Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.
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What does D.E.I. mean and why is it controversial?
Last week, we woke up to Elon Musk bragging that he was feeding a congressionally authorized agency with a 40 plus billion dollar budget into, and I quote, a wood chipper. Breaking things at warp speed is very much the point now. Many of the most draconian measures have been justified as emergency actions to root out DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion. These are typically programs put in place by large companies or institutions or government agencies to encourage more diverse workplaces. But the administration characterizes DEI as discrimination and broadly as the root of so much of what ails this nation. The temporary freeze of trillions of dollars in federal grants since rescinded was described as an anti-DEI measure.
And the tragic plane crash in Washington, the president also suggested, might well be the result of, yes, DEI. To understand what's happening here and why, I sat down the other day with Jelani Cobb. Jelani Cobb is a longtime staff writer at The New Yorker, and he's a historian and the dean of Columbia University's journalism school. Jelani, barely two or three weeks in office, Donald Trump has gone after academia, journalism, and diversity. So you're a dean, you're a journalist, and guess what? So how are you holding up?
You know, it's kind of like a barrage from all directions. And the one thing that those disparate communities all seem to have in common is a sense of despair about, you know, what happens next and how do we navigate the trials of this moment.
How is D.E.I. being used as a political weapon?
Let's break this down then. What are the fears that you're sensing, for example, in academia where you're spending most of your days? You're at Columbia University.
In academia, the fears range. So there are people who worry that their work, if it touches upon any sensitive subject matter, anything that the Trump administration looks unfavorably upon, that they won't be able to get funding. And in some instances, these are projects that people have worked on for years. And so that's a huge fear for people. And then there's the kind of political pressure I've talked to untenured junior faculty who worry that if they research a subject related to race or related to gender, related to sexuality or gender identity, that that may make it more difficult for them to get tenure. or more difficult for them to get grants and that kind of thing. So very much connected to career concerns.
Are those reasonable concerns, Jelani, since the people that are making the tenure decisions are senior faculty and deans?
Well, I think that there's a question of... whether or not university administrators will stand up for faculty who research topics that are unpopular. There's the maybe not so unreasonable fear that you could become a target of a news story that paints you to be, you know, a kind of caricature of what you actually are interested in researching.
What fears are present in academia related to D.E.I.?
One of the things that's really notable is the extent to which people have begun kind of pulling the historical literature on universities during the McCarthy period that talk about how we navigated that particular crisis.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What does D.E.I. mean and why is it controversial?
1:14–3:00
2
How is D.E.I. being used as a political weapon?
3:00–4:37
3
What fears are present in academia related to D.E.I.?
4:37–5:55
4
Are the concerns about D.E.I. in academia justified?
5:55–8:50
5
What are the implications of recent executive orders on D.E.I.?
8:50–11:52
6
How has Trump influenced the conversation around D.E.I.?
11:52–15:07
7
What are the potential consequences of D.E.I. policies?
15:07–28:20