Main Edition
US
FR
October 18, 2024 - 10:00am
This week, the New York Times published a 9,200-word exposé on the University of Michigan’s $250-million investment in DEI. It is a long-overdue vindication for those who have been following the spread of the new McCarthyism on American campuses.
The NYT investigation describes the disturbing degree to which DEI is embedded and concealed within the grinding gears of governance, operating as a kind of Deep State. At Michigan, Leftist administrators, who are even more progressive than the faculty, have devised a parallel faculty hiring system to hire DEI advocates, the Times says, and they run an alternate curriculum that is “taught not in classrooms but in dorms, disciplinary hearings and orientation programs”.
So what does the story tell us about the educated classes’ unhealthy fixation on microaggressions, pronouns, power and privilege? Is the trend line moving downward, as marked by the Times, a liberal bastion that committed months of resources to produce its devastating investigation of the toxic “culture of grievance” at the University of Michigan? Or is the trend line holding steady, as represented by Michigan, an elite institution of higher learning that has doubled down on its DEI commitment in a “sustained act of defiance” against the growing backlash to the excesses of diversity, equity and inclusion?
All across the United States, universities have been defunding DEI, issuing statements of institutional neutrality on divisive issues, and ending the practice of requiring job applicants to commit to diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy as a condition of employment. Parallel developments have taken place in the private sector, with a spate of corporate announcements from companies that are cutting back their DEI programmes.
Some take these developments as a sign that the fever is breaking, and that things are returning back to normal. But we would do well to take a more expansive view: DEI is a huge, entrenched, multi-billion-dollar industry subject to mini boom and bust cycles within a longer upward trajectory. The distinctive features of social justice culture — speech codes (misgendering), activist jargon (sex assigned at birth), the mainstreaming of once-taboo subjects (non-binary pronouns) and advocacy for progressive constituencies (DEI) — are reshaping the nation’s moral landscape. The institutionalisation of DEI is evident in the Equal Employer Opportunity Commission’s declaration this year that “misgendering” a colleague at the office can be a violation of the US Civil Rights Act.
With intersectional identity politics becoming ingrained in laws and institutions, Eric Kaufmann describes woke sensibilities as now occupying “the centre of our moral order”. And that’s likely to continue. According to his survey research, respondents overwhelmingly believe the United States should replace its national anthem to reflect equity and diversity, and Americans and Britons under 25 prioritise preventing “hate speech” over defending free speech by a two-to-one margin. Kaufmann makes a compelling case that this generation will carry its woke values forward when it assumes positions of power and authority in the coming decades.
DEI is built to last. The apparent fluctuations merely mark the change from one cause to the next: MeToo, BLM, trans rights, Palestine. The Times investigation describes the disturbing degree to which the practice is entrenched in our institutions, with DEI administrators involved in hiring faculty, shaping the curriculum, and even teaching their own alternate curriculum in dorms, orientations and disciplinary proceedings.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeDEI can be stopped but it will take some time. I’m a boomer and my children and grandchildren are woke, driven by education and the institutions to leave common sense at the gate. Hopefully my great grandchildren will rebel as they surely must. This madness cannot continue.
DEI is but one form of Critical Constructivism or radical subjectivism. Secular Humanism is relatively powerless to stop people from constructing meaning out of what they’re told is an otherwise meaningless world. So these movements adopt a spiritual framework. But all spiritual frameworks require consensus to be actualized.
The actualization is achieved through institutions of culture, education and eventually politics and bureacracy. This is fine in and of itself so long as the spiritual framework isn’t compulsive. That’s why the Separation of Church and State was so revolutionary in America. It preserved freedom of conscience.
A society committed to freedom of conscience can debate bad ideas out of the mainstream without using using force. It doesn’t shut down sincere belief as a threat to order. Likewise, no belief has to be affirmed as a precondition of existence. This is not achievable in a highly centralized environment where everyone’s risk is pooled together. You need community decentralization of risk to preserve local diversity of culture.
