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The great DEI drainout continues. Last week, North Carolina’s Daily Tar Heel ran a story headlined, “UNC System announces multi-million dollar cuts for DEI positions and programs.”
It was a DEI St. Valentine’s Day massacre. Last week, the state’s Board of Governors made sweeping cuts across the entire North Carolina public university system, slashing up to sixty positions and reallocating tens of millions of dollars in budgets for diversity and inclusion programs.
The Board equitably reassigned even more positions and, very diversely, dissolved entire DEI departments.
The move followed a new policy the Board approved back in May. UNC’s system approved a policy banning all DEI offices and titles, and required its universities to report on staff and funding reductions for these programs by September 1st.
Progress! As red state educational systems recapture money wasted on DEI departments, they will gain competitive advantages over blue state schools, since they can better fund other programs that add value, like STEM degrees. Blue state schools will, eventually, be forced to come around.
It’s slow, but it’s happening. Nobody’s setting up new DEI departments, and red states are, one by one, defenestrating them. As Charles MacKay famously wrote, “Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
In a world that seems constantly crazy, we need to focus on what’s happening at ground level in boardrooms and conferences. The world is not going as crazy as the headlines suggest. Hang in there!
Yesterday, the New York Times ran a long-form, magazine-style report, explicitly labeled as “investigative,” headlined “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?” ...
Apart from Matt Walsh’s movie (“Am I Racist?”), nothing this year has more evidenced the promising advances in the conservative counter-revolution than this article springing from one of the wellsprings of DEI, which, as it turns out, is not, after all, Ponce De Leon’s fountain of eternal academic youth.
DEI is prematurely aging. It isn’t aging well.
The article described how no university in America embraced DEI as tightly and passionately as did the University of Michigan. In 2016, after Trump’s election, every single MichU department, hundreds and hundreds of them, were ordered to develop and staff comprehensive DEI radicalization plans.
Even the university’s plant nursery (the “Arboretum”) delivered a 37-page buzzword-packed diversity plan, born out of wedlock, which vowed to adopt “a polycentric paradigm, decentering singular ways of knowing and cocreating meaning through a variety of epistemic frames, including dominant scientific and horticultural modalities, Two-Eyed Seeing, Kinomaage and other cocreated power realignments.”
They are deadly serious, but that right there is a joke. I defy you to explain what that means in simple English. (Two-Eyed Seeing? Apart from BB gun accident victims and the mythical Cyclops, is there any other kind of seeing?) I also defy you to justify how a plant nursery could be so racist it had to be “fixed” in the first place.
The Times’ investigative journalist interviewed numberless faculty members, mostly unlucky teachers who the institutional DEI machine had masticated at one point or another. A common theme developed. The original architects and power brokers of MichU’s DEI industry refused to talk to the Times’ reporter. They sensed it was too dangerous.
A second theme bubbled up: white women were the worst. A “cartoon professor” was investigated by the University’s DEI police after students reported her for showing them a ‘racist’ cartoon (a 1960s political cartoon about Maoist repression). She told the Times she’d been reported by a group of female white students. “They want to do something — be a part of the cause,” the professor explained.
Another professor remarked that creating the DEI tipline and policing process was like handing tasers to a gang of six-year-old children. At times, the article swerved — almost certainly intentionally — toward Matt Walsh-levels of self-parody. For example:
"Last spring, I met with Princess-'Maria Mboup, then the B.S.U.'s
vice speaker, and Brooklyn Blevins, its speaker at the time.
Michigan couldn't create a more welcoming environment for Black
students because it didn't enroll enough of them, Blevins told me; it
couldn't enroll more of them because the environment wasn't
welcoming."
... In sum, the Times’ story — again, well worth reading — conveyed a pervasive sense of dilapidation, as though the entire edifice of DEI is rotting from the inside, paint peeling off the walls, doors hanging from the hinges. Let us never forget that DEI was still under construction until the pandemic exposed the reprehensible ideology to appalled parents.
