It is immensely encouraging to see state legislatures proposing and, in some cases, passing bills that would end “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) indoctrination in public colleges and universities. DEI programs are widespread in higher education, and they do profound harm to students, faculty, and the quality of education.
Getting rid of them, however, is difficult.
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Though they are very unpopular with the general public, they have entrenched support on campus from administrators, DEI staff, and their grievance-minded acolytes. DEI-inflected faculty hiring ensures that every academic department has its quota of DEI enthusiasts and that any dissenters from DEI orthodoxy are intimidated into silence.
In light of this self-perpetuating hold on the colleges, no one can expect that the institutions will cure themselves. That’s why interventions by state legislatures are necessary.
Ohio SB-1 is the bill I know best, having testified for its previous version, SB-83. It has now passed the Ohio Senate and is going before the House, where many observers, including myself, think it has a strong chance of success. The bill has provisions that go well beyond banning DEI, but they are all constructive steps to ensure that the state’s public higher education serves the public’s interests.
The pending bill in Indiana, SB 289, is more narrowly focused on weeding out DEI programs and includes steps that anticipate that universities will attempt to evade any DEI ban by various forms of bureaucratic subterfuge. Critics of the bill mischaracterize it as “censorship,” but it is really aimed at restoring genuine freedom of speech and thought.
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The defenders of DEI have considerable gall to claim that free speech is under attack when they have spent more than a decade engaged in stigmatizing anyone who criticizes the roughshod tactics of DEI offices. So-called “bias response teams” operate on many campuses to enable students to report anonymously anything they imagine as “hate speech.” Shutting down fellow students and getting faculty members “canceled” is the hallmark of DEI ideology on campus.
The defenders of this tyranny now dare to complain that attempts to end it are an attack on academic freedom. But the truth is that these reforms are a long-delayed restoration of basic rights that the radical DEI regime on campus has done all that it can to suppress.
Image: Columbus: Ohio Senate Chamber by harry_nl on Flickr
The anti-DEI government edicts are already spreading terror more widely than the left has been able to in recent years. I’ve seen and heard this with my own eyes and ears. And you can be sure when the Left takes over again, if we continue to have a democratic government, the Left will revert with much more compulsion. This is not the way, whatever the way is.
IF that happens, it will be the instant demise of Higher Education.
Remember what happened to Hostess Bakeries in 2012?
“Terror” would involve imposing 1950s morality on campus.
Last year, the Dean of Students sent out a campus-wide email about an “excellent opportunity” to hear Ibram X. Kendi speak at a nearby college. I asked her via email if, to achieve equity, we needed to treat students differently based on the color of their skin. She responded “no.” I then asked the college President the same question at a faculty meeting and he answered “no” as well, although it was clear he resented the question.
The Thomas Sowell quote posted on my office door is relevant: “If you always believed everyone should play by the same rules and be judged by the same standards, that would have gotten you labeled a radical 60 years ago, a liberal 30 years ago and a racist today.”
I’m glad they both said “No,” though it kind of sounds like you were trying to bait them some. (Only a fool would have said “Yes” in reply to what you report you said.)
I might have those two occasions as an “excellent opportunity” to invite a counter-view — perhaps a visit from Professor Glenn Loury — a chance to broaden diverse perspectives, in these cases, black speakers with definite takes on matters connected with race in America.
Would they have taken the opportunity?
” Shutting down fellow students and getting faculty members “canceled” is the hallmark of DEI ideology on campus.”
It needs to be understood that they have been doing this for more than a decade — they started this quietly in the ’80s by denying entry into grad and law schools, in the ’90s and ’00s it expanded to push older faculty into retirement, and only now are going after people able to defend themselves well enough for it to be noticeable.
But I was “cancelled” in 1989 and again in 1991. It’s been happening a long time now.