Review of Hiring Process Reveals University of Washington Faculty Search Weighed Race Inappropriately Against White Applicant

A recent internal investigation into the faculty hiring process at the University of Washington reveals the disturbing lengths the school, and indeed other universities, go to discriminate against white job applicants.

According to City Journal, a white candidate who was best qualified for a tenure track position in the university’s Department of Psychology was ‘re-ranked’ after interference from the Diversity Advisory Committee.  The committee pressured the hiring committee to use the methodology laid out in an internal handbook titled “Promising Practices for Increasing Equity in Faculty Searches” to re-rank the candidates in preference of a non-white applicant.

Initially, the white candidate was ranked No. 1 out of 84 applicants, the university says in the report.

After pressure was placed upon the hiring committee, ultimately the third-ranked finalist, who was black, was given the tenure-track position.

The handbook provides explicit instructions on how to exclude candidates of undesirable races and ensure the hiring of candidates of preferred races.

City Journal reports:

The handbook sheds light on past discriminatory hiring practices in the psychology department. In the 2020–21 academic year, the department hired only BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of color) candidates for five tenure-track positions. Delighted by its success in excluding all white candidates, the department’s Diversity Advisory Committee commissioned the “Promising Practices” handbook as a case study documenting its past manipulation of the hiring process. The handbook served as a how-to manual in the 2022–2023 academic year, ensuring that a BIPOC candidate would be hired for the department’s only tenure-track professorship that year.

First, the handbook advises recruiters to “prepare for success” by developing a strategy for how to hire based on race. To guarantee nonwhite candidates, recruiters should reach out directly to underrepresented minority (URM) candidates. The department’s search committee “sent over 100 personal emails, primarily to URM researchers.” The handbook carefully ranks favored minority groups, specifically “Black/African American, Latinx/Hispanic, or American Indian/Indigenous,” above less preferred ones, specifically “Asian American or Middle Eastern American.”

Next, the handbook recommends drafting job descriptions that match the resumes of specific minority candidates. That way, the applications will perfectly suit the job posting. It directs institutions to “[v]isualize your ideal candidates and work backwards from there to word your advertisement. If you could pick anyone, with an eye towards URM scholars, which current scholars in your field would be the best fit for this job? How do they describe their work and goals? Consider using similar language.”

An Institutional Intake Report was released in September after College of Arts and Sciences Dean Dianne Harris asked the University Complaint Investigation and Resolution Office (UCIRO) to review “possible issues concerning the hiring processes employed in the Department of Psychology” in May of 2023.

The report reveals the extent of the race-based hiring decision in this instance.

The review showed that both the hiring decision and the hiring process were inconsistent with EO 31, as race was used as a factor. Specifically, faculty inappropriately considered candidates’ races when determining the order of offers and altered the process to provide disparate opportunities for candidates based on their race.

While the individuals involved in the hiring process also engaged in discussion about permissible qualifications, such as candidates’ research quality and their work in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), their explicit consideration of racial identities and their different actions based on the racial identities of the candidates reflect race was a substantial factor.

According to the university, Dean Harris and members of College of Arts & Sciences leadership have apologized to the affected candidates.