"While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead. "
Lol. What a joke. That is never going to happen and you know it. If academia wanted its "expertise" and "professional competence" respected by the general public you should have NEVER let things get this far. The time for academia to stand up for (actual) liberal values was ten or twenty years ago. You are running woke indoctrination factories where heretics are aggressively punished. The AP AA history class is a great example of how imbalanced things are but only the tip of the iceberg.
I'm a lifelong Democrat, and DeSantis is not my ideal vehicle for reform, but the status quo is an appalling, complete and utter disgrace, and you had more than chance enough to fix it yourselves. This never should have happened in the first place.
If the authors have an alternative, other than writing outraged essays, I should be very interested to see it- but it is clear to anyone in academia that this problem is not going to fix itself. Despite a few high-profile dissents, academics have made no serious efforts to dismantle DEI regimes, and their institutional strangulation continues apace.
CRT itself fosters racism to combat racism. Is DeSantis doing the same with the cult of DEI? How do we break the cult without an intervention? Like the author I am uncomfortable getting down with the dogs on this one. On the other hand consider this...the author states, "While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead." How is that strategy working so far on campuses that "reeducate" those who do not conform to the DEI cult and silence any opposing view? It isn't working. Professors who speak up are canceled and fired.
Minorities are undermined via victim ideology. Division not inclusion is fostered with marxist oppressor victim ideology and division frankly is the goal. It is disastrous for our culture, our future and the future of the disadvantaged people this ideology claims to help. It is all smoke. Those who have bought into it, are the useful idiots of our times.
The author also states "Expertise and competence don’t appear to count for much in DeSantis’ top-down, directives-driven program for higher education reform." DEI and CRT are themselves top down narratives forced on the population. They are no more grassroots than the transgender campaign which is also a very well funded initiative.
If we truly care about the future of our country and want to help minorities, concepts of equity, DEI, CRT, government dependence have to go and be replaced with equal opportunity for all regardless of race, color or sex, forward looking self reliance, meritocracy, dedication to achievement. Most important our public schools must actually teach kids. We can help those who start short of the starting line with opportunity not handouts.
So what is to be done when so many universities have fallen prey to the DEI cult? How do we shock some balance back into the system? How do we ensure critical thought is encouraged not squashed? Is DeSantis's approach correct? Time will tell. We must do something however to help this generation of kids learn how to think and get all ideology out of the schools at every level.
Would we have to hear any nonsense about 'academic freedom' and/or 'faculty autonomy' if University of Florida was racially discriminating against Hispanics or blacks? Of course, not. UOF is funded by taxpayers and should be held accountable. DEI is racism and the people of Florida should not support it, even when it hides behind 'academic freedom' and 'faculty autonomy'.
"While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead. "
DEI is the implementation side of the critical theory fake scholarship toxic mind virus that started in the 1960s and 70s as communism crashed and burned and the collectivists needed to shift to a new cultural revolution ideology to break up the much more successful liberal democratic countries from inside. Since then, the postmodernist movement led by 3rd wave Marxist feminists went whole hog on the juunk and initiated their project... the pandemic was their call to go all in. DEI is part of it... it is the brainchild of the critical theory masters and the leaders of woke that hatch from this campus programming that has been purposely and incrementally injected into K-12 content, curriculum and teaching methods.
DEI has zero benevolent intent. It serves as a social and cultural deconstruction tool for the radical Marxists who, except for the most dense of their cohort, know exactly that it will never improve anything material in the outcomes of minorities it attempts to claim as its advocacy.
The crappiest consideration of CT and DEI and Woke on the campuses, is that education is and always should be an experience of critical thinking development that is backed by an objective measure of growth in capability. Education in many ways is the pure meritocracy... students striving for excellence in academic achievement... seeking the highest grades and GPA... being challenged with difficult subjects that they can master. And then take this achievement with them into the working world to get the best start they can while continuing on that same path to grow their skills and value to organizations that would pay them for their contribution to the organization's mission.
Our advancement to Civil Rights 2.0 should have been this... a color/race/gender/sexual orientation - blind meritocracy. Just think what the US would be like today having attained that. We were on our way after Republicans passed our landmark Civil Rights Act. But then beginning in the mid to late 70s a series of post-Cold War stupidity in policy from our moneyed and academic elites screwed the pooch.
