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The University of Nebraska at Lincoln is planning to hire a diversity director, much to the dismay of Nebraska state senator Steve Erdman.
The Washington Post reported Thursday that Erdman suggested the addition of a diversity director at the University of Nebraska would disadvantage white men.
“While nobody I know advocates for racial, gender or sexual orientation discrimination, we should still ask why NU needs a vice chancellor for diversity and inclusion, if not to impose favoritism upon these groups,” Erdman wrote in a letter to constituents.
He also espoused that a diversity director will result in less qualified faculty and “that every word spoken by white Christian conservative males at the school will be excruciatingly scrutinized against the backdrop of the new vice chancellor’s extremist progressive worldview.”
Hank Bounds, president of the University of Nebraska, told the Post he was “shocked and deeply saddened” when he read the letter.
“For any elected official to champion these kinds of dangerous views only serves to damage our great state and our ability to recruit and retain the top talent that will grow Nebraska for the future,” he told the Post.
Democratic state senators Anna Wishart and Adam Morfeld have come out in favor of the new position. Kwame Dawes, chairman of the search committee for the position, told the Post that Erdman’s concerns were unrealistic.
“I think he’s constructed his own ideas of what the position is,” Dawes said. “Those scenarios that he created have nothing to do with it."
