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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.
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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.
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.
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.”