Major players in the anti-DEI movement: Here’s who’s attacking Goldman Sachs, Pfizer, IBM, and other Fortune 500 companies
For FORTUNE, Lila Maclellan provides a quick guide to who’s who in the push against corporate DEI—featuring FAIR.
FAIR takes issue with organizations and schools that support identity-based employee resource groups and what it calls “propaganda,” such as racial sensitivity training. For example, in 2022, a teacher-artist at New York theatre training nonprofit New 42 partnered with FAIR to sue his employer when he took diversity training and was invited to join a “white-identifying breakout room.” FAIR recently published an open letter to Kaplan, the education and test prep company, over a diversity scholarship program that offers a greater subsidy to applicants from marginalized backgrounds. FAIR says it is a non-partisan group, according to a spokesperson. “Our position is that when schools support physical separation of employees or students based on skin color or ethnicity, it creates a racially hostile environment.”
The parents who dared to question Newton’s educational equity experiments
For The Boston Globe, Carey Goldberg writes about mothers who challenged new policies in their kids’ schools and were accused of being racists and right-wingers.
As the mothers sought to understand what was happening in the schools and how to counteract it, they explored a connection with a new national group called the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. They held two home events with its speakers and used some of its language for a proposed alternative to the district values statement that would emphasize “common humanity.” That connection fueled the accusations that the mothers were right-wing pawns. FAIR has been called “anti-woke,” and some call the mothers’ camp “anti-DEI.”
But “anti-woke” and “anti-DEI” are not the same as “right-wing.” FAIR, a nonpartisan nonprofit that opposes identity politics and supports “diversity without division,” certainly disagrees with some orthodox progressive positions on fraught issues, including transgender topics. But its positions, including its challenges of race-based policies, tend to have broad support in the American center, and its members span the political spectrum.
My City in Ashes
For FAIR’s Substack, Michelle Pollino offers a personal reckoning with the fires and failures of Los Angeles.
I refuse to sacrifice my humanity on the altar of disastrous DEI practices. Despite the destruction, perhaps we can all learn from this. We now have an opportunity to reject identity politics outright—to stop making judgments and decisions based on skin color and embrace our common sense. Our common humanity.
Last week, I rescued a scared and lost silky terrier darting through the streets. Her owner, Chanel, was frantic when we finally reunited them. Tears streamed down her face as she clutched her dog, Dior, refusing to let go. At no point did Chanel ask for a black person to give her baby back. She didn’t care what color I was. She wanted her dog to make it home safely.
The Poetics of Social (In)Justice
For FAIR’s Substack, Michele Seminara writes about her cancellation experience in the the world of Australian poetry.
Still, I've drawn valuable lessons from the experience. My cancellation helped me clarify my values and forced me to dig deep to find the courage to act in alignment with them. It revealed my strengths and weaknesses and taught me who—and what—are important. It made me less afraid of being judged and disliked. And it opened my eyes to the way groupthink and authoritarianism on the far-left are corroding Western culture.
At a time when expressing dissenting ideas is verboten and creative sovereignty is threatened, it feels like a strength to think critically and write freely. Yet I worry how other artists—and art—will fare when so many feel compelled to curtail their work and speech for fear of losing favor or attracting censure.
Trump’s gender executive order is a return to common sense
For UnHerd, FAIR Advisor Lisa Selin Davis writes about Donald Trump’s executive order entitled, “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation.”
It wasn’t long ago that many Americans, especially Democrats, supported gender-affirming care and “trans rights”. But as they’ve come to understand what these amorphous phrases meant, they’ve shifted their stances. The majority of Americans no longer believe that boys should play on girls’ sports teams, or that minors should receive sex changes. Will those moderates be able to see that this executive order is in line with their thinking, or will they be overwhelmed by the barrage of directives that they can’t tell which are reasonable and which aren’t? We don’t know, but, for now at least, this executive order is a welcome corrective.
Martin Luther King, Conservative?
For National Affairs, FAIR Advisor John Wood Jr. joins Howe Whitman III and Daniel Wiser to discuss how King’s philosophical conservatism transcended ideology.
Trump has become normal. That could be a good thing — really.
For The Washington Post, FAIR Advisor Shadi Hamid writes about the pitfalls of treating Trump as an aberration instead of just a politician.
Despite voting for Democrats my whole life, I’m on a number of right-wing group chats. (It’s good to be friends with people you disagree with because it forces you to question your own assumptions.) As they descended to our nation’s capital for coronation balls and parties, I was struck by their swagger and self-assurance. They felt vindicated. The counter-elite had become the elite. Unlike in 2017, when Washington was hostile territory, this time Washington is — or at least seems to be — theirs.
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