DEI Defined: Unanimity, Inequality, and Exclusion
– By Howard Sierer –
DEI – Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion – is all the rage among woke progressives in academia and the leftist media. A quick look reveals how it is implemented in practice: unanimity, inequality, and exclusion.
Most Americans, including this one, would support DEI using the long-understood meanings of these words: a society with a diversity of people and ideas, where equity for all is practiced, and where all members feel included.
But progressives have grossly distorted the meaning of these words. For example, James Madison writes in Federalist 10 that “diversity in the faculties of men” is the first object of government. In contrast, progressives demand unanimity of thought, systematically excluding views that don’t conform to their progressive group-think.
“Equity” to progressives means ensuring that preferred outcomes are assigned based on race, gender, and sexual orientation rather than competence, merit, and character. This inequality is enforced based on characteristics over which an individual has no control.
“Inclusion” has been redefined to mean a social environment where preferred identity groups are exalted and any who find fault are chastised and excluded. This so-called inclusion divides our society into racial and social identity groups, assigns privilege and power to preferred groups, and excludes individuals who fail to honor the new orthodoxy.
Have I exaggerated all this? Take a look at where and how these pernicious progressive ideas are being implemented across the country. Start with universities where DEI is the new academic religion.
Almost all universities and colleges in the country today have DEI offices, deans, and vice presidents. A review of 65 large universities found an average of 45 DEI staff members at each school, about one for every 30 professors.
Having embraced DEI, universities have set about ensuring that it permeates the entire institution, not just curriculum and classroom instruction. The strategy framework of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education spells it out: DEI principles should direct employee hiring, retention, and promotion as well as institutional programming, employee development education and training, and campus culture and climate. Last but not least, DEI should guide admissions and access.
This strategy framework has found fertile ground in woke, progressive academia. An article in the Economist magazine describes how “American universities are hiring based on devotion to diversity. Mandatory statements are quickly taking hold of academia.”
These statements require “a strong commitment to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence.” They must demonstrate an “understanding of diversity, their past contributions to increasing it and their plans ‘for advancing equity and inclusion’ if hired.”
New hires across most of the academia must be prepared to favor and advance those with a preferred race, gender, and/or sexual orientation. A black female queer like the self-proclaimed founders of Black Lives Matter can expect to be welcomed with open arms.
Job applicants who are foolish enough to state their intention to ignore the varying backgrounds of students and “treat everyone the same” have little chance of being hired. For example, the University of New Mexico’s hiring criteria explicitly includes the “University’s commitment and obligation to Affirmative Action principles.”
In a separate article, the Economist rightly asks whether diversity statements are a threat to academic freedom. In my opinion, it’s obvious that they are; academic freedom is disappearing in universities across the country. DEI officials have a vested interest in ensuring that the grievances of identity politics continue or else their offices have no reason to exist.
What started with universities and the progressive elite is now being replicated in our federal government.
In 2020, the National Institutes of Health went “all in” for DEI with its Faculty Institutional Recruitment for Sustainable Transformation program “to enhance and maintain cultures of inclusive excellence in the biomedical research community.”
The NIH program gives 12 academic institutions a total of $241 million over nine years for diversity-focused faculty hiring. Under the terms of the grants, only candidates who demonstrate “a strong commitment to promoting diversity and inclusive excellence” can be hired through the program. To apply, candidates must submit a diversity statement.
Somehow a culture of inclusiveness is more important in NIH research than is demonstrated competence. As Bertrand Russell said in another context, “This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.”
In February, President Joseph Biden signed an executive order replicating the NIH program throughout the federal bureaucracy. The order directs three key strategies: creating internal cadres and power centers through the deployment of “Agency Equity Teams”; funding third-party political activism through grants to “community[-based] organizations”; and using existing civil rights law by requiring federal agencies to use artificial intelligence “in a manner that advances equity.”
I’m stunned. To me, all this is surreal and so far removed from our Pledge of Allegiance’s “liberty and justice for all” that it’s hard to believe it’s happening all around us today.
Preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation is blatant discrimination, pure and simple. As Chief Justice John Roberts said, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” In my opinion, that applies to stopping discrimination that favors any progressive identity group.
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