Commentary: Anti-DEI DEI

March 21, 2024 1 min read

Mark S. James
Academe Blog

Excerpt: Last August, my colleague wrote about how our university’s leadership has embraced a top-down corporate model as the way of running the university, and he proceeded to describe various instances when they have ignored shared governance and threatened academic freedom. This trend has continued unabated.

The most recent example of this is perhaps the most blatant, and it poses the most serious threat to academic freedom and shared governance yet. The administration is now deploying our office of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) to impose a policy that has been rejected by our faculty two times now. But, as Nikole Hannah-Jones recently observed, DEI is now being used against efforts to increase diversity, promote equality, and foster inclusion.

Click here for link to full article

Leave a comment


Also in National Free Speech News & Commentary

NYU Denies Diploma to Student Who Criticized Israel in Commencement Speech

May 15, 2025 1 min read 1 Comment

Jake Offenhartz
Associated Press

Excerpt: New York University said it would deny a diploma to a student who used a graduation speech to condemn Israel’s attacks on Palestinians and what he described as U.S. “complicity in this genocide.”

Logan Rozos’s speech Wednesday for graduating students of NYU’s Gallatin School sparked waves of condemnation from pro-Israel groups, who demanded the university take aggressive disciplinary action against him.

Read More
More than 1,000 US students punished over speech since 2020, report finds

May 15, 2025 1 min read

Alice Speri
The Guardian

Excerpt: Parker Hovis was four courses away from getting his computer science degree from the University of Florida when he was arrested along with several other students at a pro-Palestinian protest on campus last spring. While the charges against him were dismissed and a school conduct committee recommended only minor punishment – a form of probation – the university administration suspended him for three years. He’ll be required to reapply if he wants to come back after that.

Hovis, who has since left Florida and is working to pay off his student loans despite never graduating, is one of more than 1,000 students or student groups that were targeted by their universities for punishment between 2020 and 2024 over their speech, according to a report published today by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (Fire). About 63% of them were ultimately punished.

Read More
How House Lawmakers Could Reshape Higher Ed

May 15, 2025 1 min read

Jessica Blake
Inside Higher Ed

Excerpt: All the pieces of House Republicans’ plan to cut trillions in federal spending are now public, and if the package becomes law, colleges and universities could face crippling repercussions, higher education experts say.

“It is a full-out assault on the ability of students—especially low-income students—to access and afford higher education,” said Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations and national engagement at the American Council on Education. “It will have a dramatically negative impact, not just on higher ed, but on the whole population.”

Read More