Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
DEI Is an Attack on Campus Free Speech
Jonathan Haidt is a professor at NYU, an acknowledged leader in social psychology and a champion of free speech. He recently faced a requirement that all scholars wishing to present research to the Society for Personality and Social Psychology were to submit a statement explaining “whether and how this submission advanced the equity, inclusion, and antiracism goals of SPSP.”
He resigned instead. This was no small sacrifice, but Haidt takes his principles seriously. Moreover, as he pointed out on his way out the door, “most academic work has nothing to do with diversity.”
Scholars working, for example, on ultra-bright nano-structured photo emission electron studies would be required to present their “anti-racist” bona fides. Academics in all disciplines, as well as administrators, would be forced to “betray their quasi-fiduciary duty to the truth by spinning, twisting, or otherwise inventing some tenuous connection to diversity.”
This is not just another quibble among pointy-headed academics. Refusing jobs to dissenters is meant to quash the last remnant of open debate in American higher education.
Our universities, particularly the elite, were once celebrated as sanctuaries for unpopular ideas, where free discourse was sacrosanct and none need face fear of censure over doctrinal disputes.
But when the Left achieved numerical domination in most universities over recent decades, their mindset evolved into rooting out the few dissenters in their midst, or, better yet, blocking them from getting a job in the first place.
The reason so-called anti-racists feel justified in forcing their views into unrelated disciplines, such as the hard sciences, is that they view the entire world through the lens of race. Ibram S. Kendi, the leading proponent of anti-racism, writes, “there is no such thing as a non-racist or race-neutral policy.”
Their opinions on everything from raising taxes (good) to merit-based promotion in schools (bad) are race-based. It follows that if you disagree with their views, then you’re a racist.
The philosophy of anti-racism is profoundly anti-education and anti-merit. Colleges and universities are less and less committed to the search for truth or the transmission of knowledge. Instead, they are in thrall to the endless dictates of the ironically titled “social justice” bureaucracy.
DEI offices larger than many academic departments (and better paid) are now sprouting in the halls of academia. One-quarter of all universities now mandate DEI statements from job applicants and 40% more are considering jumping on the bandwagon.
DEI statements are loyalty oaths to race-based ideologies, similar to those required by authoritarian regimes throughout history. They often demand evidence of the applicant’s past support of such notions as Critical Race Theory, which holds that an individual’s tendency to racial bias can be reliably determined by their skin color.
To my state’s shame, Arizona’s universities have enthusiastically thrown themselves into the front lines of this movement. According to a Goldwater Institute report, Arizona State University last fall required DEI loyalty oaths for 81% of all job applicants. NAU was at 73%, while the University of Arizona demanded 28% bend the knee to be considered for a job.
Such required ideological allegiance makes a mockery of the value of any research these aspiring scholars may do. The results are predetermined. In 2020, two major research organizations and 16 scientific societies issued a joint statement that researchers “must stand against the notion that systemic racism does not exist.” No research was cited.
Topics like urban crime, immigration, and welfare fraud are rarely studied when only the approved narrative is permitted anyway. Ignoring data inconsistent with the agenda gives us startling conclusions, as when “scientists” proclaimed that family dinners and church services were COVID “superspreaders,” while massive racial protests and pro-abortion rallies were no problem.
The Left has a way with words. Diversity now means rigid conformity. Equity stands for unearned equal outcomes. Inclusion means exclusion of dissenters.
But Americans are starting to catch on. Outraged parents are protesting overt racism in school curricula. A growing number of universities and corporations are pulling back on DEI mandates. In Arizona, SCR 1024 is a proposed constitutional amendment that will hopefully be on the ballot next election. It would eliminate racist instruction in our public schools.
Take heart.
Published in Education
Don’t let them set the rules.
We need to refer to this as D-I-E.
An apt acronym for this madness.
College and university administrations can pass the buck for these insidious requirements to their accrediting agencies, whose standards now all include DEI commitments as a condition to achieving or maintaining accreditation. No accreditation, bad juju, as in no qualifying for those everflowing, sweet federal or state funds.
The whole structure needs an overhaul, because even if all accrediting agencies were taken over by anti-DEI members, many nationwide policies such as DEI requirements originate with the federal department of education, and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.
As usual they have the forces of sanity surrounded.
There are of course historical precedents for this sort of thing:
See Life in the Fully Politicized Society (2014)
Life in the Fully Politicized Society, continued (2014)
And this collection of links from 2017
I do this already.
That’s beautifully put.
Division – Exclusion – imbecility.
That is possibly the quickest way to register dissent and to help kill this. For clarity, I often refer to it is DEI/DIE. I am looking forward to see if it becomes DIE/DEI. Thanks.
You said,
“To my state’s shame, Arizona’s universities have enthusiastically thrown themselves into the front lines of this movement. According to a Goldwater Institute report, Arizona State University last fall required DEI loyalty oaths for 81% of all job applicants. NAU was at 73%, while the University of Arizona demanded 28% bend the knee to be considered for a job.”
What is the Arizona Legislature doing about this? How about the Arizona Board of Regents? How about The Goldwater Institute?
What are other states doing? I am thinking of Greg Abbott of Texas, Ron DeSantis of Florida, Brian Kemp of Georgia, Chris Sununu of New Hampshire, and Kristi Noem of South Dakota.
If we can break through with Democrat Governors, that would be huge. How about John Bel Edwards of Louisiana, Andy Beshear of Kentucky and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, all Red States.
If I were in the Arizona Legislature, I would reduce the amount of capital spending for each university based upon the salaries of DEI/DIE personnel.
It is required that all State Employees swear an oath to the Constitution of the United States and the State of Arizona. This was true even if you work in the polls for only one day.
When I was 18 and full of Libertarian thoughts, I was a math tutor at the University of Arizona. When I declined to sign the Loyalty Oath, I was let go.