China in the WTO, CRA, out of control Fed fighting inflation but really working for the current administration to artificially boost the economy for politics. NAFTA. Out of control immigration. All these things and more served to export American working class prosperity while importing other country's poverty. And all of this started right at the time that blacks were poised to migrate to the middle class. But the doors shut and it broke families and sent the kids to gangs, drugs and crime. Now corporate consolidation. Collusion between Wall Street to consolidate more business into giant mega-corporations. Crashing small business starts. Exploding labor surplus areas in minority communities. But hey, we will send ya'll more Biden dollars.... get you more hooked on dependency and less able to forge an independent good life. And you are angry about it, right? Well that is because of racist cops and white supremacy and we are going all DEI and woke to show that WE care about you blacks and will fix these problems.
Right.
DEI needs to be destroyed as there is nothing beneficial in the agenda backing it. And destroying it requires getting the critical theory junk removed from anything that K-12 students get exposed to in their education.
Democrats should support what DeSantis is doing for moral and ethical reasons... and if they care about the future of the country. But even if Democrats cannon wrap their heads around that... they should support getting the CT, woke, DEI nonsense out of the K-12 system to save public education from being destroyed by a mass of choice legislation that is coming like a freight train.
This essay makes no sense. DEI, which I liken to discrimination, extortion, and indoctrination has no place in education or anyplace else. Allowing it to persist is un-American. Sure, you're personally free to think whatever you want, but offering this as a freedom of speech option is ludicrous. Certainly any institution that receives public funding should be banned from indoctrinating students and faculty with this nonsense.
Glad you guys are “deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives…” How you propose to reverse these trends, you don’t say. You fear that if a state government puts pressure on state schools, it will take away academic freedom. But how else do you fight such deeply entrenched, anti-liberal ideology spewed by universities? What DeSantis is doing is what many of us anti-Wokies have hoped for: cut taxpayer funding of woke initiatives, from DEI administrators to expanding grievance studies programs. Even better, it’s in his job description to do so. If woke professors or AAUP want to fight DeSantis in court, so much the better. We need more legal battles — like Oberlin vs Gibson bakery — to bring the woke excesses to the public.
I know little about university administration or funding, so perhaps I naively wonder if what some states may want to consider doing is be very selective in directing their funding. For example, you might give state universities money just to support certain (say STEM) classes and students (I am suggesting this as an easy example, there are many subjects that would be worth funding). STEM graduates would get reduced tuition or a rebate. State governments would not be involved in increasing unattractive bloat and would not be encouraging DEI initiatives. There would be a lot of details to finagle (maybe these select students would not be forced to take or pay for any DEI initiatives).
If donors and wealthy parents want to pay extra tuition for an overly large administration and fluff classes, the cost would not be subsidized by the taxpayers.
My aim would be to make it expensive to the University and DEI supporters to run their large administrations with DEI programs, and not pass on those costs on to taxpayers.
I'm troubled by your phrase "deeply conservative political agenda." I likely get your meaning, but I think it badly misuses the word "conservative." I feel there's plenty of room in this crazy debate for liberal opinions and values, and for conservative opinions and values, which in general are only minimally in conflict with each other. I'd say the current grotesque political theater is between illiberal Progressives and illiberal Right-populists.
A lot of these comments are sounding like "This enemy is so evil and so dangerous that of course we have to violate our principles to fight them, you'd have to be a naive idiot not to see it." Which sounds like what America tried after 9/11. How'd that work out?
If the purpose of state funded higher education is to provide productive citizens for the state, then conflict between politicians and academics is inevitable. There is perceived to be a vast difference in how politicians and academics would define, if they were asked, what is a well educated, productive citizen. Once we get past the demagoguery and entrenched interests, there would not be that much difference in their definitions as understood by a non-biased arbitrator in a position to make decisions. Is there room in our society for non-biased arbitrators to make decisions about anything?
I would be more concerned were Rufo and DeSantis to have said what they expect the universities to teach and to promulgate. All I heard in the Rufo video linked to was how he and DeSantis are going to fight the progressives. It may well be that they'll make the institutions more illiberal -- or leave then as illiberal but with a different bent -- but that's not obvious from what I've read.
I'm curious about the reference to the 1915 report, which says that professors hold primary responsibility for the matters that shape the university. Is that the situation today? I have the impression that the administrators run things and the professors are largely afraid to run afoul of them, of the students and of the press.
"While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead. "
Lol. What a joke. That is never going to happen and you know it. If academia wanted its "expertise" and "professional competence" respected by the general public you should have NEVER let things get this far. The time for academia to stand up for (actual) liberal values was ten or twenty years ago. You are running woke indoctrination factories where heretics are aggressively punished. The AP AA history class is a great example of how imbalanced things are but only the tip of the iceberg.
I'm a lifelong Democrat, and DeSantis is not my ideal vehicle for reform, but the status quo is an appalling, complete and utter disgrace, and you had more than chance enough to fix it yourselves. This never should have happened in the first place.
