Dealing with the "diversity question" answer

Question

The question How to answer the diversity question during faculty interview has attracted a few answers, but one in particular stands out as being both rather non-politically correct and also quite accurate. I'm curious if/how the community wishes to deal with this particular. It's already had a few flags raised (rude/abusive, not an answer). I'll post my own thoughts in an answer below.

Answer 1

I think it's likely that the voting on this particular Q&A has been tilted by exposure to the Hot Network Questions, and the answer is by someone who hasn't participated on Academia.SE before. I have a bit of doubt that the answer is supported by any particular experience of the answerer, and instead is based on their biased view of what academia is and what academic hires involve.

It really seems like "HNQ bait" to me, rather than an answer meant to be helpful to the OP. I think it distracts from other answers that help OP to understand what is meant by these sorts of questions.

That said, I think it's difficult to moderate this sort of answer. I've downvoted it, and upvoted the other answers I think are actually helpful. I think that's all we can really do.

Answer 2

The OP's post talks about "how" questions posed in the interview. "How" do you support X. That implies that the decision is already been made that X should be supported.

In that sense, the controversial answer and eykanal's suggested version are both not really answers to the "how", or to the "what aspects" questions of the OP.

That doesn't make paulj's answer untrue; it is a political issue. Society put a political question to the university ("what are you going to do about diversity"). Whatever response the university gives is political. To do something about diversity is political; to not do something is also political.

I think that with cag51's edits that removed some incendiary language, the answer as it stands now represents a reasonable perspective. (Even if I don't really agree with the undertone.)

Answer 3

At the moment I'm writing this, it is the highest voted answer. To me, that's the community's answer.

Deciding what to do about it in meta, is not what "the community wants" but rather what a the much smaller group who frequents meta wants.

Answer 4

The answer is honestly quite accurate, but uses unnecessarily opinionated language. I would prefer if the answer would be simply factual, possibly as follows:

This question has only one correct answer, unfortunately. Providing anything other than a positive "I support diversity through <methods>" is likely to significantly harm your application.

The above says the same thing as the current answer but without the attitude.

Answer 5

The answer is actually not an answer to the question. The question asks about what to say in response to the interview question. It specifically says "Which aspects [do] I need to cover to delivering a winning answer?"

The answer does not address that issue at all. It presumes the questioner is really asking about whether diversity is 'valid", and merely provides political commentary on whether they should go along with it or not.

We respond to this by downvoting. Also by upvoting the much better answers that there are to the question.

Let us also take not of the fact that writing this answer is the user's ONLY activity on Academia. It's a drive-by answer.

Answer 6

Imagine an answer to an analogous question on Workplace SE saying that if you attack the hiring manager's priorities or you criticize the stated organizational goals, you won't get the job. Well, duh. Why should they hire someone contemptuous of what they're trying to accomplish?

I'm pretty sure such an answer wouldn't do very well on Workplace SE. The difference here is that a lot more people think their uninformed opinions about academia are worth something. Also, the answer score may have been affected by the users that drift in from the HNQ. Just downvote.

Answer 7

Why are you so sure it's correct? Does the answerer provide any data suggesting that people who have a poor answer to such questions don't get hired? Have they sat on a search committee that eliminated a candidate based on this factor? This is anecdotal at best, and wrong at worst.

Then again, I suppose "I have no commitment to promoting diversity, and my actions will be counter to such efforts" would be a fine reason to not hire someone onto a campus committed to a diverse student body. I'm curious about whether "I haven't considered diversity issues" would eliminate a candidate, but until the answerer can provide some background establishing credibility, I have no reason to believe that the answerer has any more insight that I might.

Note that in the sense that the answer does not answer the asker's question, it's not a real answer. It's a rant.

In any case, I suggest it doesn't meet the "be nice" standard, as there are much less offensive ways to say the same thing, and the answerer hasn't even tried to phrase this nicely. I don't care if I'm personally offended, but there is a community standard, in writing. I may or may not agree with it, but via my participation, I signed on to it, and if I didn't want to adhere to that standard, I would stop participating.