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[tintern]

Let's keep this hypothetical for now.  If a department were told by the administration that the only possibility for an additional tenure-track position would be if the department independently found a promising candidate from an under-represented group.  In other words, the department could not conduct a traditional search -- in particular, there would be no job announcements.

Based on national statistics, there are not an overwhelming number of Ph.D.'s in this discipline who would classify themselves in an under-represented group.  The department members ask their friends and colleagues at other institutions for suggestions, but few possibilities are forthcoming.

What would be the logical next step for this department?

[yellowtractor]

This actually happened at my last school, though in another department.  Because the search was unadvertised, the department depended on internal nominations and contacted potential candidates directly.

What else can you do?  I'm not sure.  If the search is unadvertised, then you must rely on your and your colleagues' knowledge of the field.  What else is there?  If you can't come up with appropriate candidate(s), then perhaps your collective field of professional acquaintance isn't large enough.  Or perhaps the demographics of your field really do make this difficult.  Either way, you'll be forced either to cough up some names or else abandon this strategy for obtaining a new tenure-track line, at least for the present.

[maybe]

I'm going to re-pick up this thread and possibly hijack it.

Let's stay sort of hypothetical here.
 
A close friend (who could qualify as a diversity candidate -but you wouldn't know this form hu's name) recently applied to a job.  Hu was very qualified for this job but didn't get an interview.  I know someone on the hiring committee.  I can speak frankly to this person.  I asked this person why my friend didn't get an interview.  My colleague on the hiring committee said ("and you're not supposed to repeat this") that the department was told by the administration that they could hire only if their finalists were diversity candidates.  My question:  how could the committee tell on paper if they were diversity candidates?  Answer:  they were guessing at names, or excluding people on the basis of their names, or from {missing} professional associations, scholarship interests, etc...

This was a national search, advertised on the Chronicle's website, and the ad did not indicate any minority preference other than the typical AA disclaimer. 

My question is:  Is it common/uncommon for a school to run a national ad but then direct search committees to hire only for diversity?  Is it legal?  My colleague on the search committee is paranoid that word will get out about this.  Should hu be worried?

Anyone have similar experiences or insightful insights to share?

[tuxedo_cat]

Administrators on many campuses are constitutionally idiotic about how to bring "diverse" candidates into their faculty ranks, so yes, this sort of thing, or some crazy variation on it, happens very often.  Yes, such things could probably be investigated for violating hiring practices, but I would say that it's very unlikely that this will happen.  In any case, it is terribly disrespectful to all job candidates to do things in this way.

[polly_mer]

Yes, people should be worried about that getting out because searches cannot legally be based on excluding people who don't fit the desired characteristic of an EEOC/AA category.

Making a special effort to have a pool with extra people from some category is fine.  Stating categorically that only people who fall into the proper checkbox on the EEOC/AA form will be interviewed is illegal, regardless of what checkbox the school wants to use.  If any written documents get out so that someone can prove a case, that school can be sued for discrimination.

[locutus]

Administrators on many campuses are constitutionally idiotic about how to bring "diverse" candidates into their faculty ranks, so yes, this sort of thing, or some crazy variation on it, happens very often. 

This sounds like what's wrong with a lot of diversity efforts in a nut shell. The goals are perhaps admirable, but there's little thought into the process.

[tuxedo_cat]

Administrators on many campuses are constitutionally idiotic about how to bring "diverse" candidates into their faculty ranks, so yes, this sort of thing, or some crazy variation on it, happens very often. 

This sounds like what's wrong with a lot of diversity efforts in a nut shell. The goals are perhaps admirable, but there's little thought into the process.

And then the subsequent problem is that when this idiocy is exposed, or even talked about (as in here -- no quarrel with the recent poster), it potentially taints the efforts of institutions that are trying to hire more diverse faculty through a process that is actually legal and has integrity.

[msparticularity]

Administrators on many campuses are constitutionally idiotic about how to bring "diverse" candidates into their faculty ranks, so yes, this sort of thing, or some crazy variation on it, happens very often. 

This sounds like what's wrong with a lot of diversity efforts in a nut shell. The goals are perhaps admirable, but there's little thought into the process.

And then the subsequent problem is that when this idiocy is exposed, or even talked about (as in here -- no quarrel with the recent poster), it potentially taints the efforts of institutions that are trying to hire more diverse faculty through a process that is actually legal and has integrity.

I think the deeper problem is that there genuinely are many departments who have only interviewed and hired male WASPs for generation upon generation. Thanks to the racism/sexism that is still embedded in so many institutions (generational lack of genuine access, for example), these departments have consistently been able to make the case that the white male is the "best qualified" and/or provides the "best fit" for departmental needs. I put these in quotes because the very way in which they are defined perpetuates and reifies institutional racism and sexism.

The real solution, of course, is to more comprehensively examine job descriptions and qualifications for these embedded assumptions. Lacking the skills and resources to do this, way too many deans and diversity directors shortcut it by telling departments that their next set of interviews and hire will absolutely not be approved unless they are "diversity" candidates.And yeah, this feeds the illegitimacy instead of correcting the injustice.

[helpful]

I wonder if the OP is talking about a particular branch of engineering that is required to hire more women as there are now many more women engineers, but the dept. right now is a bastion of males.

[larryc]

A close friend (who could qualify as a diversity candidate -but you wouldn't know this form hu's name) recently applied to a job.  Hu was very qualified for this job but didn't get an interview.  I know someone on the hiring committee.  I can speak frankly to this person.  I asked this person why my friend didn't get an interview.  My colleague on the hiring committee said ("and you're not supposed to repeat this") that the department was told by the administration that they could hire only if their finalists were diversity candidates.  My question:  how could the committee tell on paper if they were diversity candidates?  Answer:  they were guessing at names, or excluding people on the basis of their names, or from {missing} professional associations, scholarship interests, etc...

And the lesson here is that if you any sort of minority you should spell in out on your vita and cover letter!

As to the original question, is there a [Minority X] professional organization you could contact?

[shrek]

And the lesson here is that if you any sort of minority you should spell in out on your vita and cover letter!

As to the original question, is there a [Minority X] professional organization you could contact?

One way is to network like crazy. Seek out the folks who might qualify, check out their work at conferences, get to know them. If they're good then recruit like crazy. You want to recruit someone who will be good for your department not just a color. Also, you don't want someone to feel that you're recruiting them for their color either.