If the authors have an alternative, other than writing outraged essays, I should be very interested to see it- but it is clear to anyone in academia that this problem is not going to fix itself. Despite a few high-profile dissents, academics have made no serious efforts to dismantle DEI regimes, and their institutional strangulation continues apace.
We are in a difficult place in our country. I recommend reading this article by Rufo as a companion piece to the above, https://www.city-journal.org/the-university-of-south-floridas-diversity-cult.
CRT itself fosters racism to combat racism. Is DeSantis doing the same with the cult of DEI? How do we break the cult without an intervention? Like the author I am uncomfortable getting down with the dogs on this one. On the other hand consider this...the author states, "While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead." How is that strategy working so far on campuses that "reeducate" those who do not conform to the DEI cult and silence any opposing view? It isn't working. Professors who speak up are canceled and fired.
Minorities are undermined via victim ideology. Division not inclusion is fostered with marxist oppressor victim ideology and division frankly is the goal. It is disastrous for our culture, our future and the future of the disadvantaged people this ideology claims to help. It is all smoke. Those who have bought into it, are the useful idiots of our times.
The author also states "Expertise and competence don’t appear to count for much in DeSantis’ top-down, directives-driven program for higher education reform." DEI and CRT are themselves top down narratives forced on the population. They are no more grassroots than the transgender campaign which is also a very well funded initiative.
If we truly care about the future of our country and want to help minorities, concepts of equity, DEI, CRT, government dependence have to go and be replaced with equal opportunity for all regardless of race, color or sex, forward looking self reliance, meritocracy, dedication to achievement. Most important our public schools must actually teach kids. We can help those who start short of the starting line with opportunity not handouts.
So what is to be done when so many universities have fallen prey to the DEI cult? How do we shock some balance back into the system? How do we ensure critical thought is encouraged not squashed? Is DeSantis's approach correct? Time will tell. We must do something however to help this generation of kids learn how to think and get all ideology out of the schools at every level.
Would we have to hear any nonsense about 'academic freedom' and/or 'faculty autonomy' if University of Florida was racially discriminating against Hispanics or blacks? Of course, not. UOF is funded by taxpayers and should be held accountable. DEI is racism and the people of Florida should not support it, even when it hides behind 'academic freedom' and 'faculty autonomy'.
"While we are deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives, we recognize that DEI needs to be reformed—and indeed transformed—from within the university itself, with faculty taking the lead. "
DEI is the implementation side of the critical theory fake scholarship toxic mind virus that started in the 1960s and 70s as communism crashed and burned and the collectivists needed to shift to a new cultural revolution ideology to break up the much more successful liberal democratic countries from inside. Since then, the postmodernist movement led by 3rd wave Marxist feminists went whole hog on the juunk and initiated their project... the pandemic was their call to go all in. DEI is part of it... it is the brainchild of the critical theory masters and the leaders of woke that hatch from this campus programming that has been purposely and incrementally injected into K-12 content, curriculum and teaching methods.
DEI has zero benevolent intent. It serves as a social and cultural deconstruction tool for the radical Marxists who, except for the most dense of their cohort, know exactly that it will never improve anything material in the outcomes of minorities it attempts to claim as its advocacy.
The crappiest consideration of CT and DEI and Woke on the campuses, is that education is and always should be an experience of critical thinking development that is backed by an objective measure of growth in capability. Education in many ways is the pure meritocracy... students striving for excellence in academic achievement... seeking the highest grades and GPA... being challenged with difficult subjects that they can master. And then take this achievement with them into the working world to get the best start they can while continuing on that same path to grow their skills and value to organizations that would pay them for their contribution to the organization's mission.
Our advancement to Civil Rights 2.0 should have been this... a color/race/gender/sexual orientation - blind meritocracy. Just think what the US would be like today having attained that. We were on our way after Republicans passed our landmark Civil Rights Act. But then beginning in the mid to late 70s a series of post-Cold War stupidity in policy from our moneyed and academic elites screwed the pooch.
China in the WTO, CRA, out of control Fed fighting inflation but really working for the current administration to artificially boost the economy for politics. NAFTA. Out of control immigration. All these things and more served to export American working class prosperity while importing other country's poverty. And all of this started right at the time that blacks were poised to migrate to the middle class. But the doors shut and it broke families and sent the kids to gangs, drugs and crime. Now corporate consolidation. Collusion between Wall Street to consolidate more business into giant mega-corporations. Crashing small business starts. Exploding labor surplus areas in minority communities. But hey, we will send ya'll more Biden dollars.... get you more hooked on dependency and less able to forge an independent good life. And you are angry about it, right? Well that is because of racist cops and white supremacy and we are going all DEI and woke to show that WE care about you blacks and will fix these problems.
