It is immensely encouraging to see state legislatures proposing and, in some cases, passing bills that would end “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) indoctrination in public colleges and universities. DEI programs are widespread in higher education, and they do profound harm to students, faculty, and the quality of education.
Getting rid of them, however, is difficult.
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Though they are very unpopular with the general public, they have entrenched support on campus from administrators, DEI staff, and their grievance-minded acolytes. DEI-inflected faculty hiring ensures that every academic department has its quota of DEI enthusiasts and that any dissenters from DEI orthodoxy are intimidated into silence.
In light of this self-perpetuating hold on the colleges, no one can expect that the institutions will cure themselves. That’s why interventions by state legislatures are necessary.
Ohio SB-1 is the bill I know best, having testified for its previous version, SB-83. It has now passed the Ohio Senate and is going before the House, where many observers, including myself, think it has a strong chance of success. The bill has provisions that go well beyond banning DEI, but they are all constructive steps to ensure that the state’s public higher education serves the public’s interests.
The pending bill in Indiana, SB 289, is more narrowly focused on weeding out DEI programs and includes steps that anticipate that universities will attempt to evade any DEI ban by various forms of bureaucratic subterfuge. Critics of the bill mischaracterize it as “censorship,” but it is really aimed at restoring genuine freedom of speech and thought.
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The defenders of DEI have considerable gall to claim that free speech is under attack when they have spent more than a decade engaged in stigmatizing anyone who criticizes the roughshod tactics of DEI offices. So-called “bias response teams” operate on many campuses to enable students to report anonymously anything they imagine as “hate speech.” Shutting down fellow students and getting faculty members “canceled” is the hallmark of DEI ideology on campus.
The defenders of this tyranny now dare to complain that attempts to end it are an attack on academic freedom. But the truth is that these reforms are a long-delayed restoration of basic rights that the radical DEI regime on campus has done all that it can to suppress.
Image: Columbus: Ohio Senate Chamber by harry_nl on Flickr
This article was originally published at www.mindingthecampus.org
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