DEI Isn’t Dead—It’s Just Changing Its Name
For FAIR’s Substack, Ryan Ruffaner writes about how across campuses and corporations, DEI is retreating into rebranded titles and euphemistic jargon, but its ideology remains intact.
So no, DEI isn’t dead. It’s shedding its skin.
Whenever you hear that a university or corporation has “eliminated” its DEI programs, ask yourself: is the ideology gone? Or has it simply found a new room to inhabit, a new nameplate, a new acronym?
What victory is there if DEI vanishes in title only, while continuing to push the same grievance narratives, the same race-based preferences, and the same worldview of victimhood and perpetual redress?
Can Progressives Get Behind Parental Rights for All?
For First Things, FAIR Advisor Robert P. George writes about the recent Supreme Court ruling in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
Of course, there is only one ideologically impartial and principled position. Can progressives get behind it? If so, then there is no reason for progressive pearl-clutching and handwringing over the concrete implications of the Mahmoud ruling. The resources are present in both the moral order and our constitutional tradition for the robust protection of the fundamental right of parents to direct the moral and religious formation of their children. Parental rights for social conservatives means parental rights for progressives, too. Parental rights are for all parents—equally.
A Letter to the American Museum of Natural History
For Quillette, FAIR Advisor Jonathan Kay writes an open letter to the American Museum of Natural History.
Unfortunately, the physical exhibit subtitled “Kamloops Indian Residential School, British Columbia, Canada” (see photo, below) misinforms visitors with its reference to “215 Indigenous children buried here in unmarked graves.” In fact, no such graves have been found. This false claim originates with a May 2021 announcement by the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc leadership to the effect that researchers had conducted ground-penetrating radar (GPR) studies indicating soil dislocations consistent with the suspected presence of graves. Many journalists, being unfamiliar with the limitations of GPR technology, took the First Nation’s confidently stated claims at face value, and so falsely inferred that actual graves had been discovered and even unearthed.
Making Sense of Mahmoud v. Taylor
For the American Enterprise Institute, FAIR Advisor Robert Pondiscio breaks down the Mahmoud v. Taylor ruling from an educator’s perspective.
But don’t be surprised if Mahmoud proves to be less than the last word. Not because SCOTUS’s legal reasoning is muddled—it’s not—but because of the way reading is taught in many elementary classrooms. The gap between how courts think “curriculum” works and how it’s actually implemented in elementary classrooms is vast. And that means schools will likely keep finding themselves on the receiving end of angry phone calls, and possibly lawsuits, from parents blindsided by what their children bring home in their backpacks.
Greg Lukianoff – The Legal Battle to Defend Campus Speech
Greg Lukianoff and Glenn Loury address some broad, abstract questions about speech, like why Greg thinks speech cannot be equated to violence and who decides what counts as “misinformation” and “disinformation.” FIRE is most concerned with speech as it relates to education and the university, and we talk about how the Israel-Palestine conflict has rearranged campus politics. Greg finds himself in an interesting position, because while he’s criticized Harvard’s commitment to free speech, he’s also found himself defending the university against the Trump administration’s attempts to, as Greg sees it, nationalize the school. He walks me through Title IX’s repurposing as a tool to limits speech, argues for the social necessity of comedy, and we end on FIRE’s next frontier: artificial intelligence.
FAIR News Podcast
For audio versions of our FAIR News and FAIR Weekly Roundup newsletters, subscribe and listen to FAIR News Weekly on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or via RSS feed.
Join the FAIR Community
Join us, and become a member of FAIR.
Become a FAIR volunteer, or join a FAIR chapter.
Sign-up for a Welcome to FAIR Zoom information session to learn more about our mission.
Share your reviews and incident reports on our FAIR Transparency website.
I would be very curious to know how that museum responds, if at all. So many of my Canadian friends also seem to have taken those reports of “unmarked graves” at face value. It’s also my understanding that the First Nations tribes in question are not allowing further investigation (e.g., actual excavations to see what is under that disturbed soil). I can understand to a certain extent not wanting to desecrate what might be graves, but in this case this reluctance to get to the truth of the matter is unfortunate.