Can the anti-DEI movement present an affirmative vision of justice that resonates with those who intuit that DEI is wrong?
No one can pinpoint when the fight against diversity, equity, and inclusion started – if it can even be disentangled from related campaigns against affirmative action, minority contracting, and other forms of identity favoritism – but it’s hardly a nascent movement by now. The Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action, as long practiced in higher education, is illegal. The Trump administration is rooting out racial favoritism in government programs and contracting alongside states that are foregrounding merit in all public investments. However, to achieve its goals and maintain its victories, the anti-DEI movement must entrench its competing set of principles in non-governmental institutions – and ultimately in Americans’ hearts and minds.
The headlines suggest momentum. Some DEI offices shuttered, mandatory diversity statements abandoned, and law firms folded the moment they were sued for programs explicitly favoring “underrepresented minorities.” But what’s beneath the surface? Are we witnessing the end of an admitted fad, a kind of moral panic over systemic discrimination? Or is the will to engage in reparations for “historically marginalized groups” still deeply rooted to the point that those who brought it into the mainstream within the last decade will grit their teeth, bide their time, and bring it back in short order?
Continue reading the entire piece here at the Civitas Institute
______________________
Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow.
Photo by Connect Images/Peter Muller/Getty Images
