The University of Oregon Ethnic Studies program is hiring a Visiting Assistant Professor or Instructor in African American, Asian American, Chicana/o-Latina/o, Native American or comparative ethnic studies. This is the job description:

The Ethnic Studies Program invites applications for a visiting assistant professor or instructor position for the 2006-07 academic year in African American, Asian American, Chicana/o-Latina/o, Native American, or comparative ethnic studies. This position, which is conditional on funding and may be renewable for an additional year, may include both undergraduate and graduate teaching. Preference will be given to candidates who will have completed the Ph.D. degree by September 2006. Research funds may be associated with this position. The Ethnic Studies Program presently includes a community of scholars in departments of anthropology, history, international studies, law, literature, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and women's and gender studies. Applications, including a cover letter, curriculum vita, three letters of reference, and a writing sample, should be sent to Director, Ethnic Studies Program, 201 McKenzie Hall, 5268 University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon 97403-5268. For full consideration, application materials must be received by June 29, 2006. The University of Oregon is an equal-opportunity, affirmative-action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. We invite applications from qualified candidates who share our commitment to diversity.

Oregon's Institutional Equity and Diversity office does say that "The University of Oregon is committed to a campus environment that is enriched and informed by the personal, cultural and intellectual differences of its students, faculty, staff and visitors." But that office has also gotten into all kinds of hot water in the past year for its attempt to implement a narrow and repressive five-year diversity plan.

The current revised plan pays lip service to an expansive definition of diversity that includes differences of political affiliation, but is ultimately focused on changing the demographic composition of the university community and on facilitating "cultural competency," which it defines as "an active and ongoing process of self-reflection, learning, skill development, and adaptation, practiced individually and collectively, that enables us to engage effectively a culturally diverse community and world." The report notes that "Goals of cultural competence are to promote the importance of multiple viewpoints, to encourage critical pedagogy, and to engage in critical discussion about diversity and equity issues. Cultural competence should not be viewed as advocating political correctness or as any sort of infringement on academic freedom." The report notes that the university has yet to study how individual units and departments are handling the issue of diversity, and goes on to state that faculty should work to "incorporate" diversity issues into the curriculum and that all faculty should attend professional development workshops to enhance their ability to foster "inclusive" classrooms. The report also recommends regular diversity training for faculty, in the form of professional development seminars focused on diversity, and recommends too that diversity training be incorporated into freshman orientation.

The rhetoric of the report is for the most part studiously neutral about the kinds of differences that must be cultivated and valued on campus; it's possible to read entire sections of the report with the idea that intellectual and political diversity really are part of the university's overall diversity mission. But the report lays that fantasy to rest pretty definitively toward the end with statements such as this one: "Although all kinds of diversity benefit the University, and units should seek to recruit and retain persons of diverse backgrounds broadly defined, to the extent the University devotes resources to building a 'critical mass,' the emphasis should be on racial and ethnic diversity" (27). The report moves from that statement to a discussion of how hiring and retention practices can be used to forward this goal.

That statement--and the detailed procotols that follow for how to attract and keep women and minority faculty--may contain the answer to the question of exactly what the Ethnic Studies program means when it "invite[s] applications from qualified candidates who share our commitment to diversity."

UPDATE 6/1: Mike Adams has a lot more to say about Oregon's Diversity Plan.

Also: More on Oregon's plan, and a comparison of that plan to a witch hunt taking place at the California Institute of Integral Studies, at ACTA Online.

And: For more on ideological loyalty oaths at colleges and universities, see this case at Bucks County Community College, and this case at Monterey Peninsula College, and this case at the University of South Carolina.

This reminds me of where I am currently studying. Right now, the only money the college is offering the department is on "diversity tracks" which, as admitted by our graduate advisor in a recent meeting, means they won't be hiring any white males for a few years. It also means the gaps we currently have in early American literature and Medieval studies won't be filled either, since the funding is being give for Ethnic studies positions.