Right.
DEI needs to be destroyed as there is nothing beneficial in the agenda backing it. And destroying it requires getting the critical theory junk removed from anything that K-12 students get exposed to in their education.
Democrats should support what DeSantis is doing for moral and ethical reasons... and if they care about the future of the country. But even if Democrats cannon wrap their heads around that... they should support getting the CT, woke, DEI nonsense out of the K-12 system to save public education from being destroyed by a mass of choice legislation that is coming like a freight train.
Yeah. Well. Read this and get back to us. https://www.thefp.com/p/i-thought-i-was-saving-trans-kids/comments
This essay makes no sense. DEI, which I liken to discrimination, extortion, and indoctrination has no place in education or anyplace else. Allowing it to persist is un-American. Sure, you're personally free to think whatever you want, but offering this as a freedom of speech option is ludicrous. Certainly any institution that receives public funding should be banned from indoctrinating students and faculty with this nonsense.
I find myself in Agreement with the critics of this article. I hope to hear the author respond.
Going to the Fascists because of the Communists. Going to the Communists because of the Fascists. One hundred years ago, in Europe, same dance.
Nothing has changed. Nothing will ever change. Humans do not learn, humans like ideologies too much, to feel righteous, to have an enemy.
Good night, reason.
Glad you guys are “deeply skeptical of many DEI initiatives…” How you propose to reverse these trends, you don’t say. You fear that if a state government puts pressure on state schools, it will take away academic freedom. But how else do you fight such deeply entrenched, anti-liberal ideology spewed by universities? What DeSantis is doing is what many of us anti-Wokies have hoped for: cut taxpayer funding of woke initiatives, from DEI administrators to expanding grievance studies programs. Even better, it’s in his job description to do so. If woke professors or AAUP want to fight DeSantis in court, so much the better. We need more legal battles — like Oberlin vs Gibson bakery — to bring the woke excesses to the public.
PS. Here in VA, a bill to track DEI costs at Va. colleges was recently struck down 17 Jan 2023 https://richmond.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/bill-to-track-dei-costs-at-va-colleges-is-struck-down/article_58874e46-9688-11ed-b752-c7168baeee65.html
I know little about university administration or funding, so perhaps I naively wonder if what some states may want to consider doing is be very selective in directing their funding. For example, you might give state universities money just to support certain (say STEM) classes and students (I am suggesting this as an easy example, there are many subjects that would be worth funding). STEM graduates would get reduced tuition or a rebate. State governments would not be involved in increasing unattractive bloat and would not be encouraging DEI initiatives. There would be a lot of details to finagle (maybe these select students would not be forced to take or pay for any DEI initiatives).
If donors and wealthy parents want to pay extra tuition for an overly large administration and fluff classes, the cost would not be subsidized by the taxpayers.
My aim would be to make it expensive to the University and DEI supporters to run their large administrations with DEI programs, and not pass on those costs on to taxpayers.
I'm troubled by your phrase "deeply conservative political agenda." I likely get your meaning, but I think it badly misuses the word "conservative." I feel there's plenty of room in this crazy debate for liberal opinions and values, and for conservative opinions and values, which in general are only minimally in conflict with each other. I'd say the current grotesque political theater is between illiberal Progressives and illiberal Right-populists.
A lot of these comments are sounding like "This enemy is so evil and so dangerous that of course we have to violate our principles to fight them, you'd have to be a naive idiot not to see it." Which sounds like what America tried after 9/11. How'd that work out?
If the purpose of state funded higher education is to provide productive citizens for the state, then conflict between politicians and academics is inevitable. There is perceived to be a vast difference in how politicians and academics would define, if they were asked, what is a well educated, productive citizen. Once we get past the demagoguery and entrenched interests, there would not be that much difference in their definitions as understood by a non-biased arbitrator in a position to make decisions. Is there room in our society for non-biased arbitrators to make decisions about anything?
Wokeness is a social cancer. So mocking it is a moral purpose.
I would be more concerned were Rufo and DeSantis to have said what they expect the universities to teach and to promulgate. All I heard in the Rufo video linked to was how he and DeSantis are going to fight the progressives. It may well be that they'll make the institutions more illiberal -- or leave then as illiberal but with a different bent -- but that's not obvious from what I've read.
I'm curious about the reference to the 1915 report, which says that professors hold primary responsibility for the matters that shape the university. Is that the situation today? I have the impression that the administrators run things and the professors are largely afraid to run afoul of them, of the students and of the press.