The tenure application at my institution requires a statement that demonstrates support for the university's "Catholic mission." As far as I know, neither FIRE nor ACTA has expressed any concern over such statements, which are widespread in religiously affiliated universities. My understanding is that even the AAUP recognizes the right of religious institutions to incorporate such statements into the tenure process.

So here is my question: if it's ok for a religious institution to this kind of thing, what is wrong with a non-religious institution asking tenure candidates to demonstrate support for a broad and flexible secular value such as "diversity"? All of the arguments against such a statement ("invites abuse," "ideological loyalty oath," "represent[s] different things to different people"] could equally be applied to statements of support of Catholicism, or evangelical Christianity, or Judaism.

As an exercise, readers might try going through Bauerlein's commentary, or any of the other documents referenced here and substituting "Christianity" for "diversity," "campus ministry" for "disability services," and so on.

Anon -- This is straight-up First Amendment stuff. Your institution is private, not public. Freedom of association allows it to have a fairly restrictive mission and associated requirements for tenure. You accept a job there knowing that's the deal -- and that you have both contractual obligations and protections within that. Virginia Tech is a public school, bound to protect the First Amendment rights of its employees and students. Totally different can of worms, as FIRE has elaborately explained numerous times over the years. Read FIRE's letter to VT's president and board for an explanation of the First Amendment issues at work and of relevant case law. This is not politicized hypocrisy on the part of those standing up for VT faculty, as you suggest. It's solid, consistent, and principled reasoning with implications for all college teachers, including you. While your school is within its rights to make you demonstrate your commitment to its Catholic mission at key points, it's compromising any commitment to truth or free inquiry that it may pretend to have. Cases like that at Virginia Tech -- where the law backs the more scholarly arguments about academic freedom -- are important for enabling people like you to argue, should you so choose, that your school should not be putting that sort of loyalty oath into its tenure procedures, Catholic mission or no.

On your point about substituting "Christianity" for diversity -- FIRE's Adam Kissel takes up that exact point at FIRE's blog today: http://www.thefire.org/index.php/article/10380.html

Yes, Erin, I'm aware of the first amendment issues. Many of the arguments here, however, are arguments of *principle*, not law. Indeed Bauerlein's entire piece is argued on the basis of basic ethical notions such as fairness, transparency, integrity, etc. (I'm not sure he even mentions the first amendment.) My point is that these notions apply at religious institutions that aspire to intellectual seriousness, as well as secular ones (a point that you acknowledge).

As for VT, I'm not 100% clear that this a question of free speech (though I agree that the policy is wrong-headed). The first amendment doesn't protect a faculty member from the academic judgment of his/her peers, or from treating students fairly, regardless of their race or religious affiliation, or from teaching English 101, or from having to issue students grades (even in the faculty is "against grades"). Can't a public University define a mission and expect employees to implement it (=do a job), without requiring that they advocate for it (which would infringe on their free speech)? In the case of diversity, this is a very fine line, indeed, but can we say that there is no line?

Yeah, the First Amendment issue here is a red herring. If public institutions have to respect the freedom of speech of their employees, they can also require those employees to do things contrary to their expressed personal views. A cop is allowed to spout racist nonsense on her blog, provided she doesn't act in a racist manner at her job. Likewise, a professor can oppose diversity and still be asked to attend mandatory workshops on *any* topic the university administration deems necessary.

The real problem is that VT's policy is vague and undefined, but that's a problem with so many professional rules for promotion. I'd love to know if AIG, for example, had clear and objective standards for promotion. The complaints about the lack of transparency in tenure review don't stand up when you compare academic promotion with promotion in most industries. In any case, VT's diversity standards here are simply a waste of time. Attending a thousand multicultural mixers does not make one a decent scholar or teacher.

I think it's a good idea in general to limit tenure and promotion criteria to the traditional three areas of teaching, scholarship, and service, instead of larding up those criteria with the pet specifics of the moment. The faculty handbook's description of tenure criteria is simply the wrong place for the institution to pursue goals like "diversity" (even if that term weren't so vaguely defined and ideologically loaded). It's a little like trying to sneak a federal tax cut into the U.S. Constitution. The tax cut might or might not be a good idea--but either way the Constitution is not where it belongs.

Instead of requiring probationary faculty to pursue "diversity" under the threat of tenure-denial, it should work like this. Probationary faculty who are OK with the ideology of "diversity" should feel free to hitch their tenure wagon to the institution's "diversity" star. If the institution is serious about "diversity," then the voluntary pursuit of "diversity" by a tenure candidate can only strengthen their case--especially if they can integrate the pursuit of "diversity" in some meaningful way into their teaching, scholarship, or service. But other candidates need to be free to serve their institutions in ways that do not offend their conscience.

I'm thinking the VT Faculty Senate really dropped the ball on this one.

"A cop is allowed to spout racist nonsense on her blog, provided she doesn't act in a racist manner at her job" is a pretty dubious example of protected free speech; I doubt whether a police officer doing so would survive administrative scrutiny. Witness the case of the U of Toledo administrator fired for expressing in a newspaper op-ed essay her principled Christian opposition to claims that "gay rights" are no different than civil rights demands made by racial minorities.

It's not necessary that all objections to VT's misguided dicta on "diversity" take the same tack--this wayward policy of requiring faculty to submit to social and political indoctrination sessions as a qualification for tenure is, as Bauerlein suggests, demeaning morally and intellectually as well as legally suspect, as Erin O'Connor, FIRE and ACTA claim.

I'm not a constitutional lawyer, but were I a police supervisor or a district attorney I'd have a real problem with a racist cop-blogger. How could such a cop ever testify effectively against a nonwhite defendant? Any competent defense attorney would undercut the officer's testimony, quite rightly, by picking juicy quotes from the blog and parading them before the jury.