https://www.nationalreview.com/2024/05/dei-on-the-run/

🌈 Abstract

The article discusses the retreat of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the United States, particularly in higher education institutions. It highlights the efforts by Republican lawmakers to restrict DEI practices, the decline in DEI-related job postings, and the pushback against DEI initiatives at universities like the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Florida.

🙋 Q&A

[01] The Retreat of DEI Initiatives

1. What are the key points about the retreat of DEI initiatives?

• Republican lawmakers in several states have passed laws restricting the use of discriminatory hiring practices and racial/ideological litmus tests in schools
• The Supreme Court found that explicitly racially conscious college admissions were unconstitutional
• Private enterprises have started reducing their funding and support for DEI initiatives
• The counterattack against DEI has compelled the activist class to retreat to higher education as their final redoubt

2. How have universities responded to the pushback against DEI?

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Board of Trustees voted to cut funding for the school's DEI initiatives and divert the $2.3 million to public safety and policing departments
• The University of Florida announced that it had closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminated DEI positions and appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors

3. What is the author's view on the DEI ideology?

• The DEI framework establishes a racial hierarchy and sorts Americans into oppressed and oppressor camps, which is seen as the same implicit prejudice that has led to the conflation of Israelis, Zionists, and Jews
• The DEI ideology prescribes negative as well as positive discrimination to right perceived historical wrongs, and justifies antisocial conduct in the pursuit of a "perverted notion of justice"

[02] The Pushback Against DEI in Higher Education

1. How are prestigious private universities responding to the pushback against DEI?

• Massachusetts Institute of Technology president Sally Kornbluth confirmed that the school would no longer impose "diversity statements" on prospective hires, as they impinge on freedom of expression and do not work

2. What is the author's view on the use of diversity statements in academia?

• Diversity statements amount to the imposition of ideological litmus tests on faculty and non-faculty administrators, compelling them to pledge their fealty to conceptual frameworks they may not subscribe to
• These "voluntary contributions" are actually mandatory and prohibitive obstacles to employment if the questionnaires produce a "wrong answer"

3. What is the author's overall assessment of the DEI experiment?

• The DEI experiment did not start amid the 2020 revolutionary upheavals, but its widespread adoption accompanied that spasm of national self-flagellation
• The rollback of DEI has been a slower process, but a welcome and healthy one, as DEI is frankly incompatible with the American ethos