DEI Has Corrupted the Public Universities—And Must Be Abolished

Departments of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” have encrusted America’s public universities with a pernicious racialist ideology. It’s time to abolish them. Sign up for my newsletter

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This week, my Manhattan Institute colleague Ilya Shapiro and I published model legislation to abolish so-called “diversity, equity, and inclusion” departments at public universities.

As my readers have long understood, these departments present themselves with pleasant euphemisms, but in reality, encrust the institutions with critical race ideology and encourage race-based discrimination in admissions, hiring, tenure, and campus justice. DEI—the bureaucratic expression of CRT—is antithetical to the ideals of open inquiry, academic merit, equality under law, and the pursuit of truth.

It is time to abolish these departments in public universities. As we explain in today’s Wall Street Journal, our model legislation proposes four key policies:

- Abolish DEI bureaucracies, which work actively against norms of academic freedom and truth-seeking;

- End mandatory diversity training for students, faculty, and staff, through which DEI ideology shapes campuses;

- Curtail political coercion through the use of so-called “diversity statements,” which serve as litmus tests in employment processes to exclude applicants who don’t adhere to CRT and other left-wing beliefs;

- End identity-based preferences and adopt a system of colorblind equality.

Read the model policy here

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