An internal report obtained by Newsweek has revealed that the University of Washington actively discriminates against both white and Asian applicants.
The report includes information about a black applicant for a tenure position within the school's psychology department who, despite ranking third in the candidate selection process, was chosen for the tenure-track assistant professor position over more highly qualified white and Asian candidates because the black candidate's skin is much darker than theirs.
The report also talks about how white staff members at the University of Washington are routinely excluded from meetings with job candidates because to include them, especially when the candidate in question is also white, "is just awkward," to quote one racist staff member's assessment of having whites present during candidate meetings.
"The last meeting was uncomfortable, and I would go as far as burdensome for me," this same staff member added about the uncomfortableness of the setup. "Can we change the policy to not do these going forward with White faculty?"
Other alleged crimes taking place at the University of Washington include the school deleting part of a hiring report to conceal its discriminatory policies, as well as discussing strategies to circumvent a recent Supreme Court decision prohibiting affirmative action policies at American colleges and universities.
"I advise deleting the statement below as it shows that URM [underrepresented minority] applications were singled out and evaluated differently than non-URM applications (which is not allowed as [name redacted] noted)," reads a quote from the report about how faculty at UW attempted to cover up the school's unlawful race considerations.
Allowing white women at faculty meetings is "awkward," say black faculty at UW
A UW spokeswoman told Newsweek following a whistleblower complaint about the matter that the dean of the school's College of Arts & Sciences "... requested an internal review of this process by what was then called UCIRO (University Complaints, Investigation and Resolution Office) and is now the Civil Rights Investigation Office."
The result of this process, we are told, is that all psychology faculty at UW are prohibited from hiring any tenured staff members for at least two years. In fact, UW's psychology department has as its priority mission the promoting of social equity "by investigating biased attitudes, inequities and disparities ... by redesigning organizational practice" and "by solving social justice issues."
In a related incident that occurred back in January 2023, five finalists were selected for a tenure-track assistant professor position, all of them scheduled to be interviewed by the Women Faculty and Faculty of Color groups. The Faculty of Color group reportedly refused to allow any white women to attend the meeting because the interviews are "awkward" whenever the candidate is white.
In 1998, Washington state passed a referendum banning race-based hiring at universities. This means UW is currently in violation of both federal and state law as it pertains to discriminatory hiring practices.
Back in March, another person wrote that he or she wanted to hold special Faculty of Color meetings just for candidates of color, but that the recent Supreme Court case, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, prohibited it.
"My inclination is to hold these meetings only for POC [People of Color] candidates," this person wrote in a now-released email.
"I'm also mindful that our Provost is now getting anxious about anything that's directed to only some identity groups (i.e., they are getting worried about fallout from the pending Supreme Court affirmative action rulings). My read is that they'll get fearful of litigation and overcorrect into colorblindness. Maybe our committee can preemptively think our way around this type of future directive."
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