DEI is exposed as dangerous and counterproductive
Has sanity finally returned to American society? It appears yes, at least when it comes to the nefarious, perverse and counterproductive Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) fixation — which has bedeviled Americans in universities, primary schools, secondary schools and workplaces across the nation.
DEI claimed that implementation of its programs — which assumes “white supremacy” as dominating every aspect of American life, with all whites “oppressors” and all others as the “oppressed” — would improve racial reconciliation in America.
DEI is the misbegotten child of critical race theory (CRT), which assumes white supremacy and prejudice as corrupting everything in American society, requiring discrimination against whites to redress previous grievances. CRT, for example, claims that one evidence of white supremacy is the American and Western Civilization's “worship of the written word," Nicholas Confessore writes in The New York Times Magazine article “The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong?"
Get Our Latest News for FREE
As Rich Lowry in The New York Post puts it, “We’ve been spending an estimated $8 billion a year telling Americans in training sessions, workshops and educational material that they are, depending on their race or gender, victims or oppressors, and that the country is shot through with white supremacy.”
A compelling new study just released jointly by the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab found that “some anti-oppressive DEI narratives can engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policing, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence for a transgression deserving punishment.”
In other words, “if you make people read the ‘Racism is everywhere’ ravings of Robin DiAngelo and Ibram X. Kendi, some of them will ... see racism even where there’s no evidence of it,” writes The New York Post Post Editorial Board.
Of course, there were many critics, including myself, who had read the critical race theorists who argued that this was indeed the plan and the intent of many of them — use racism to divide our people, delegitimize our founding and our history, tearing it down and replacing it with a socialist “paradise” in the future.
The NCRI-Rutgers University study found that “DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicion of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events.”
The study’s conclusion is devastating:
“The evidence presented in these studies reveals that while purporting to combat bias, some anti-oppressive DEI narratives can engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policy, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence, for transgression deserving punishment.”
DEI has also been extremely prevalent and influential on American college campuses. The University of Michigan spent approximately $250 million over a decade in “making DEI part of the warp and woof of the school’s life,” which has been judged by many to be a failure.
In a 2022 survey, “students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics,” reported Confessore in The New York Times Magazine.
Corporations (who spent approximately $7.5 billion on DEI in 2020 alone) have also found it promotes increased racial and ethnic animosity and less cohesion, reported Rikki Schlott of The New York Post.
Schlott related the story of Walmart’s negative and disillusioning experience with DEI in causing increased imagining of racial prejudice “where there wasn’t any.” Interestingly, in 2016, even Harvard Business Review concluded that “the positive effects of diversity training rarely lasts beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash."
As Schlott told the story of DEI’s failure, she related her own experience with DEI.
“I know this firsthand, as a Gen Zer. When I was a 14-year-old at boarding school in New Jersey, my freshman class was segregated into separate buildings by race to discuss our racial experiences with ‘affinity groups’ — on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.”
What a travesty. Schlott’s experience is a far cry from a country where we are judged “not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” DEI is the direct opposite of Dr. King’s dream, and America must choose either DEI or Dr. King’s dream. As for me and my house, we will continue to pursue Dr. King’s vision. Please join us.
Dr. Richard Land, BA (Princeton, magna cum laude); D.Phil. (Oxford); Th.M (New Orleans Seminary). Dr. Land served as President of Southern Evangelical Seminary from July 2013 until July 2021. Upon his retirement, he was honored as President Emeritus and he continues to serve as an Adjunct Professor of Theology & Ethics. Dr. Land previously served as President of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (1988-2013) where he was also honored as President Emeritus upon his retirement. Dr. Land has also served as an Executive Editor and columnist for The Christian Post since 2011.
Dr. Land explores many timely and critical topics in his daily radio feature, “Bringing Every Thought Captive,” and in his weekly column for CP.
