DEI has Devastated America’s Colleges and Universities

Just a few days ago, we celebrated America’s 250^th birthday, and the anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. This proclamation launched America on a path to freedom, opportunity, and prosperity unrivaled in human history. The central premise of the Declaration of Independence is the notion that all men are created equal, and the pursuit of this ideal has fueled American success since the nation’s inception.

Yet today, our leading institutions—including our colleges and universities—have cast this principle aside to instead advance a virulent ideology that is rooted in the belief that the United States is a systemically racist, white supremacist project. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies argue that certain disfavored groups like whites, people of European descent, men, conservatives, and heterosexuals are oppressors, who must give up their “privilege” to those who do not fit in those categories.

Over my forty years working in higher education policy, and as a professor and administrator, I watched this contagion metastasize across the academy firsthand. I have sat in university committee meetings on diversity where I was personally scolded by peers because of the color of my skin. I have been asked to draft “loyalty statements” demanding I support this ideology to be considered for jobs and have been explicitly told to hire candidates based on their race or gender, rather than their ability to do the job.

I have watched DEI devastate careers and close the door of opportunity to some of America’s best and brightest because of how they look. Ironically, this type of prejudice is the very thing DEI claims to combat.

This insidious ideology infects nearly every dimension of university practice and governance including hiring, promotions, tenure, admissions, and even academic publishing.

Unfortunately, the conversation on most university campuses today is more about indoctrination than promoting shared American values. At most American universities, only one perspective is tolerated on campus—that of the Left. Unaligned speakers are refused a platform. Students who disagree are failed. Faculty are intimidated into silence or simply fired. “Shoutdowns,” heckler’s vetoes, violence, and even murder are used to silence dissenting voices undermining the very intellectual diversity needed for higher education to fulfill its primary purpose.

Its dominance on campus has created a leftist monoculture that undermines the very purpose of the public investment in higher education: to equip the next generation of Americans to think, debate, and make smart choices in a complex world based on evidence, not prejudice.

Because of the academy’s importance as a cultural and intellectual hub, it has infected our other leading institutions, including our libraries, our schools, our museums, our media, and even many of our businesses.

The American people collectively rejected this anti-American discrimination and the divisiveness it breeds by electing President Donald Trump in November 2024. Since taking office, he has taken bold steps to roll back DEI’s stranglehold on American higher education by actively revoking DEI as government policy and limiting the use of disparate impact doctrine—a tool used by leftist activists to advance it. The administration has also reformed accreditation, to ensure that institutions are transparent and accountable to the American public—especially if they are funded by our tax dollars.

Today, DEI forces appear to be in retreat, but do not be deceived. Many of these discriminatory processes have just been reformulated or are being hidden for the moment. The America First Policy Institute has conducted extensive research on how politicizing civics education leads to violence, how viewpoint discrimination weakens our universities, and how DEI is racially discriminatory.

To persevere, we must codify the positive changes made already by President Trump into law in Congress. We must ensure the equal treatment of all Americans, regardless of background, in our colleges and universities. Our Founders envisioned as much some 250 years ago, and we cannot lose sight of their hope for a nation where we are all treated equally.