Weekly Roundup
The Diversity Leadership Fallacy
For FAIR’s Substack, Ryan Ruffaner writes about the efficacy and ethics of diversity initiatives.
You cannot measure the adversity or discrimination a person has experienced purely by their surface-level characteristics. Further, there is no correlation between a person’s surface-level characteristics and the content of their character, or the competency of their knowledge, skills, and abilities. Those who suggest there is a connection are not destroying negative stereotypes, as they may claim. They are merely switching negative stereotypes to a different identity group and continuing the cycle of ignorance and resentment.
The problem with diversity statements — and what to do about them
For The Washington Post, FAIR Advisor Shadi Hamid and TWP Editorial Board write about how DEI statements have too often led to self-censorship and ideological policing.
The last thing academia—or the country—needs is another incentive for people to be insincere or dishonest. The very purpose of the university is to encourage a free exchange of ideas, seek the truth wherever it may lead, and to elevate intellectual curiosity and openness among both faculty and students. Whatever their original intent, the use of DEI statements has too often resulted in self-censorship and ideological policing. Fundamentally reconsidering them could actually strengthen DEI, by placing it on a more sustainable basis — intellectually and politically. MIT is one of the first to tackle the issue; here’s hoping it won’t be the last.
DEI in higher ed: When it’s constitutional and when it’s not
For the FIRE Newsdesk, FAIR’s Chairman of the Board Angel Eduardo writes about the legal and cultural pitfalls of DEI.
First Amendment law is clear that legal protections for speech do not depend on the speech’s viewpoint. However detestable any individual may find a particular viewpoint, it is the right of every American to speak their minds and hear ideas they are interested in.
It is the purpose of higher education to allow students and faculty alike to engage in difficult discussions, entertain controversial concepts, and explore divergent perspectives. To this end, it is imperative that our colleges and universities promote and protect academic freedom — meaning ideological diversity is just as important to a functioning educational institution.
‘Not Like Us’
For The Atlantic, Thomas Chatterton Williams writes about a feud between rappers and the skin-deep racialism that still holds us back.
The retrograde notion that thought and action necessarily flow from racial identities whose borders are definable and whose authority is heritable is both fictitious and counterproductive. “Something is afoot that is the business of every citizen who thought that the racist concepts of a century ago were gone—and good riddance!” Barbara and Karen Fields write in their 2012 masterpiece, Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life. “The continued vitality of those concepts stands as a reminder that, however important a historical watershed the election of an African-American president may be, America’s post-racial era has not been born.”
Beyond Grievance Politics
For Law & Liberty, George Hawley writes a review of Coleman Hughes’ latest book, The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America.
In a moving passage, Hughes states, “When I look at the current racial landscape of American society, I feel sick at heart. I dread the possibility of black identity becoming tied to a rehearsed sense of victimhood, and of people of color never allowing themselves to participate fully in the privileges of freedom.” I fear many white conservative readers will nod along to these words, without considering whether many on their own side need to hear a similar message.
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Dunno, I'm still getting the feeling that FAIR is disturbingly "squishy" on the whole DEI thing. Why does the organization seem to be trapped within the DEI paradigm and unable to categorically reject its siren song?