The US has 50 states. They need more autonomy. There’s a Constitution that guards basic rights but local economies need some ability to operate without absolute subservience to the National and “Global Communities.” DEI is holistic and universal. It should be up to individual states to determine what values they want to promote but they can’t do that if they’re hostage to grant money from the Federal Government.
Why should a state (government) decide what values its residents should have? What happens if people’s values are different than the government? What would be the punishment be if they have different values? Would Democrats be punished if they live in a Republican state? Trump repeatedly says he will send the military to liberal cities to restore “law and order.” Never mind the fact that the most violent cities (highest murders) are Republican. In other words, liberal cities must succumb to Trump’s values.
Well I personally fled a blue state for a Red State. If you don’t like the policies, leave. This is difficult for many “normie Democrats” because they actually prefer to live like and around Conservative Republicans because they keep your taxes down and enforce laws against violent crime.
I said a State should “promote” values not “decide.” Every State promotes a system of values. Maybe it’s “neighborliness and tolerance” like Minnesota or “Don’t mess with Texas” or “Live Free or Die” like New Hampshire. The promotion of values sets forth the cultural condition of the local economy.
What you guys are doing with Universalism is entangling the whole economy into an Equity agenda. It integrates everyone into a redistributionary system that inflates the cost of living and creates excessive government interference in the economy. Its also a system that shuns excellence and rewards quota systems. A recipe for massive debt and inefficiency.
The main job of the federal government is to keep the country safe. Its not to tinker in the daily lives of citizens. If people in an American city are being terrorized by violent riots then there is an obligation to stop them. Republican cities are not leading any murder numbers. That’s just inaccurate “Misinformation.” Its extremely liberal (actually illiberal) cities in red states driving those numbers.
Please name one “Republican” city with a high murder rate. I’m truly interested.
I don’t think it’s correct to claim that U.S. states lack autonomy. In many ways they are like 50 little fiefdoms already. Several states execute people in a seemingly eager way; several have no death penalty. Some allow abortions under almost any circumstances, others under almost none.
What further autonomy would you grant them: To “opt out” of federal laws or choose their own president?
Some things need to remain centralized for the word “united” to be anything more than a bad joke. You can’t have an annual anti-left purge in Trumpissippi and an anti-right one in Kamalafornia. I know you’re not advocating anything like that but I don’t think any sensible level of States Rights is currently lacking here in America.
California has many Republican areas. The Imperial Valley, San Diego ( It may have gone blue since I lived there—1993-1996. (:Lots of military). Orange County, the San Joaquin Vally, the Mojave Desert to Nevada, the Sacramento Valley, and the entire area north of Chico to the border with Oregon.
As a California resident since 1978, I recognize that. I think electoral votes should be divided on the Nebraska model so that it’s less of zero-sum game in a state like Mississippi or California, where it’s the same net result whether 51 or 70 percent vote for the pretty much certain winner.
Federal grant money and statutory obligations are so entangled into state education that even the reddest states are hostage to the federal government. States like Oklahoma and Tennessee have been trying to untangle for a year or so but the amount of legal barriers and compliance costs to exit makes it nearly impossible.
It’s not unlike Fortune 500 companies and pension funds that are entangled by federal regulations and requirements. They’re all essentially federal contractors anyways. When a huge chunk of your business is government contracts or government subsidies you’re basically a government entity. It’s why there are so many corporate lobbyists in Washington.
I understand your point on the regulation front. There needs to be a grounding center between the suffocating red tape of far lefties and the corporate free rein to pollute and monopolize excused by some on the libertarian right.
On the other hand: While I know you usually come armed with facts and strong arguments, you’d have to show key me examples of state education strictures at the federal level to persuade me of your claim about education policy. Texas & Florida on one side and California & Oregon on the other can teach just about what they want how they want. Do you think there should be no federal oversight, or a single governor allowed to single-handedly impose any curriculum in the supposed interest of the Peoples’ Liberty— with no plebiscite?
