Organizations such as the Roman Catholic Church have catechisms, a list of beliefs to which all members are expected to subscribe. Interestingly, the 1848 Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels was really an extension of a slightly earlier Communist catechism authored by Engels. As far leftist extremists increasingly took over college campuses over the past decade, led by a cadre of “diveristy, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) enforcers, a collegiate Gestapo, they insisted that students and faculty associated with the institution sign mandatory “diversity statements,” pledging fealty to doctrines endorsed by the prevailing leftist campus jihad.
This attempt to enforce ideological conformity, of course, is anathema to a learning community seeking truth and beauty through a civil but freewheeling exploration of alternative perspectives on how the world works–or should work. This Friday, the National Association of Scholars (NAS), the owner and operator of this site, plans to release a new report, Ideological Insistence: Diversity Statements and the Challenge to Academic Freedom, at its New York headquarters—readers of this epistle are welcome to attend. If it follows the tradition of NAS reports, it will be a detailed, rather comprehensive, even riveting exposure of the myriad of sins and damage that DEI and diversity statements have caused the American academic community.
Personally, I have inadvertently been in the crossfire of a couple DEI initiated confrontations at my own university and found it very frightening: alleged campus “colleagues” treating me extremely rudely and implying I was a minor co-conspirator in a nasty effort to keep the DEI ideology and mantras from taking over the operation of an important campus program–almost like an updated and collegiate version of Franz Kafka’s The Trial. The accused are presumed guilty unless they can prove their innocence, as determined by a bunch of newly anointed power-hungry bureaucrats who use terror and intimidation to increase their campus power. Fortunately, this type of outrageous behavior has horrified enough members of the general public that a counteroffensive, a robust anti-DEI counter-reformation, if you will, is happening at both the federal and state levels. According to the DEI tracker of the Chronicle of Higher Education, seven states have essentially completely outlawed DEI initiatives—including populous Florida and Ohio—and several others have constrained them by gubernatorial actions and other means. And the Trump Administration has shown, clearly not always in a pristinely appropriate way, that it plans to use its considerable clout to end this sorry episode in American collegiate history.
To be sure, this is not the first encroachment on the academy’s traditional ways of doing business, nor will it likely be the last. Universities cannot survive solely on the tuition revenues provided by the customers that justify their existence, their students, in part because they are horridly costly from such maladies as bloated administrative staff—not only DEI jihadists—underutilized buildings operating mostly at best nine months a year, nonsensical subsides of ball throwing contests, etc. They are, rightly or wrongly, wards of the state, even so-called private universities like Harvard with endowments reaching several million dollars per student. In the 1950s, some public colleges and universities confronted loyalty oaths imposed by state governments. Even earlier in history, concern over the firing of professors with unpopular ideas led to the adoption of tenure standards championed by the American Association of University Professors.
Outrageous behavior often prevails in campus communities because it can flourish without negative consequences. Incentives are out of whack for many academics. Good behavior is often lightly rewarded, and bad behavior goes relatively unpunished. Only in universities can you find some employees—e.g., football and basketball coaches—that make five or ten times as much as the boss—college president—or where employees can even fire the boss—e.g., Larry Summers, former Harvard President, was hounded out of office by the Arts and Science faculty for having the temerity to state, probably accurately that men have superior talents in some scientific or mathematically inclined disciplines.
The triumph of identity politics, along with the over-centralization of power in Washington, D.C. bureaucracies, has severely hurt academic America. The efforts of organizations like NAS to counter this are to be commended. If in New York this Friday, consider registering to attend the launch of the new study detailing the multiplicity of sins perpetrated on us by an anti-intellectual, power-hungry, pernicious, and rent-seeking bureaucracy that needs to be eliminated.
Sign up to attend the event here.
Art by Beck & Stone
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
