New York, NY; April 25, 2025—The National Association of Scholars (NAS) has just published a new report titled Ideological Insistence: A Quantitative Study of DEI Statements in American University Job Listings, written by Research Fellows Louis Galarowicz and Mason Goad. This report chronicles and quantifies the persistent commitment to "diversity, equity, and inclusion" (DEI) by colleges and universities in their hiring practices—popularized through the use of “diversity statements.”
“Our universities are notorious for compelling speech, be it through Title IX or the use of diversity statements and other mandatory commitments to DEI,” said NAS president Peter W. Wood. “These compulsory commitments harm our higher education institutions by crippling the search for truth and intruding on the basic American ideals of liberty.”
Ideological Insistence builds upon the previous work NAS has done over the years to expose and combat the aggressive spread of DEI throughout higher education. This ideology has crept its way out of the classroom into the sciences, positions of academic power, and even hiring practices writ large, encroaching upon learning and research, and the core missions of institutions of higher education.
“Many schools have ended their use of diversity statements in recent months due to pressure from the federal government,” said report author Louis Galarowicz. “Even if all of our universities abandoned the use of diversity statements or other DEI hiring practices today, DEI’s legacy will persist for a generation. Renewed efforts to compel speech or create ideological litmus tests will likely continue to plague academia.”
This report quantifies the prevalence of diversity statements by surveying open positions, from the janitors to the deans, on the job boards of 98 public universities across 11 states, as well as on the job boards of the eight Ivy League universities and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. For this study, NAS researchers assembled a dataset of more than 23,000 advertised job listings. Our dataset, to our knowledge, is the single largest study of diversity statements—of ideological insistence—at American universities. Diversity statements in hiring practices inherently weed out qualified applicants who are opposed to the discriminatory tenets of DEI—tenets such as discriminating based on race, sex, or other characteristics to correct “disparities” and promote “equity.” Colleges and universities that engage in such hiring practices, conditioned upon commitment to diversity, have effectively thrown the ideals of liberty, individual merit, and equal opportunity out the window.
“Policymakers should act to ensure reform. States can lead the way by banning DEI practices and conditioning state funding upon compliance with such bans. Further action by the federal government could continue the work to protect job applicants in all sectors of the economy from being compelled to assent to, or even mimic enthusiasm for, the race-discrimination policies of DEI,” concluded Galarowicz.
NAS is a network of scholars and citizens united by a commitment to academic freedom, disinterested scholarship, and excellence in American higher education. Membership in NAS is open to all who share a commitment to these broad principles. NAS publishes a journal and has state and regional affiliates. Visit NAS at www.nas.org.
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If you would like more information about this issue, please contact Chance Layton at [email protected].
P.S. If you are in the New York City area, we would love to see you at our in person report launch event of Ideological Insistence featuring higher education experts! The event will take place at 3 pm ET, today at NAS’s New York City office. We’d also like to offer you a discounted ticket to the event—to receive the discount, either use the code NAS_INVITE at checkout or register at this link.
Photo by Beck & Stone
