Both of them may be overstating the change.

It may be that, contra Hurley and Thorne, the new language will have no appreciable effect on academic governance at Pomona, that faculty members will cast votes for or against tenure based on their own judgment about whether it is deserved, regardless of new criteria added to the relevant part of faculty handbooks.

Still, the change is worthy of closer examination, because a great many students at the college chose this cause, for better or worse, as a focus of their social-justice activism.

Prior to the vote, roughly 400 Pomona students had signed a petition urging the change—this on a campus where there are only about 1,600 students total. They declared:

We are extremely encouraged and hopeful to hear that you are considering the incorporation of the ability of professors to foster "inclusive classrooms that support diversity and equity outcomes" into your criteria for promotion and tenure.

At the same time, an opponent of the change emailed me, knowing that I’m an alumnus, to solicit my opinion, writing, “I can tell right away that this will cause a freeze on intellectual curiosity and make it more difficult for young professors to do good work. The wording is far too vague, and it will probably be used ad hoc by aggrieved students as a way to depose professors. And this is coming from a student of color...”

He urged me to publicly oppose the proposal.

I needed more information before taking any side. On the one hand, Pomona is a residential teaching college with small classes where professors are deliberately chosen for their ability to excel in the classroom. As an undergraduate, I benefited tremendously from faculty members who were inclusive toward me despite not sharing my politics. Professors Brown, (Paul) Hurley, Creighton, Bok, Menefee-Libey, (Valerie) Thomas, and others ran intellectually generous classrooms and office hours where I could thrive even as (unbeknownst to them) my campus journalism drew a few threats from fellow students and ideological hostility from one administrator and a few faculty members. I know the value of inclusivity and the cost of its absence; I want my alma mater to strive for racial, religious, socio-economic, and intellectual diversity; and I believe that every undergraduate, regardless of identity, should be treated with respect and encouraged to participate in classes.

What’s more, everything I know about Pomona leads me to believe that tenure would already be denied to a professor known to single out members of a particular group for abusive treatment, and I can see why faculty members might have found it tempting to vote for the new language as a symbolic show of support for already-entrenched campus values.

On the other hand, the whole thing is rather vague. What were students who alleged “unsafe classroom environments” taking about? What exactly does it mean to be “attentive to diversity in the student body”? Beyond being a place where all students are encouraged to participate, what creates or spoils “an inclusive classroom”? What consequences, intended or not, might this new language have?