A look inside the efforts to get rid of DEI
Fueled by backlash over critical race theory, BLM, diversity, equity, inclusion programs become target of right
In late 2022, a group of conservative activists and academics set out to abolish the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Texas’ public universities.
They linked up with a former aide to the state’s powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who made banning DEI initiatives one of his top priorities. Setting their sights on well-known schools like Texas A&M, they researched which offices and employees should be expunged. A well-connected alumnus conveyed their findings to the A&M chancellor; the former Patrick aide cited them before a state Senate committee.
The campaign quickly yielded results: In May, Texas approved legislation banishing all such programs from public institutions of higher learning.
Gathering strength from a backlash against Black Lives Matter and fueled by criticism that doctrines such as critical race theory had made colleges engines of progressive indoctrination, the eradication of DEI programs has become both a cause and a message suffusing the American right. In 2023, more than 20 states considered or approved new laws taking
aim at DEI.
Thousands of documents obtained by The New York Times cast light on the playbook and the thinking underpinning one nexus of the anti-DEI movement: the activists and intellectuals who helped shape Texas’ new law, along with measures in at least three other states. The material, which includes casual correspondence with like-minded allies around the country, also reveals unvarnished views on race, sexuality and gender roles. And despite the movement’s marked success in some Republican-dominated states, the documents chart the activists’ struggle to gain traction with broader swaths of voters and officials.
Centered at the Claremont Institute, a California-based
think tank with close ties to the former President Donald Trump movement and to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida, the group coalesced roughly three years ago around a sweeping ambition: to strike a killing blow against “the leftist social justice revolution” by eliminating “social justice education” from American schools.
The documents — grant proposals, budgets, draft reports and correspondence, obtained through public records requests — show how the activists formed a loose network of think tanks, political groups and Republican operatives in at least a dozen states.
They sought funding from a range of right-leaning philanthropies and family foundations and from one of the largest individual donors to Republican campaigns in the country. They exchanged model legislation, published a slew of public reports and coordinated with other conservative advocacy groups.
Individuals and groups involved in the effort joined calls to protect diversity of thought and intellectual freedom, embracing the argument that DEI efforts had made universities intolerant and narrow. They claimed to stand for meritocratic ideals and against ideologies that divided Americans. They argued that DEI programs made Black and Hispanic students feel less welcome instead of more.
In a statement for this article, Claremont said it was “proud to be a leader in the fight against DEI, since the ideology from which it flows conflicts with America’s Founding principles, constitutional government and equality under the law. Those are the things we believe in. Without them there is no America. You cannot have those things with DEI.”
The institute added, “Repeatedly,
and in public, we make these arguments to preserve justice, competence and the progress of science.”
In recent decades, amid concerns about the underrepresentation of racial minorities on campus, American universities have presided over a vast expansion of diversity programs. These have come to play a powerful — and increasingly controversial — role in academic and student life. Critics have come to view them as tools for advancing left-wing ideas about gender and race, or for stifling the free discussion of ideas.
In response, officials in some states have banned DEI offices altogether. Others have limited classroom discussion of concepts like identity politics or systemic racism. A growing number of states and schools have also begun eliminating requirements that job applicants furnish “diversity statements” — written commitments to particular ideas about diversity and how to achieve it that, at some institutions, have functionally served as litmus tests in hiring.