The Patriot Post® · How About a Different DEI in Higher Ed?

American universities are more diverse and inclusive than ever, or so we’ve been told.

In reality, though, the academic world is a place where free speech is suppressed, and faculty and staff are forced to take oaths to diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI), as well as anti-racism.

“Diversity statements require applicants for jobs, promotions, or grants to demonstrate how they will advance DEI principles as a condition of success,” reports Newsweek. “This requirement discriminates against conservative and classical liberal applicants who, reflecting the views of a majority of Americans, prioritize equal treatment, objective truth, and freedom of speech above equal outcomes and emotional safety for minorities. Diversity statements are loyalty oaths which violate applicants’ freedom of conscience and discriminate on the basis of philosophical belief.”

Those who don’t pledge their loyalty are reprimanded, fired, or not hired in the first place. Those who conform must constantly self-censor, ever fearful they might have their names handed over to diversity officers if they step out of line.

Colleges and universities should be places where faculty and students feel free to share ideas, engage in respectful debates, and seek truth. Now, even those who consider themselves liberal are under scrutiny if they break from the status quo and defend the idea of academic freedom.

Over at the TaxProf blog, Paul Caron writes, “The university’s ideological narrowing has advanced so far that even liberal institutionalists — faculty who believe universities should be places of intellectual pluralism and adhere to the traditional academic norms of merit and free inquiry — are in decline.”

Professors in the 1960s and ‘70s clamored for academic freedom, but their goal was to dismantle and replace the Western canon and replace it with a far-reaching Marxist agenda. Over time, radical professors and administrators became the majority, hiring only like-minded professors and creating an insulated environment hostile to moderate or conservative viewpoints.

In 2022, the Legatum Institute published a study of academics in the U.S. and other countries that found “clear evidence of a strong ideological imbalance on campus” and noted that conservative faculty are more likely to self-censor. It also discovered that 91% of so-called right-wing academics support academic freedom, but only 45% of left-wing academics are “willing to compromise on the principle of academic freedom.” Unsurprisingly, 91% of conservative faculty believe academic freedom “should always be prioritized even it if violates social justice ideology,” compared to only 45% of leftist faculty.

The leaders of the diversity movement are focused more on training students to become activists than educated citizens. They have an agenda, and they need foot soldiers who just happen to be the unwitting students coming to class thinking they’re getting an education. Today, the system ensures those students will have plenty of leftist instructors to lead the way.

The requirement that new faculty and staff pledge their loyalty to DEI keeps independent-minded or conservative scholars from entering the profession. Others remaining in the system face increasing pressure to conform or leave. The result is a system ruled by people who’ve abandoned any semblance of free thought while publicly claiming to believe in diversity and inclusion.

According to the Goldwater Institute, “Americans are realizing that DEI cloaks its radical and discriminatory aims in feel-good buzzwords. The ideology behind DEI divides the world into the simplistic categories of 'oppressor’ and ‘oppressed,’ calling for discrimination against ‘oppressors’ to achieve ‘social justice.’”

The news isn’t all bleak for free thinkers looking to become professors. There is a growing movement to diversify higher education with more right-leaning perspectives. National Affairs reports, “In the face of these daunting challenges, it is encouraging that at least some moderate and liberal professors have recently expressed their support for more political diversity in the academy. As of this writing, more than 2,000 professors and graduate students have joined the Heterodox Academy, an organization that is expressly concerned with the absence of center-right thinkers in many areas of the social sciences and humanities.”

There’s more good news. The tide is beginning to turn in other ways as institutions across the country are scrapping diversity statements and closing diversity offices.

At the same time, we can’t rest on these recent developments. Many schools are simply rebranding their diversity programs, focusing on the term “engagement” instead of diversity or inclusion.

Let’s work to ensure the trend continues in restoring our nation’s colleges and universities and making sure they are laboratories of ideas instead of factories of propaganda.