Last week, the University of Florida announced that 13 full-time diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) positions had been eliminated, and 15 faculty members had their administrative appointments terminated. Similar announcements came from Florida International University and the University of North Florida. New College and University of South Florida dismantled DEI offices earlier. Only the University of Central Florida is openly defying Florida’s 2023 ban on DEI.
DEI ideology has flourished in our nation’s academic institutions, where it long ago captured faculties and then administrators. Disciplines such as sociology or gender studies have seen the principles of identity politics sewn into their professional standards, so there is no effective difference between subject matter mastery and deep ideological indoctrination.
Diversity advocates are absolutely correct that efforts to dismantle the DEI complex on campus mark a civilizational battle. “DEI activities,” writes Mathew H. Grendle of Elon University in Inside Higher Ed, “are designed to address and dismantle structures and systems that perpetuate universal harm” (emphasis mine). The “universal harms” are racial disparities. The cause of such disparities is having standards. Standards are the key to civilization.
Diversity advocates aim to dismantle essential elements of our civilization such as the rule of law impartially applied, in favor of a two-tiered system of justice based on group identity. “Intellectual diversity” or “free speech” are code words for white supremacy or white privilege to DEI bureaucrats, and are implicitly violent, because words can harm. Scientific achievement uses objectivity as a mask for racial and sexual disparities,
