Dedicated students, distinguished colleagues and dear friends,

Happy Friday!

I feel compelled, and frankly duty bound, to answer the “calls” that I received after my message last Friday in which I highlighted that as we retire DEI terminologies, we continue to adhere to “our most sacred values of teamwork, individual respect and merit-based fairness.” I went on to emphasize that “we will not renege on our commitment to ensure that our university remains a destination of choice for faculty, staff and students from broad and diverse backgrounds.”

As you can read verbatim for yourself, I have received responses from many who either agreed or disagreed with the message depending on their perspectives, interpretations and even feelings. Some simply reacted to the title. The message, however, was intended to highlight our steadfast commitment to admitting and hiring meritoriously, to providing access unbiasedly and to engaging everyone inclusively. Understandably, some feelings have been hurt by the message for which I am sincerely sorry. But as Walter Lippmann famously said, “if what is right and wrong depends on what each individual feels, then we are outside the bounds of civilization.”

For the first time in my years of messaging and responding individually to all who reply, I decided to publish ALL responses to last week’s message (after deleting identifying information) to highlight the complexity and depth of reactions. If you read and reflect on the responses, keep in mind that as a publicly funded institution, we follow all federal (SCOTUS and Title IX) and state laws as a part of our compliance obligations. Otherwise, we will lose all federal and state funding and won’t be able to deliver our mission to anyone.

In the end, I want to assure all who responded that we are cognizant that diversity is a fact of life, the case for holistic impact has been made repeatedly and we must be committed to take advantage of the broadest sets of skills with or without a forcing function. We also know that we must cultivate and enhance everyone’s sense of belonging by including all views and perspectives, and, in times of change like now, we must generously pay careful attention to the anxieties of our most vulnerable constituents. In the words of Simone Weil, “attention is the purest form of generosity.”

I hope this answers the “calls,” and I hope for us to be able to successfully transition to a world where DEI terminologies are not needed to continue our journey together, all of us, without any artificial barriers or incentives, because there is more, much more work ahead.

And in this spirit, I want to acknowledge the contributions of everyone on Employee Appreciation Day today, and call attention to our upcoming expanded celebration of staff being planned for May.

Warmly,

-Mo.

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Mohammad Dehghani, PhD
Chancellor
mo@mst.edu | 573-341-4116

206 Parker Hall, 300 West 13th Street, Rolla, MO 65409-0910
chancellor.mst.edu