Professors continue push for ‘Merit, Fairness and Equality’ to combat DEI regime

By Jacob Shields - University of Maryland

The College Fix

Aug 12, 2022


Professors aimed to ‘come up with something positive as a goal … rather than to just criticize’


Six professors continue to promote an alternative system to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, called Merit, Fairness and Equality. “In order to protect the integrity of universities it is necessary to offer an alternative to the DEI agenda,” professors Dorian Abbot (pictured), Iván Marinovic, Richard Lowery and Carlos Carvalho wrote in an August 5 post on their Substack blog Heterodox STEM.


The blog post notes that two additional authors contributed to the post, but couldn’t reveal their identities “due to potential retaliation.” Abbot is a geophysicist at the University of Chicago, Marinovic is an accounting professor at Stanford, and Lowery and Carvalho are business professors at the University of Texas at Austin. Abbot and Marinovic created the MFE alternative framework together in October 2021, shortly following a canceled speech to be given by Abbot at MIT. Activists had criticized his past comments on diversity initiatives.


“In MFE all academic decisions are based on academic merit, with no other considerations taken into account,” which “promotes the mission of universities: the production of knowledge,” the authors wrote.


The authors argued that their proposal would promote free speech and viewpoint diversity, writing that “ideas generated need to be judged by the academic community based on their merits, not whether some authority deems them to be ‘disinformation’ or even dangerous.”


“The idea was to try to come up with something positive as a goal that those of us concerned about the academy can work toward,” instead of just criticizing DEI, Abbot told The Fix on August 8.


Later that year, Abbot launched the “Heterodox STEM” Substack, which describes itself as “a forum for open-minded and respectful conversations about issues relevant to the STEM community.” It is now part of one of the communities associated with the Heterodox Academy, an organization dedicated to increasing viewpoint diversity and freedom of thought within universities.


However, educational institutions do not seem primed to make the switch. Richard Lowery told The College Fix via email August 11 that he “can’t comment on whether anyone has expressed interest.”


“Certainly there is zero interest in anything relating to merit, fairness, or equality at UT-Austin, and every single administrator and the vast majority of the faculty are hell-bent on going in the opposite direction,” Lowery said.


Although this new framework has received some traction online, “no one has officially adopted MFE yet,” Abbot told The Fix in an August 11 email. “Many people are concerned about potential biases in evaluations. MFE gives a productive framework to try to deal with those biases that is not fundamentally antagonistic to the pursuit of truth,” Abbot wrote in his email.


“The key point … is that the metric for success is always academic excellence, and the resulting distribution of immutable characteristics among those selected is never taken into account,” the academics wrote in the blog post.


DEI is a ‘utopian ideology,’ authors state. The August 6 post criticized DEI, calling it a “utopian ideology” that violates “the moral principles of treating all human beings equally and not using them as mere instruments to achieve socio-political ends.”


Merit, Fairness and Equality is a more “morally justified approach” than DEI, the authors argue, saying that, “in deference to their individual dignity, each person is treated equally and given an equal shot.”


The professors encouraged widespread adoption of their new framework, writing, “the MFE concept does not belong to us, and we hope that others will adopt it as their own and build on it.”



Professors continue push for ‘Merit, Fairness and Equality’ to combat DEI regime | The College Fix

Challenging One-Sided Discourse and A Call for Academic Integrity

15 May, 2024
Annie Hirshman '24 May 15, 2024 Last year, I took a Political Science course with a certain professor. This was not uncommon for me, as I am a Political Science major. However, for students of different majors, this particular course was required in order to obtain a liberal arts degree from Davidson College. Therefore, this class serves as a lot of students' sole exposure to the political science department. I was in the classroom with a variety of individuals, ranging from the Phi Delt jocks to the studio art majors. This classroom had everything and everyone. Since this was the first time a lot of them had taken a political science course, the dialogue and discourse was somewhat quieter. Therefore, I felt encouraged to speak up in class. I participated often, sharing my opinion on daily issues and historical events that had shaped American politics. I hoped that my voice would encourage others to participate. Sharing my opinion took a turn for the worse on a certain Wednesday morning. As the semester progressed, I noticed that the teacher was only sharing liberal skewed media sources. When they would discuss conservative matters, it had a negative connotation. They often referred to Republican politicians as a whole using derogatory terms, almost asserting that one bad apple was synonymous with the bunch. I discussed what occurred within the classroom numerous times outside, especially with my classmates that were rather conservative. They spoke of how they felt alienated in class, frightened at the outcome if they were to share their opinion. As a natural-born extrovert and rather excited by the idea of questioning the professor, I spoke up. I asked them why they chose to share only liberal-based news sources and strayed from conservative outlets in their journalistic sources. Their answer was short and sweet: because they were the only accurate sources to garner information from. I was shocked and severely taken aback by their statement. Later that day, the professor followed up with an email ‘defending’ their position. Without their intent, they confirmed that they do not “explicitly seek to include conservative outlets”. They spoke of how there was an ongoing movement to tar outlets that were not relatively conservative. They continued that accurate news sources were under attack for liberal alignment when in reality (their opinion), they were honest and true. The professor asserted that Republican politicians were guilty of executive aggrandizement for these efforts. In addition, they asserted that sources such as the New York Times and the Washington Post have been shown to have a very limited liberal bias, if any. As someone who seeks to challenge my own and other’s beliefs, I did some research to see if these statements were accurate or not. I checked multiple sources to see which sources were actually ideologically skewed. The Allsides Media Bias Chart, which collects its information based upon multi-partisan scientific analysis, including expert panels and surveys of thousands of everyday Americans, provided convincing material. It asserted that the New York Times, CNN, and Washington Post all skew left to the same extent that The Wall Street Journal skewed right. In addition, I analyzed the Ad Fontes Chart. In order to analyze their data and rate their sources, their methodology consists of multi-analyst ratings of news sources along seven categories of bias and eight of reliability. Each source is rated by an equal number of politically left-leaning, right-leaning, and centrist analysts. All analysts must hold a bachelor’s degree, while most hold a graduate degree and about one-third have obtained a doctoral degree. It argues that the Wall Street Journal is on the “skews right” section while the Washington Post, New York Times, and CNN are on the “skews left” section. The fact that Davidson supports a professor that only teaches one side is sad but not shocking. This is an ongoing issue at this college. I know for a fact that I am not the sole student who feels this way. Teachers are supposed to teach us how to think, not what to think. Through supporting professors that promote a one-sided discourse, that statement is contradicted daily. Considering that the college routinely refers to the “Davidson Experience” in a positive way, I can’t believe that this is what they have in mind. At the end of the day, solely teaching one side is indoctrination. Davidson, coming from a student who admires and cherishes you, please do better so future generations of students feel both free and encouraged to speak their mind, even if it is different than the majority. Annie Hirshman is a 2024 Graduate of Davidson College with a degree in Political Science.

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