FIX EXCLUSIVES
UPDATED
Several universities relied on ‘diversity checks’ when hiring, investigation finds
Through public records act requests, a conservative scholar has discovered documents — including hiring policies, proposals, reports, and internal emails — that show how officials at several major universities rejected applicant pools with too many white scholars.
Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow John Sailer recently reported that he found administrators have tracked applicant demographics at each stage of the hiring process, with negative consequences for pools that do not meet sufficiently diverse standards.
The paperwork covers incidents at University of Texas at Austin, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Ohio State University and Cornell from between 2021 to 2023.
Media representatives for the universities, in statements this month to The College Fix, argued the incidents took place prior to newly enacted anti-diversity, equity and inclusion laws and policies within GOP-controlled states and the second Trump administration.
But Sailer argues they illustrate the lengths at which universities will go to obfuscate their DEI-hiring practices, and suggests reform-minded watchdogs must continue to be on the lookout for new ways campus leaders may try to skirt today’s policies cracking down on race- and ideology-based hiring practices.
Sailer said what was taking place in recent years was “diversity checks.” This is when administrators receive demographic reports of applicant pools for a certain position to ensure adequate diversity. Administrators may veto or redirect faculty hiring decisions based on the diversity metrics.
Sailer told The College Fix it appeared to be an attempt to skirt laws against outright discrimination. Instead of blatantly saying they were going to hire on the basis of race, universities would disguise it as ensuring the candidate list was sufficiently diverse, a legally ambiguous tactic.
“A lot of these policies are confusing by design. The obfuscation allows university administrators to do whatever they want,” Sailer said.
Sailer, director of higher education policy at the institute, published his findings with screenshots on an X thread as well as in a July 7 piece on the institution’s website titled “How DEI Bureaucrats Control University Hiring.”
NEW: Universities across the U.S. have embraced diversity checkpoints in faculty hiring.
Administrators monitor the demographics of applicants throughout the process, with consequences for searches that don’t “pass muster”—according to a trove of records I’ve obtained.
— John Sailer (@JohnDSailer) July 7, 2025
In it, Sailer highlighted an email from early 2021 in which Carma Gorman, an art history professor at the University of Texas at Austin and the appointed “diversity advocate” for a faculty search committee, requested approval from John Yancey, the associate dean of diversity in the College of Fine Arts, to move forward with a job search.
“I wanted to make sure that the demographics of our pool pass muster,” Gorman had written, noting 21 percent of applicants were from underrepresented minority groups and 28 percent identified as Asian.
Yancey responded that the 21 percent representation of underrepresented minority applicants was sufficient, but warned if most of them were cut, it would undermine the diversity of the group.
”If 20 of the 23 URM applicants are dropped in the early cut, then things don’t look good anymore,” Yancy wrote.
Although Texas in 2023 banned diversity offices and racial preferences in hiring through Senate Bill 17, the embrace of such policies at UT-Austin is entrenched, according to Sailer.
A spokesperson for UT-Austin affirmed the university’s compliance with federal and state DEI laws, including SB 17, which banned DEI practices in public higher education.
“The University took necessary measures to reach compliance with the law and UT System policy. Vigilant on-going efforts are necessary to ensure the University’s continued compliance,” a news release reads.
Asked about Sailer’s findings, campus spokesman Mike Rosen responded to The Fix: “Why are you seeking comment from a university that complies with federal and state (SB17) DEI laws?”
The incident with Gorman took place two years before the law’s passage. She had developed a comprehensive diversity plan for her committee. According to documents Sailer obtained via records requests, her plan called for monitoring demographics at every stage of the search. After an initial review, the committee would have an administrator assess the diversity of the qualified applicant pool.
“Pause again, and look at the demographics of the proposed finalist pool. Is it diverse enough? If not, rethink the pool,” Gorman wrote in an email displayed on Sailer’s thread.
If it wasn’t diverse enough, the committee could revisit previously rejected candidates from underrepresented groups, expand outreach, or even cancel the search entirely. This process would also apply to shortlists and final candidate selection.
Sailer told The Fix universities adopted the practice as a result of grant funding.
“[Universities] applied to federal grants that gave them a lot of money — these are million dollar grants — designed to promote diversity,” he said. “They had to find some way to increase the number of desired minorities on faculty without breaking the law in an obvious way.”
He also published in late June a piece flagging Cornell’s faculty search committees’ “checkpoints to ensure that job candidates were sufficiently ‘diverse.’”
Sailer found evidence of similar procedures at other universities. In years past at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, search committees received weekly updates on the demographic makeup of applicant pools, along with specific diversity goals for each department. If semifinalist or finalist pools were deficient in diversity, administrators could delay or block the search, records show.
“Here is one more diversity of the pool report. Lloud had concerns,” one email read.
Redacted emails among UIUC administrators discuss solutions to inadequate diversity, including adding previously rejected minority candidates back into the shortlist or finalist pools.
At Ohio State University, Dean Susan Olesik said she believed candidate diversity equally important as scholarly qualifications, warning that non-diverse finalist slates would be rejected.
“If the slate of candidates that you bring forward are not diverse, I will ask you to simply keep searching,” Olesik said in a video highlighted by Sailer.
When asked about the video, Benjamin Johnson, a spokesperson for Ohio State, said the university was required to consider diversity during recruitment at the time.
“The video clip is about recruiting, not hiring,” Assistant Vice President for Media and Public Relations at Ohio State Benjamin Johnson told The College Fix in an email. “When it was recorded in 2022, Executive Order 11246 was in effect and federal law required federal contractors, like Ohio State, to make efforts to recruit a diverse pool of candidates.”
Internal communications revealed by Sailer reflect how that policy played out at OSU.
One committee proudly reported having three strong Native American women as finalists, which helped gain approval. Another approval email praised the diversity of the applicant pool.
“Ohio State’s practice has always been to recruit and select the most qualified individuals for faculty positions,” Johnson told The Fix in an email. “In all cases, recruitment and selection activities are guided by a commitment to consider all qualified applicants in compliance with state and federal labor laws.”
“In 2023, the university updated its uniform hiring practices to standardize evaluation tools university wide and exclude the use of required diversity statements except when mandated by federal law, research contracts, and licensure or accreditation,” Johnson said.
But Sailer said he foresees rounds of litigation against universities for violations of civil rights laws.
“The practice is dangerously close to being illegal, if not just outright illegal, depending on who you talk to,” Sailer said.
Editor’s note:The time period has been corrected to 2021-23, not 2001.
MORE: Professor’s lawsuit could end DEI training mandates at AZ universities
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: Man crumples papers / Brian A. Jackson, Shutterstock
