(LifeSiteNews) – Two Benedictine Catholic universities in Minnesota quietly scrubbed Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI) requirements from an online job solicitation after public attention.
Campus Reform reported that Saint John’s University and the College of Saint Benedict published a joint posting seeking a visiting assistant professor in political science that specifically listed “Demonstrated commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion” as a required qualification.
DEI normally includes affirmation and “representation” of homosexuality and transgenderism, which are fundamentally at odds with Catholic teaching, and more generally its emphasis on identity-based divisions and grievances often leads to conflict with traditional Christian morality. Yet the schools in question have adopted “ambitious goals to embed Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice principles into the core fabric of the institutions” in their joint DEIJ Strategic Plan.
That plan defines “diversity” as the “presence of the range of human differences, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, social class, physical ability or attributes, religious or ethical values system, national origin, and political beliefs. It is the lived experience with ‘the other’ in our midst.” It recognizes sex as “assigned at birth,” and considers privilege an “unearned advantage that comes from historical oppression of other groups.”
Campus Reform reached out to school officials about the matter and received no reply. But within 24 hours of the inquiry, the posting was edited to remove the DEI requirement.
A spokesperson for CSB/SJU College Democrats did respond to defend the posting. “Mirroring the values of the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, we also believe in cultivating an equitable, inclusive community founded on respect for all persons,” the statement said.
American institutions of higher education, even many that are private and/or nominally religious, have long been recognized as heavily dominated by left-wing bias and historical revisionism, conditioning students to reject religion, traditional morality, and free markets, and to view America as a uniquely malignant force in the world, a society systemically rigged against the poor and minority groups. These past few weeks, the extent of the bias has been illustrated by the alarming number of professors who have publicly mocked or celebrated the murder of populist influencer Charlie Kirk.
The toll of such an activist bent often extends well beyond politics. Last year, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.
