CUNY Overlooks Ideological Discrimination.

I cross posted this on the NAS Blog:

The City of University of New York is conducting a survey concerning discrimination with respect to protected classes under the Civil Rights Act and sexual orientation. I sent an e-mail to the individual in charge of the survey. The e-mail says in part:

In my opinion you omitted a greater source of unfair discrimination than any that you covered, albeit one that is not covered under the Civil Rights Act: discrimination on the basis of ideology. Ideological discrimination has effects that are similar to the discrimination that you cover. Better candidates are excluded. Students receive only one point of view, attenuating their education. Promotion decisions are made on the basis of ideology rather than ability. By discriminating against a large segment of New York’s population CUNY puts itself at odds with that segment.

I urge CUNY to investigate the extent and scope of ideological discrimination in faculty personnel decision making.

I was delighted that the affirmative action attorney who is conducting the survey (who used to work at Brooklyn College and now is in the central CUNY office)wrote:

Hello,

I hope all is well at Brooklyn.  Thanks for taking the survey and I appreciate your feedback.  This very issue was raised today in a meeting when we discussed how to define "diversity."

Best,

Jennifer