Would it help to point out shoveling money to people because they are of a specific race is illegal? No, it would not. Because the law is what the law does, so suck it up, white men. And because “Beginning in 2021, the White House and NSF created scientific integrity policies to require that agencies “[i]ncorporate [Diversity, Inclusion, Equity, and Accessibility] considerations into all aspects of science planning, execution, and communication.”
About a third of the DIE grants went to women because they were women. The Committee didn’t say what these women’s feelings were about this, but it’s a good bet the papers they write funded by this largess will fill us in in great detail.
The other grants went to the categories of Social Justice, a.k.a. Grievance Hustling, Race, and Environmental Justice, which surprisingly (to me, anyway) only scooped up 362 grants. Could interest in “climate change” for persons of color be waning?
It’s worse than the raw numbers say, because the amounts going to DIE are increasing year by year, with most of it coming in 2023, and 2024 looking like it will be a banner year. A full 16.5\% of all NSF grants in 2022 were for DIEing, almost 19\% in 2023, and it’s projected to be about 27\% this year.
Over a quarter of “hard” science money is now going to DIE. It turns out to be more than enough.
More evidence comes from this post (and subscribe!) by our friend John Carter, the very Martian Warlord himself: “Academia is women’s work“. All that money spent to DIE has its effect. Women now dominate almost all university departments, with the exceptions, so far, of Engineering and Computer Science. For the obvious reasons. But, as Carter says, these fields cannot remain untouched:
"Sadly for the prospects of academia, there is almost no prospect of universities letting well enough be. The persistence of a few small pockets of patriarchy in the midst of the gynocratic hegemony is an affront to everything the longhouse stands for. We endlessly hear about the crisis of female underrepresentation in those departments that have not yet been conquered, principally STEM. There are special recruitment programs for women, special scholarships for women, special mentoring programs for women. STEM departments are under constant internal and external pressure to bring in more women. This has led to a culture inside STEM departments that shows immense favouritism to women…
University faculties and administrations are packed full of activist girlbosses for whom admitting, mentoring, hiring, and promoting other activist girlbosses is their entire animating purpose in life."
She told the Times she’d been reported by a group of female white students. “They want to do something — be a part of the cause,” the professor explained.
The Wall Street Journal ran a very satisfying story yesterday headlined, “Walmart Rolls Back DEI Programs.” The sub-headline added, “Retail giant will wind down Center for Racial Equity and prevent sellers from listing some LGBTQ-themed items on its website.” It’s not just Walmart. Walmart swings massive momentum as the world’s largest retailer, dictating preferred terms to a vast root system of suppliers and manufacturers. Could the nation’s long DEI nightmare officially be over? Has the tide, at long last, finally turned?
A now-familiar name appeared in the Journal’s article: conservative filmmaker and anti-DEI activist Robby Starbuck. Robby tweeted about how the Walmart turnaround went down. He contacted Walmart management and told them he planned to run a story on their DEI programs. Walmart management asked for an emergency meeting with Robby, and when they met, Walmart reviewed a long list of planned DEI rollbacks.
The changes ran the gamut from simple to profound. The retailer promised to discontinue using the DEI acronym and its words. It will ashcan the cringe term “LatinX.” It will stop racial equity training for its employees. It will remove some super-gross, non-kid-friendly LGBT products from its web-based ‘marketplace.’ Most importantly, Walmart will end its preferred-suppliers program, which gave advantages to suppliers pushing DEI on their employees.
Illustrating the power of a single committed conservative activist, Robby Starbuck has now been involved in deleting DEI from corporate policies at: Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle, Lowe’s, Ford, Coors, Stanley Black & Decker, Jack Daniels, DeWalt tools, Craftsman, Caterpillar, Boeing, Toyota and now WALMART.
Robby Starbuck is a one-man DEI wrecking ball.
University System of Georgia to ban DEI, commit to neutrality, teach Constitution
By Tate Miller | The Center Square contributor Nov 23, 2024
The University System of Georgia’s Board of Regents has recommended a number of new and revised policies for its institutions, such as a commitment to institutional neutrality, the prohibiting of DEI tactics, and a mandatory education in America’s founding documents. ...
