Authenticity Is Wrong Standard for Faculty Hiring (opinion)

"Academic hiring has never been free of interpretive judgment. Search committees routinely weigh intangibles (e.g., “fit,” “potential” and “collegiality”) alongside more concrete indicators such as publications and teaching experience. Recently, however, one term has begun to carry disproportionate evaluative weight in faculty searches: authenticity. Merriam-Webster chose “authentic” as its 2023 word of the year, and advocating for authenticity has been on the rise, reflecting our anxiety about presenting the self and how it is perceived and judged by others."

"Both the word and the sentiment it conveys are pervasive in the advice literature on job applications, which often encourages applicants to “get personal” and “embrace your true self.” In professional academic settings, candidates are also praised for sounding “genuine,” faulted for seeming “performative” and assessed on whether their teaching or research statements feel like expressions of a “true” intellectual self. This shift may appear benign, even ethically motivated, but in practice, it is deeply flawed."

"It is a perception, filtered through the cultural biases and institutional norms of those doing the judging. What reads as authentic to one committee member may register as evasive or calculated to another. What one committee member reads as warmth or conviction might read to another as artifice or affectation. And what feels “authentic” in one discipline can feel out of place in another. The result is that authenticity judgments risk favoring familiarity over fairness."

"As they don't always rest on evidence, these judgments emerge from unexamined expectations about tone, narrative and self-presentation strategies, but such expectations are"

Academic hiring has long involved interpretive judgment, using both concrete indicators and intangibles like fit, potential, and collegiality. Recently, authenticity has gained disproportionate evaluative weight in faculty searches. Merriam-Webster selected “authentic” as its 2023 word of the year, and advice for job applications increasingly urges candidates to get personal and embrace their true self. Candidates are praised for sounding genuine and faulted for seeming performative, with teaching and research statements judged as expressions of a true intellectual self. Authenticity functions as a tacit criterion that is neither stable nor accountable, varying by cultural biases and institutional norms. It can favor familiarity over fairness because it often lacks evidence and rests on unexamined expectations about tone, narrative, and self-presentation.

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