How DEI Is Supplanting Truth as the Mission of American Universities
National Association of Scholars’ John Sailer describes how the principels of DEI are “meant to sound like a promise to provide welcome and opportunity to all on campus,” yet instead they represent “controversial political and social views.” In order to advance in their careers, academics “must demonstrate fealty to vague and ever-expanding DEI demands and to the people who enforce them. Failing to comply, or expressing doubt or concern, means risking career ruin.”
As. Harvey Silverglate (HLS ‘67) has written about Harvard, Sailer writes that “In a short time, DEI imperatives have spawned a growing bureaucracy that holds enormous power within universities… More significantly, the concepts of DEI have become guiding principles in higher education, valued as equal to or even more important than the basic function of the university: the rigorous pursuit of truth."
Sailer resports that “as allegiance to DEI has become a formal job requirement, even many senior faculty members remain silent out of a sense of self-preservation. As former dean of Harvard Medical School Jeffrey Flier told me, ‘It is considered politically and socially tenuous to bring up the subject.’”
Still, Sailer says, some are pushing back. “In August, the Academic Freedom Alliance released a statement, coauthored by Flier, calling for an end to the practice of mandatory DEI statements.”
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