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Fifth Circuit Court judge Kyle Duncan was recently invited to speak at the Stanford Law School, only for a mob of about 100 students to insult the judge and shout him down. There was something surreal about this incident: the law school's administration had been forewarned, but the administrator who was sent to maintain order—the dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)—first did nothing, and then took the podium to humiliate the judge, behaving as another protester. The dean declared: "It's uncomfortable to say that for many people here, your work has caused harm." She continued "again I still ask, is the juice worth the squeeze?... Is it worth the pain that this causes, the division that this causes? Do you have something so incredibly important to say about Twitter and guns and COVID that that is worth this impact on the division of these people."
As is de rigueur on campus, the dean of DEI paid lip service to free speech: "Me and many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech." But the dean concluded with a suggestion that the students may use Stanford's (activism) training and work to overturn those "harmful" free speech policies. "I understand why people feel like the harm is so great that we might need to reconsider [free speech] policies," she said. "And luckily they're in a school where they can learn the advocacy skills to advocate for those changes."
Judge Duncan was eventually escorted out of a back door by federal marshals, who told him they were there to protect him.
One might be tempted to view this disaster as an isolated incident, a campus administrator gone rogue because of a "lack of protocols." But the problem is far deeper. This incident is a striking example of how a Trojan horse ideology, labeled DEI, has been introduced, promoted, and institutionalized by universities' own leadership.
Fighting arbitrary discrimination is laudable, and every reasonable person would agree to such a goal. But as it stands, DEI is not about that. DEI ideology attacks three fundamental values of Western culture: equality before the law, freedom of expression, and due process. This ideology, under labels such as "antiracism" and "intersectionality," proclaims a moral hierarchy of victims and oppressors, based on categories including race, gender, and sexual orientation. It asserts that Western institutions are fundamentally determined by power dynamics and are invariably corrupted by conscious and unconscious biases.
Three more recent examples, taken from academia, illustrate the ongoing march of the DEI movement.
Stanford recently created a system called "Protected Identity Harm Reporting," which allows students and professors to report on one another anonymously for words or actions that the accuser perceives as offensive. Using the incorrect pronoun, issuing a politically incorrect opinion, or stating that the U.S. is a land of opportunity can cost one an accusation maintained in a database. There is no notice and no right to face the accuser, challenge facts, or defend one's reputation. It is reminiscent of one of the most repellent aspects of the totalitarianism of the 20th century, and stimulates some of the worst tendencies of human beings: resentment, envy, revenge. About 56 percent of American universities have adopted similar systems.
Stanford's IT department also recently launched an "Elimination of Harmful Language Initiative" to remove offensive words from its online portal and all Stanford websites. The university posted a 13-page document listing allegedly offensive words that needed to be removed from its websites, such as "American," "addict," and "master." This effort was so ridiculous that the university stopped it, but only after being humiliated for several days in the press. Lists of forbidden words quietly live on elsewhere in academia, ready to trap the unwary.
"Diversity statements" are spreading throughout academia as requirements for access to academic positions. These are loyalty oaths to DEI ideology, and pledges to support the DEI movement. Expressing doubts about race or gender preferences (or writing a dissenting column such as this one) is enough to disqualify you for consideration as a faculty candidate in many U.S. universities. Embracing the dream of Martin Luther King Jr that people be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin will result in disqualification. DEI statements are not about race; they are about political allegiance. They now pervade government agencies and government grant requirements.
These examples, and many others, illustrate that DEI ideology is inherently hostile to the mission of a university. University leaders should not deceive themselves: unless this Trojan horse is rejected, the transformation of the modern university into a second-rate "Social Justice" NGO will not stop. It is time to move on to a different approach.
Identity politics is pushing our culture off a nihilistic cliff. We must fight this ideology forcefully if we want to preserve a free and just society.
Dorian Abbot is an associate professor at the University of Chicago. Iván Marinovic is an associate professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