I’m not saying there isn’t any onerous federal education policy here but compared to nearly any other Western country—many of which have objectively superior public schools on average—the U.S. is pretty wide open state by state. Or maybe I’m still not getting what you mean in particular.
I appreciate that you didn’t strawman and comprehended what I said. I could, I guess throw articles at you showing excessive entanglement…but I think the reality is pretty clear; there are too many federal laws. Any Social Contract requires that the plebs comprehend the rules set by the Aristocracy.
I’m not against “Elites.” Any functioning society requires them. I’m no fan of George Will but he was right when he said “its just a question of which elites will be chosen.” Equity just means special accommodations. When you create a federal equity system it means you’re throwing out fairness to achieve fairness. I ts a bad way of creating an “elite.”
Do you just want to see what Oklahoma or Tennessee has to comply with?
Fair enough. I am a mild fan of George Will, though I often disagree with him. Do you dislike W.F. Buckley too?
I’ll take a look at the latest entanglements in Oklahoma and Tennessee if you wanna link or point me to them.
My only beef with Will and Buckley is the extent of their cold rationalism. Cold rationalism can’t appropriately weigh facts into a value equation. There’s not enough time in a life to weigh the value of each fact. AI can’t do this either. It can only compile facts.
The world is understood through a story or narrative. There’s a balance between idealism and cold rationalism that has to be sincerely sought.
That a fair criticism, especially with Will. Buckley could be quite passionate and emotional, not always in an appealing way. You might like the documentary Best of Enemies (2015) about the intellectual and kind of personal rivalry between Buckley and Gore Vidal.
Thanks! Sounds interesting. I’m not super familiar with Buckley. I just know the ideas he coined. Will I’ve actually watched.
Btw- This is the article that got my wheels spinning on state/federal entanglement. I’m obviously on the opposite side of the author here. While I do appreciate his points about the oil and gas lobby, there’s a crucial difference in that it at least oil and gas helps produce abundance. What the author wants does not.
https://prospect.org/economy/2024-10-17-leveraging-money-power/
Informative article. I can see your point in certain respects and I’d say I’m somewhere in the middle of the author’s stance and what I take yours to be (how convenient eh?)
My home province of Alberta enjoys the economic abundance that oil and natural gas bring, along with the market volatility and some horrific blight in the Fort MacMurray region know as the Tar Sands. When they can extract 115 dollars for every 100 spent (I think that’s the threshold, I might be off a bit) they’ll do it at almost any environmental cost.
We need a middle ground between the too-ambitious Net Zero and Drill Baby Drill.
The idea that enforced diversity is not enforced for its own sake is a bit suspicious, especially in a time when many are practicing DEI extremism. But I do think a corporate board of all white men should be a thing of the past—and probably is. I’d have similar misgivings about an all black Muslim or all Asian female corporation—but can you show me one?
Some pressure can be justly applied, especially when we are talking about big corporation and not cottage industries or small companies. But both the left and right need to clip their wings in terms of things like the (unsuccessful) cancel attempts that occurred with Chick-Fil-A and Bud Light.
Mr. Murawski conflates causes and strategies (“the practice”), two different contexts.
It’s an effective rhetorical strategy because it allows him to dump social movements he doesn’t like into one tainted basket. Even if he didn’t do it consciously, the effect is the same.
His singular, overt concern appears to be about “the excesses,” strategies which arise from a “fever,” whereby causes are “embedded and concealed within…governance.”
That’s a limited and reasonable critique. Sneaky authoritarianism deserves condemnation, and his warning about its longevity is a fair point.
However, the strategy described — “the excesses” born of a “fever” — does not necessarily mean that the causes are without merit. Mr. Murawski conceals a more expansive agenda than he admits, the same kind of strategy and attitude he deplores.
The causes themselves are not necessarily a problem. There is not necessarily anything wrong with “reshaping the nation’s moral landscape,” if reshaping it would make for a healthier society, not to mention improving conditions in other countries given U.S. influence. 1960’s activists sought to change the way we see the world, to cut through propaganda. This led to a moral advance, countering propaganda.
