What document may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution, Title VII and the 1964 Civil Rights Act? If you guessed the initial draft of Guilford’s new faculty hiring policy, you’re correct.On Wednesday September 12th the faculty met to discuss and possibly revise this controversial policy.

The initial draft, as written by the Clerks Committee, helped to explain the rationale of a policy in which African-Americans will receive the highest priority in faculty hiring, followed by Native Americans and then Hispanics/Latinos.

“Guilford seeks to become an institution in which there is shared meaning from a multi-cultural, non-racist perspective, in which diversity in culture, lifestyle, and spiritually are honored and affirmed, and in which full participation from all members of the community at all levels is promoted,”according to the new draft.

Faculty such as David Barnhill, Dana Professor of Religious Studies and Intercultural Studies, had major objections to the proposed policy. Barnhill stated in an online discussion devoted to the topic, “In particular, I can imagine a department that does not have a female faculty member but feels a very strong need to hire one. With this proposal, can a department claim that for this particular search, gender diversity is a bigger priority than the type of diversity in the proposal?”Lisa McLeod, assistant professor of Philosophy, despite being a staunch proponent of the policy, said that from a legal perspective, “our proposed hiring policy, in paying explicit attention to race, may run afoul of current interpretations both of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and/or Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Acts.”

After faculty members raised a variety of objections to the policy, the Clerks Committee led by Jonathan Malino, Professor of Philosophy, decided to explore and revise the current draft again in hopes that the faculty can come together in their support of the new policy.