rufo.

In order to meet this goal, “all members of a search committee should be advocates for diversity,” the university writes in its Handbook for Faculty Search Committee Members. Committees should also “take steps that are likely to increase the number of semi-finalists and finalists from groups that are underrepresented in your department.” Suggestions include involving DEI activists in the hiring process and requesting DEI statements from potential faculty.

Several programs for advancement at the university appear to discriminate on the basis of race, Rufo reports. Only first-generation college graduates and members of “historically underrepresented groups” can apply for the ADVANCE Scholars Program, which provides mentorship and advancement opportunities.

A program offering a pipeline for tenure-track professorships — the Accountability, Climate, Equity, and Scholarship (ACES) Faculty Fellows Program — requires applicants to demonstrate a commitment to “building a culturally diverse educational environment” and weighs applicants’ “commitment to diversity.”

The university has placed “diversity accountability” requirements on all departments. As a result, A&M’s departments “aggressively promote” DEI ideology in training, programs, lectures, reports, committees and multimedia, Rufo reports.

In admissions, the university has set specific racial quotas, including having a minimum of 25 percent “Hispanic/Latinx” enrollment. To hit these goals, admissions offers use “affirmative action” and “holistic admissions processes” to favor “historically underrepresented groups.”

The DEI takeover began in earnest after the death of George Floyd sparked protests, arson, and riots across the U.S. throughout the summer and fall of 2020. “Racism, hate speech, safety, and belonging issues are evidence of systemic, cultural problems that are enduring trends at Texas A&M,” the university claimed in a report published that summer. “Texas A&M’s disparities in student success and representation of historically underrepresented groups of students, faculty, and staff may be attributable to systemic, racist, and discriminatory practices in higher education and society.”

The report included a quote from Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility that claimed “the default of the current system is the reproduction of racial inequality.” “Bringing racism to white people’s attention” would require administrators to go beyond “niceness,” the report said. Its ultimate conclusion was that the university must “dismantle systemic racism to advance Texas A&M’s land-grant mission.”

In a presentation last year, DEI officials expressed a stated goal of promoting “critical race theory,” “intersectional feminism,” “decolonizing practices,” and Black Lives Matter. They said their role was to take “a progressive stand on issues of social justice.”

They decried Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, and Republican Senator Ted Cruz as being representative of “systemic racism.”

Among the examples of the DEI efforts at the university: a guest lecture hosted by the School of Dentistry in which University of Texas professor emeritus Robert Jensen said the U.S. is “appropriately called a white supremacist society”; and a “21-Day Anti-Racism Challenge” from the School of Veterinary Medicine that encouraged white students to address their “white privilege” and “white fragility.”

Meanwhile, the College of Geosciences vowed to “embed discussion of DEI and anti-racism throughout the undergraduate curriculum,” while the school’s sociology department was asked to implement a “land acknowledgment statement” and the English department was tasked with creating a “Black Lives Matter special topics course.”

The history department received funding to craft “anti-racist and inclusive pedagogies.”

The school’s Multicultural Services program, in an effort to “spread the value of inclusivity,” hosts racially segregated graduation ceremonies, with separate events for Asian, African-American and “Latinx” students.