Stuart Reges, a teaching professor at the university's Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, recently told Fox News about his employer's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements for new instructors.
"This is something that the faculty voted in a few years ago that for new hires," he disclosed.
The Allen School basically has three main measures: the applicant's research, teaching, and DEI. The rubric used to require agreement with the equity agenda and the DEI movement, but that has changed.
"Now you have to say that you have deep knowledge of the DEI in order to get a high rating on all of this," Reges relayed.
They ask, for example, what applicants have done specifically for black students in their teaching.
"I don't do anything specifically for black students," the professor told Fox News. "I have done a lot to try to make sure that struggling students have the resources that they need to succeed, but I don't think about black students in particular and what they need. I do this for all students."
"That's not an acceptable answer," he continued. "I'm supposed to say what I've done specifically for black students. Otherwise, I'm not working towards equity. If you don't say all the right things, you're not going to get hired."
Reges said this has driven "very talented" teachers away from careers in education. Even though he has won the distinguished teaching award at the university, he is convinced he would not be hired if he were applying today.
Since Donald Trump returned to office, DEI in education has undergone a major rollback nationwide. Colleges and universities have been prompted to close or rebrand DEI offices and scale back identity-based programs. Many Republican-led states have enacted broad, legally binding bans or restrictions that limit institutions' ability to use identity-based admissions, hiring, training, or funding.
Democratic-leaning legislatures, however, have resisted, and institutions in those states are salvaging equity-oriented supports by shifting their framing to emphasize "access," "belonging," "student success," or "equity in outcomes" instead of DEI.
Reges knows the Trump administration is applying pressure to get colleges and universities to move in the right direction, but he does not see how the University of Washington, where he is the only one in an 80-person faculty who expresses a conservative point of view, can change quickly.
"I'm actually pretty pessimistic about how things are going to go," he confessed.