Advocacy for Palestinian rights is in that tainted basket, but that cause precedes by many decades the current fixation on identity politics and its heavy-handed strategies. Moreover, the cause of Palestine has hardly been “embedded and concealed within…governance.” Administrators have blatantly cracked down on that advocacy, in large part due to pressure from wealthy donors. Whatever one thinks about the cause of Palestine, putting it in the tainted basket is a deceptive strategy that relies on guilt-by-association.
Yes, presumably all those whiny DEI women who posted under the banner of MeToo because they’d been raped should have just shut up.
Still, it’s nice to see a good word from right-wing zealots for “the failing New York Times.”
Geoff, you’ve misread.
Anyone who knows me would laugh at the idea that I am a “right wing zealot.” On the Unherd board I’ve been called basically the opposite several times. These terms should be avoided; they bypass reason straight to mindless tribal hostility.
That kind of conditioned non-think leads to the problem identified by Mr. Murawski — “the excesses,” the strategies which arise from a “fever,” whereby causes are “embedded and concealed within…governance.”
Again: to that point, he presented a limited and reasonable critique. But it shouldn’t be controversial to note that the creation of strategies dominated by even a zealous few can result in backlash, though the cause may have great merit. And it shouldn’t be outrageous to find that Mr. Murawski conflates (poor) strategy with their causes, lumping them all together.
We can probably all think of causes we consider worthy that have been hijacked by zealots and given an unjustly deserved bad name.
I’ve applied reason in considering the piece. I’ve set out my terms openly, for anyone to critique in-kind. But in response, you reflexively throw ad hominems. Who is more the zealot?
You got DEI’d
One of my favorite things is when liberals discover something they for years have been lambasting conservatives for noticing and then pretend they have unearthed some brand new truth.
The only thing that will kill DEI is its own excesses and even then, it will be rebranded as something else. That has already been done. Race-based preferences were previously known as affirmative action. In a darker time, racially exclusive laws were called Jim Crow. The broad idea never changes; the only shift is in which racial groups are punished or privileged.
Crushing poverty or a war will end it. Both seem highly probable at this time.
I used to teach there, so I’m happy that some light is being shined on this divisive nonsense. All the same, I wonder whether it will wither away with so many young students forced to submit to it. After years of indoctrination, it will be hard for them to shake off the idiocy. The DEI industry is really a parasite on a host.
Agreed. And making a pile of money while being a parasite.
I wonder what $250 million could do to improve the university? More money for scientific research? More equipment for the research? Better libraries? A lot of things for sure. Personally, I think DEI was created by gender studies students who were otherwise unemployable.
In a galaxy far away, an exactly comparable frenzy overtook the subjects of Biology and Agronomy between the end of the 1930s and the early 1960s: it was led by the charlatan Trofim Lysenko, and came to be called the Lysenkovshchina. Although its particular bullshit disappeared from academic language by the 1970s, the period of its dominance poisoned the country’s scientific establishment such that the USSR contributed virtually nothing to the research in molecular biology that revolutionized all of Biology everywhere else in the world in the second half of the 20th century. Our own DEIshchina may have a similar effect on many different fields of academic endeavor for the next 40 years.
My employer – 8000 employees – went from anti-woke to woke overnight during the pandemic.
Our CEO used to send out missives bemoaning stuff like gender ideology. Today we have online training courses for DEI. Unless you tick the right gender critical boxes you fail the course!
Certainly won’t ‘put a Man on the moon’. An old saying.
The first thing that must happen before vanquishing an enemy is to clearly identify the enemy. The second is to be committed to the fight to eradicate the enemy.
It appears that most of us now understand who the enemy is. The fight to eradicate DEI, which is nothing more than an amalgamation of race activism and Marxist doctrine, will take time. Probably a generation.
In order for the fight to begin in ernest, it is crucial to have warriors against DEI doctrine to be voted into the White House and appointed to the Presidents cabinet, and start the process of dismantling the Left’s infiltration into our public institutions.