Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-action policies in university admissions were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, D.E.I. describes a broad array of actions without a specific definition. “It’s that malleability,” Cobb reflects, that makes D.E.I. a useful target, “one source that you can use to blame every single failing or shortcoming or difficulty in life on.”
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From the online spectacle around Leo XIV's election to our favorite on-screen cardinals. This week on Critics at Large, we're talking all things Pope.
The Catholic Church was made for this moment. I think 2,000 years ago, the Catholic Church basically anticipated TikTok, Instagram, X. You don't have those little Swiss guard outfits and think they're not being photographed. Oil painting is not enough.
I'm Vincent Cunningham. Join me and my co-hosts for an episode on what can only be described as Pope Week. New episodes of Critics at Large drop every Thursday. Find us wherever you get your podcasts.
This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.
Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. Well, the opening weeks of the Trump administration seem to have followed a mantra from Facebook's earlier years. Move fast and break things and break them into a thousand pieces before anyone will notice.
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?
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