Don’t trust the leftists who run it to do the right thing

In the past few months the conservative has been repeatedly celebrating the retreat of the racist “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI) movement. From corporations to universities DEI departments are being shut down.

Today I report on one of the most recent examples, but I do so as a warning. Just because a university or company announces plans to shut down a DEI department does not mean this racist policy is no longer being taught or used in hiring. In many cases, the shut down is merely a shell game to fool the general public while the policies continue, under the radar.

On December 17, 2024, the University of Iowa announced that was shuttering a number of programs, including its department of Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, and combining them into a new department dubbed the School of Social and Cultural Analysis. From the university’s press release:

Under the proposed plan, the college would close the departments of American Studies and Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies, as well as the current majors in American Studies and in Social Justice, which have fewer than 60 students combined, and create a new major in Social and Cultural Analysis. The existing programs have limited faculty and overlapping curricula, causing challenges for faculty in sustaining teaching capacity. The new curricula will not only streamline operations but offer clarity and flexibility in students’ educational pathways.

“Right now, these programs are administered by multiple department chairs and multiple directors,” said Roland Racevskis, CLAS associate dean for the arts and humanities. “Under this proposed plan, the school would have a single leadership team dedicated to overseeing the operations of the programs. This new structure would provide better coordination of curriculum across these related programs, easier pathways for degree completion, and support for interdisciplinary research opportunities.”

Existing minors and certificates in associated areas would move into the new school. No changes to graduate programs are currently being proposed. [emphasis mine]

One of the reasons for this action is that the state legislature had recently passed an education appropriations bill [pdf] that specifically banned spending any money on DEI-type programs. From page 8 of the bill:

Thus the department shuffling as announced by the University of Iowa was required in order to obey this law.

A closer look however shows that this shuffling hasn’t really shut down any DEI-related program at all. The sex-based “Gender, Women’s, and Sexuality Studies” department, as well as the African American Studies, American Studies, Jewish Studies, Latina/o/x Studies, and Native American and Indigenous Studies departments, have simply been folded into the new department, with the main goal being to consolidate department management to reduce overhead. This reduces the budget, but the change only eliminates two programs, “American Studies” and “Social Justice.”

Or to put it more bluntly, the university has de-emphasized the study of America — the history for us all, no matter the race, color, or creed — and instead placed even more emphasis on the DEI-based racial, ethnic, and sexual courses designed to divide everyone into separate warring factions. To hide this shift, it has simply changed the department names so that its DEI program is less obvious.

None of this should surprise anyone. The people who run the University of Iowa continue to be partisan leftists who approve the idea of DEI, whereby certain minorities are given special status over others. Since they remain in charge, with amply funding and power, they are going to do whatever they can to keep these programs alive.

The only way these programs are going to really go away is if state and federal legislatures stop funding them. The appropriations bill attempts to do this, but it simply doesn’t go far enough. It has to actually cut the university’s budget, by the amount spent on these programs. And if that doesn’t work, it must further demand a complete house-cleaning of administrators at these schools. Begin firing them for insubordination. I suspect those who remain will quickly fall into line and really eliminate DEI, as demanded by the legislature, and more importantly, as demanded by the voters of the state.

And if that doesn’t work, then it will be time to shut down the university entirely. Shutter it. Start fresh. Replace it with a new educational institution run by different people, people who believe in freedom, equal rights, a fair legal system, and the true American culture that embraces everyone. Let these DEI communists go back to their Greenwich Village nightclubs where — between their work as waiters and Amazon delivery drivers — they can spout beatnik poems and extol the wonders of Marxism to themselves.