The debate in colleges and universities over diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, or D E. I has been heating up around the country and the backlash politically and socially to previous programs has been growing as part of our ongoing race Matters Series. John Yang unpacks the debate and examines the stakes in higher education. I'm not. Utah's Spencer Cox is the latest governor to sign a new law banning any state funding for programs dedicated to promoting diversity, including its state colleges and universities. Utah joints five other states, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, North Dakota and Tennessee. They all have laws on the books restricting or banning D E. I. Lawmakers in 25 states have introduced more than 70 bills targeting D E I efforts at public institutions. The issue was flared up in the wake of the October 7th attacks in Israel and the war against Hamas. It sparked debates over tolerance, inclusion and academic freedom. Shaun Harper is the executive director of the Race and Equity Center at the University of Southern California. And Greg Lukianoff is CEO of the Foundation for individual Rights and Expression, which is a free speech organization. Sean, I'd like to start with you. What? What? What is lost when these offices are closed? Sure. Uh, well, first off, thanks for having US institution loses its fidelity to its mission. There are nearly 5000 colleges and universities across the United States. Most of them include some language in their missions about preparing students for citizenship in a diverse democracy and other commitments to offering and assuring and inclusive learning environment for all students that is lost as institutions walked back their commitments to D E. I was also lost is our ultimate Um, contribution to the defense of our democracy. It is dangerous to send millions of college educated people into the world and into our professions under prepared to deal with the inequities that have long disadvantaged our democracy, Greg, From your point of view, why should the officers go away? Because their threats to free speech and academic freedom on campus and have been consistently for as long as they've been called the I, uh, offices before that. The biggest threat we've seen reached an economic freedom on campus are administrators themselves. But we've had particular issues with the eye administrators, including at Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Syracuse, U Mass Boston University, U. C L. A University of Toledo. We had a case at University of Michigan, whereas a professor was investigated by the D I department for showing the older fellow from the 19 sixties with low Arts Olivier in blackface. Our research indicates that the greater the relative size of D I bureaucracy, the university, the more discomfort students feel expressing their views on social media and an informal conversations with each other. And this is one of the things that has been missing with mainstream coverage of this situation, Shawn. What about that threat to academic freedom? It creates a big bureaucracy. What do you say to that? Yeah. You know, I am a tenured professor who very much enjoys his academic freedom. So let me not be a hypocrite. On this point. Um, I think what is lost and misunderstood in this broad brushes with which the EI gets miss painted. Um, it's that you know these occasional Uh, sort of one off. Um, are examples of what's happening in every academic department in every office on every campus. That's just not the case, right. I have studied literally. Millions of college students literally millions on hundreds of campuses. And I have to tell you that students of color most especially Are not feeling like, um Colleges are as as as liberal and as welcoming and inclusive as, uh as the D E i obstructionists are claiming them to be. The evidence is the exact opposite. As a matter of fact, there isn't enough emphasis placed on the EI. People who lead those offices often don't have The budgets and the staffing that they need to help the institution make good on the commitments that it has made. Uh, to to ensure diversity, equity and inclusion. Gregor Uwe Diversity obstructionist. Diversity of directives. I feel like a lot of what I learned from the way we argue in academia today is you just come up with, like greater and greater insult technology as if it's an argument. So you u C. L A. For example, 2020 after a student complained about a professor reading MLK's letter from a Birmingham jail, which does include racial slurs. You feel really referred him to the D I office and so this is this is not an occasional thing. And by the way, 2020 2021 where the two worst years we've seen for Professor cancelations. In our history at at fire, and as best we can tell, we haven't seen anything like it since the law was established way back in 1973, so we have actually been in a academic freedom crisis. And and lately it's actually been very much directed at pro Palestinian voices, which we've been very busy defending, but I do think that ultimately Um, you know, it's not just the D I and and the administrative bloat at universities of costing students more. They are actually many cases undermining one of the fundamental functions of a university. Shauna. I don't want to put words into Greg's mouth. But I've heard others argue against the EI saying that colleges and universities arts essentially indoctrinating students in sort of left wing views. What do you say to that? Yeah, Listen, I'm a past president of the American Educational Research Association, value research and evidence, not anecdotes. And I have to say again that the research makes painstakingly clear that students of color and white students alike. The overwhelming majority of them do not feel like they're being indoctrinated. In fact. Many of them tell us in our surveys and certainly in our qualitative research that they don't learn enough about race and racism about other dimensions of D E I, The other thing that I will say about you know those who recklessly claimed that there's just all of this indoctrination. Um, I wonder. When was the last time they sat in More than one d E I program. How many programs have they actually sat in and been a part of who were the presenters? Were those presenters indeed indoctrinating people and insulting them and dividing them? Is that a thing that happens in every ge I workshop doesn't happen in most ve, I workshops I can tell you declare it'd Lee in the ones that we do here at the USC race and Equity Center across K 12 schools higher Ed To shins and corporations. That's not what we do here, and that's not how professionals experience what we deliver. Greg these these efforts against state D E. I pop up programs that state and public schools particularly are often described or framed as conservative political activism. Is that fair or accurate? I think I think that's I think that's relatively fair. And we have opposed, for example, to stop woke Act and Florida which we thought was laughably unconstitutional because it actually went beyond because a lot of these attempts to get rid of D I administrators are constitutional because administrators don't have special academic freedom of protections. But some of these laws restrict the rights of free speech rights of students and the curricular rights of professors. So the Stop woke Act in Florida was a great example of some Thing that was unconstitutional. We charged in court. We defeated it so far, and it's currently on appeal. But there have been several attempts that have actually badly implicated academic freedom. And every time those come up, we fight them in court. Sean, If the if the FBI officers do such good work, and so are so desirable why these laws passing? Why this sort of backlash against D E. I Well, they are part of an actual Politicized movement that is succeeding. There is a playbook that is being passed from state to state and you know, to cities and towns within states. Um, so there's a strategy that is absolutely succeeding. And that strategy is largely fueled by misinformation and disinformation about what's happening on campuses based on anecdotes based on rumors not based on robust Uh, samples of thousands and millions of students and higher ed workers. I started with Sean. I'm going to let you have the last word. You reacted quite a bit there to which was saying We are the research indicating the strength of of of D I programming is actually very weak. The research indicating that there's been a major threat to academic freedom and freedom of speech over the past several years is extremely strong. In terms of the number of professors we've seen lose their jobs and to be clear threats come from both the right and the left. But we're talking about about 200 professors fired, Uh, since you saw the escalation of professors getting fired around 2014 2017, and that's twice as many professors who were fired under the standard estimates of McCarthyism. And what's different is the law supposed to protect them now, So I really want people to take the situation for academic freedom and free speech on campus more seriously, and there's no way to protect it with his massive bureaucracies that we currently have in higher Ed. Today, gentlemen, I'm afraid we're gonna have to leave it there. We're out of time. And Greg Lukianoff and Shaun Harper. Thank you both very much for a spirited discussion. Thanks for having me. Thank you.
