Your Cart is Empty
Thomas F. Powers
Quillette
Excerpt: The Trump administration’s opening policy blitzkrieg (on day one alone: 48 “presidential actions,” a record 24 Executive Orders, and 78 past executive orders revoked) has touched many different policy areas, but none more powerfully than DEI.
How effective will Trump’s legal assault be? The dominant interpretations of DEI and radical progressive ideology set forth in books today focus on the causal role of bad ideas and other “cultural” factors. If these interpreters are correct then, regardless of how decisive they are, the actions of the Trump administration are superficial and doomed to fail unless accompanied by some broader intellectual and cultural movement to change Americans’ hearts and minds.
John McWhorter
Persuasion
Excerpt: In combating DEI, Donald Trump is doing the right thing. In that sentence I just wrote, I almost choked writing the six final words. But it is what I believe. A stopped clock is right twice a day, and it is high time America engaged in an honest conversation about this business called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
However, the actual substance of Trump’s Executive Order “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” reveals—big surprise—a smash of the knout, a coarse, unreflective bleat in the guise of statecraft. Getting DEI right while retaining the moral sophistication our nation is capable of will require actions much more specific—intelligent, even.
Jennifer Ruth
Academe Blog
Excerpt: Yesterday, the Department of Education announced investigations into Columbia University, Northwestern University, Portland State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Minnesota–Twin Cities, explaining that “widespread antisemitic harassment has been reported” at these five institutions.
Given the confusion that reigns in and over higher education today, it’s worth trying to think this through a bit.
Julian Mark
New York Times
Excerpt: A coalition of professors, diversity officers and restaurant worker advocates filed a federal lawsuit Monday in a bid to block President Donald Trump’s executive orders that target diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in the U.S. government, the private sector and academia, alleging that he exceeded his authority in issuing them.
Sara Weissman
Inside Higher Ed
Excerpt: "Chaos is the goal,” Mike Gavin, president of Delta College in Michigan, told a Zoom room full of higher ed professionals on a January afternoon. “These external forces are trying to cause chaos to distract us from our mission.”
By “chaos” he meant the onslaught of anti-DEI legislation sweeping the country—state laws requiring universities to scrub diversity statements from their hiring processes, identify DEI-related courses and programs for scrutiny, and cut personnel, centers and offices dedicated to supporting underrepresented student groups.
Cathy Young
The Bulwark
Excerpt: Among the avalanche of executive orders that Donald Trump loosed upon his return to power are several related to high-profile culture-war issues. Foremost among these is a pair of executive orders relating to “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI, sometimes known as DEIA for “diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility”). One bans DEI programs in the federal workforce and corporations with federal contracts. The other directs the government to investigate “DEI discrimination and preferences” across the private sector, including large academic institutions.
Many critiques of identity politics have been valid and necessary. But DEI opponents should be wary of linking their cause to the Trump administration, which is all but certain to use colorblind fairness as a smokescreen for anti-woke identity politics—and which has started its first week with a spree of presidential lawlessness.