“Ideological tests, affirmations, and oaths, including diversity statements,” will be banned from admissions processes and decisions, employment processes and decisions, and institution orientation and training for both students and employees.
“No applicant for admission shall be asked to or required to affirmatively ascribe to or opine about political beliefs, affiliations, ideals, or principles, as a condition for admission,” the new policy states.
Additionally, USG will hire based on a person’s qualifications and ability.
“The basis and determining factor” for employment will be “that the individual possesses the requisite knowledge, skills, and abilities associated with the role, and is believed to have the ability to successfully perform the essential functions, responsibilities, and duties associated with the position for which the individual is being considered.”
Western Media Suppresses Study That Reveals DEI Training Fuels Hatred Against Hindus
Southwest jettisons DEI hiring practices after civil rights complaint ✊
Dec 4, 2024 · NottheBee.com
In the latest blow to the DEI agenda, Southwest Airlines has reportedly agreed to ground and cancel its DEI employment practices following a federal civil rights complaint by America First Legal (AFL).
The U.S. Department of Labor has confirmed that Southwest will end race and sex-based discrimination in hiring and promotions following AFL’s federal civil rights complaint.
That hissing sound is the air leaking out of the DEI balloon. NBC ran a terrific story yesterday headlined, “DEI programs weathered a myriad of attacks this year, with more to come in 2025.” For instance, on Friday, local KCRG-Boise ran a very encouraging video report headlined, “University of Iowa pushes to close departments of American Studies and Gender, Women’s and Sexuality.” (Sexuality studies? What career does that prepare you for?)
As part of a broader DEI diminishment effort, the University of Iowa’s board of governors announced last week a plan to close —for good— the three silliest, least productive departments in the state’s public universities, plus cancel two other majors in ‘American Studies’ and Social Justice.
Earlier this month, the University of Michigan ended a requirement for ‘DEI statements’ in faculty hiring, promotion, and tenure. And the University of Austin, a private liberal arts university, also replaced its DEI framework with merit-based initiatives this year. “One by one, diversity, equity and inclusion programs at some of the country’s biggest companies fell apart in 2024,” NBC reported, “with signs that efforts to reverse DEI initiatives will only ramp up in 2025.”
Even companies hanging on to DEI face lawsuits and shareholder initiatives. CostCo is in the news this week as its woke board tries to fend off a well-organized shareholder proposal to delete DEI. Other companies are trying to keep the grift going by rebranding and relabeling their DEI departments and going underground, a short-term solution not likely to remain viable in the long term, with the DOJ passing under skeptical conservative control.
Western Media Suppresses Study That Reveals DEI Training Fuels Hatred Against Hindus
In the latest blow to the DEI agenda, Southwest Airlines has reportedly agreed to ground and cancel its DEI employment practices following a federal civil rights complaint by America First Legal (AFL).
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According to data provided by job site Indeed, cited by CNBC, DEI-related job postings in 2023 have declined 44%.
In November 2023, the last full month for which data was available, DEI job postings dropped 23% year over year.
Layoffs at Google and Meta also included employees who held leadership roles in Black employee resource groups (ERGs), CNBC said.
Devika Brij, CEO of Brij the Gap Consulting, which works with tech companies’ DEI efforts, told CNBC that some companies have cut nearly 90% of their DEI budget by midyear 2023.
“When George Floyd began to become the topic of conversations, companies and executives doubled down on their commitments and here we are only a couple years later, and folks are looking for opportunities to cut those teams,” Brij said.
Melinda Briana Epler, the founder and CEO of Empovia, said that the cuts in DEI in 2023 were “stark” compared to previous years.
“Whenever there is an economic downturn in tech, some of the first budgets that are cut are in DEI, but I don’t think we’ve seen such stark contrast as this year,” Epler told CNBC.
The layoffs come just three years following the boom in DEI initiatives that came during the Black Lives Matter protests and riots.
https://nypost.com/2023/12/28/tech/google-meta-other-tech-giants-slash-dei-related-jobs-resource-groups-in-2023-report/