Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is the functional iteration of critical race theory (CRT). It involves policing what companies, schools, and governmental offices are doing to ensure enough diversity of skin color or sexual proclivities, not of thought. DEI promotes an intersectional hierarchy that adversely discriminates against certain groups of people. It also seeks to abolish the notion of merit as the highest form when choosing individuals.

However, DEI is slowly dying as educational and industrial institutions are coming to their senses. It actually doesn’t benefit anyone to promote an ideology that marginalizes people via a set of arbitrary boxes and then assigns those attributes as good or bad. It’s ludicrous, not to mention antithetical to all that our country stands for. The whole raison d'être for the United States was to shake off the shackles of European class systems and provide a place where every person could succeed regardless of their origins. That system was based on merit. In other words, if you worked hard, you could move up in the world. You were no longer confined to the life your father led.

Meritocracy is a good and largely impartial system that those who abandoned the ship for DEI are now realizing.

One of the voices leading the charge against DEI is journalist Christopher Rufo. He has been a longtime anti-DEI advocate and even has President-elect Donald Trump’s ear on the matter. Rufo exposed the likes of Disney, former Harvard University president Claudine Gay, and many more. Now he is taking aim at shutting the DEI infrastructure at the university level. The Wall Street Journal quoted him as saying, “It’s time to really put the hammer to these institutions and to start withdrawing potentially billions of dollars in funding until they follow the law.”

Some universities are kowtowing, whether because of SCOTUS getting rid of affirmative action or the universities knowing what time it is, as the kids say these days. After all, they aren’t going to risk having their federal money taken away.

The University System of Georgia has decided that all 26 of its public colleges and universities are going to back out of DEI practices. That includes “ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths, including diversity statements.”

The University of Michigan, largely considered the flagship for DEI on university campuses, is also considering reversing course. The UM Board of Regents met and seriously discussed defunding its DEI department.

On the other hand, schools like the University of Chicago are further entrenching themselves in the DEI matrix. This is hardly surprising for a city whose world-famous art museum fired all of its volunteer docents because 82% of them were white.

As if to underline the folly of DEI teachings, a new study suggests that what critics have been saying for years — that “anti-racism” is really just racism directed at another race — seems to be true. Who'da thunk it? The study comes from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab — not exactly havens for conservative values. The study also suggests that “cancel culture seems to be a natural result of DEI training,” observes Hot Air’s John Sexton. “In fact, the study went a step further and correlated the willingness to punish with Left Wing Authoritarian traits.”

What makes this even more damning is that The New York Times and Bloomberg, whose bias in favor of DEI is evident in much of their reporting, decided not to report on these findings despite using plenty of other studies from NCRI. The Times demanded that the study undergo a peer review. This is interesting because this was “unprecedented demand for our work,” an NCRI researcher told National Review. “The journalist involved had previously covered far more sensitive NCRI findings, such as our QAnon and January 6th studies, without any such request.”

Neo-Marxist ideas like DEI seem to produce increased prejudice and even punitive and violent conflict resolution. Which sounds like where the Left is on most political differences of opinion these days. Now that the culture has been forced to live it and college students molded to its maxims, we see the negative effects. It’s campus intifadas. It’s denial of admission to highly qualified students who’ve worked all their lives to get into the college of their dreams only to be denied because they were the wrong skin color.

You cannot end racism by setting up a system to oppress another race instead. That should have been evident before, but common sense is a lacking quality at many academies.

Christopher Rufo has the right idea. DEI should be eradicated from the cultural psyche and denounced. Better ideas should be given their proper oxygen, and college students should actually be educated.