DEI

The DEI Campus Pantomime

What’s been happening on elite campuses this spring is quite simple. Protesters have enacted “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI). They’ve put into practice the DEI corollary known as “silence is violence.” The message is clear: Jews are not welcome short of performing the “silence is violence” pantomime. Protesters are engaging in red-guard-like behavior under the […]

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DEI Bureaucrats Get One-Way Ticket Off Campus

With its closing of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) offices and mass dismissals of DEI bureaucrats, Texas brings down the curtain on one of the most shameful, expensive, and destructive higher education vanity projects of this century. This cancerous DEI bureaucracy was imposed on campuses nationwide by radicals who strong-armed cowardly administrations in the summer […]

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Identity Crisis at Middlebury

In 2021, Middlebury College in Vermont decided to rename a Christian chapel originally named after former Vermont Governor John Mead due to Mead’s historical advocacy for the eugenics movement. A family lawsuit led by the Estate’s Special Administrator, former Vermont Governor Jim Douglas, alleges that John Mead gifted the funds to construct the chapel specifically […]

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Stacy Hawkins, I Said So

Stacy Hawkins, a former vice dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, recently wrote an article for the Chronicle of Higher Education. The article’s subtitle reads, “If critics have a problem with the goal of diversity, they should say so”—I’ll come to the main title later. As one of these critics, I’ve been vocal […]

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Closing DEI Offices Is Not Enough

Closing “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) offices around the country is a powerful step in halting the illiberal and divisive harm-centric monoculture that has taken over higher education. However, there remain far too many student-facing administrative offices that seek the same goals. Whether in residential services or student life offices, administrators wield significant power and […]

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The Real March Madness

If there is an annual event that most clearly demonstrates the importance of merit and skill on American college campuses, it is the March Madness surrounding the NCAA basketball championships. The public, whose support of higher education is sharply waning in light of increasing collegiate inanities, intensely roots for favorite schools and players. In higher […]

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A Modern Day Thermopylae

If you are at all familiar with the history of Western Civilization or perhaps the movie 300, then you probably already know the basics about the Battle of Thermopylae. 2500 years ago, a small band of Spartans led by King Leonidas and some allied Greek forces sought to prevent an invasion of the Greek peninsula […]

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DEI-vestment: University of Florida sheds ‘inclusion’ for innovation

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Blaze Media on March 7, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. The Sunshine State is now the test case of whether anti-DEI laws can have a meaningful effect in turning back these neo-racist programs. The University of Florida boldly advanced to the front of the academic line last […]

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The Takeover

Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in Tablet Magazine, and is reprinted with permission. A massive increase in foreign money and students on American campuses is driving radicalization and subsidizing institutional failure. Something new and peculiar stands out about the wave of anti-Israel student activism that has rocked American university campuses since October: There is […]

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DEI Hasn’t Died: The Rise of Neurodiversity and Multigenerational Diversity

The New York Times recently unveiled a fascinating shift in the landscape of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs. Instead of the overt focus on race and gender representation, a new trend of rebranding is emerging. Now, we see the rise of more innocuous-sounding initiatives like “culture surveys” and “performance training.” While opponents should rightfully […]

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A Diversity Officer’s Dismissal of Rape Charges Exposes Racial Bias and Conflict of Interest at UTK

In January 2024, Minding the Campus reported that the University of Illinois Springfield firmly ditched its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) audit, which found that the university “fail[ed] to adequately address a rape case” involving one of its recruiters. Colleagues have contacted us about a similar situation at the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK), the […]

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After Claudine: How to Repair American Higher Education

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by National Association of Scholars on January 24, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. In the aftermath of Claudine Gay’s defenestration as president of Harvard, many conservatives, libertarians, and un-woke liberals see an opportunity to rally public support for an operation to rescue higher education. The idea has caught […]

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An Honest Diversity Statement

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Law & Liberty on January 18, 2024 and is crossposted here with permission. For a number of years now pleasant young women (or persons identifying as women, or with female-sounding names) have been contacting me from the university’s diversity office, inviting me to attend sessions to discuss our DEI policies. […]

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DEI: Distraction, Evasion, and Incompetence at the University of Illinois Springfield

If there’s one thing to thank “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) experts for, it’s their knack for revealing the stunning hypocrisy behind universities’ DEI initiatives. Case in point: Maria Thompson and Susan C. Turell’s 2022 DEI audit of the University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), laying bare the university’s failure to adequately address a rape case […]

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Early Warnings Were Ignored: DEI Trainings and Social Pressure

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and freedom of discussion as in America — Alexis de Tocqueville From 1991 to 1994, at Duke University, I edited a publication called the Faculty Newsletter. The Newsletter had a short and rather erratic history and folded a couple of years […]

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Racial Preferences as Conspicuous Consumption

If economic rationality guided American universities, the recent Supreme Court decision declaring racial preferences unconstitutional should have been welcomed. The decision provides an off-ramp to costly failures at a time when higher education struggles financially. Given these fiscal strains, why fund diversity, particularly if this invites expensive litigation? Even those embracing the “diversity is our […]

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DEI and Anti-Semitism

How much do the diversity—equity—inclusion (DEI) movement and anti-Semitism feed on one another? There was a time when DEI advocates thought it was part of their remit to fight anti-Semitism too. In fall 2017, the University of Washington’s Department of Epidemiology issued a glossary of DEI terms that along with “ableism,” “birth assigned sex,” and […]

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Campus DEI Fuels Anti-Semitism and Reinforces Racial Stereotypes

On November 29th, 2023, the Ohio House of Representatives Committee on Higher Education heard testimony on House Bill 151 (Senate Bill 83), which would enact common sense restrictions on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion activities at publicly funded universities. Jonathan Pidluzny provided the following testimony. I’m here today because campus DEI programs are anathema to the […]

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Curbing DEI in Ohio

Eight states have already passed laws limiting DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). Senate Bill 83, introduced by State Senator Jerry Cirino, makes Ohio one of 20 states that have proposed but not yet passed such laws. Although SB 83 does far more than rein in DEI, I will focus here on two recent developments that […]

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