The fall of DEI accelerates
Fight! Fight! Fight! In the past two months it has become very clear that if Americans are willing to stand up to the left and its Marxist bigoted agenda, Americans will win.
Since late June, five different university systems have shut down their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion offices. Each is listed below, in chronological order:
- U. Wyoming’s vice president of DEI announces departure as university shutters DEI office
- University of Alabama system campuses shut down DEI offices to comply with new law
- University of North Carolina-Wilmington shuts down DEI office
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln to close Office of Diversity and Inclusion as part of reorganization
- University of Kentucky closes DEI office
And this list does not include the University of Florida, which in March shut down its own DEI office because the state legislature not only banned such offices, it cut the budgets of them.
Though it is true these states are all solidly conservative with legislatures largely controlled by Republicans, this fact on its face proves that voting can make a difference, with Florida the biggest proof. Unlike the other states, Florida had for decades been a swing state between the Democrats and Republicans. Voters however changed that in the past decade, so that today the state legisilature is solidly Republican. The result has been a definitive policy shift acting to eliminate these racist Marxist programs from state-financed universities.
There is no reason similar changes cannot be forced in other battleground states. Nor should we consider it impossible in the coastal states (California, Oregon, Washington, New York, Massachusetts, etc) where Democrats maintain full control. DEI concepts are inherently racist and divisive, and serve only to encourage anger, resentment, and hate across all ethnic groups. Ordinary voters recognize this routinely, when they make the effort to look.
Nor are things changing solely in the unversities because of the willingness of voters to force change. The boycott of Bud Light because of its endorsement of the queer agenda last year is having profound impact on corporate culture. In just the last few months a number of major companies have announced the elimination of their own DEI departments and programs, also listed below in chronological order:
- Tractor Supply slashes its DEI and climate goals after a right-wing pressure campaign
- John Deere backs away from diversity and inclusion efforts after a conservative backlash
- Harley-Davidson is dropping diversity initiatives after right-wing anti-DEI campaign
- Jack Daniel’s parent Brown-Forman ends DEI policy
The first three stories are from NPR and CNN, which explains the effort of the headlines to blame the evil “pouncing” of conservatives for this action (thus also implying that conservatives are bigots) . In truth, what these leftist news outlets refuse to recognize is that DEI programs are bigoted by their very nature, designed to favor some races over others merely because of skin color. These programs thus violate numerous civil rights laws, not to mention basic human morality and fair treatment. In addition, it appears the customers of all these companies, not simply conservatives, made it clear they would stop buying these products if company management did not take action to shut down these DEI policies.
Faced with a public backlash and the real threat of lawsuits and legal action against them, these companies are now recognizing that it makes no sense legally, financially, and morally to promote such things.
Trump defiant
Increasingly, Americans are no longer willing to make believe that DEI and Marxism has a rightful place on the intellectual landscape. These ideas are garbage and downright evil, and it is a great tragedy that American academia allowed them to flourish on campuses for the past half century. The public is now beginning to make it clear that such ideas need to be sent to the ash heap of history, and legislators, academic administrations, and corporate managements are being forced to listen.
The trend is very obvious. If people actually pay attention and make it clear they will no longer tolerate the imposition of these bigoted leftist policies, those policies can be canceled and eliminated. One simply has to have the courage to fight, as Donald Trump said with such defiance immediately after getting shot.
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No surprise, it’s the strength of democracy. While people will hop on bandwagons for causes, reality eventually bites, and the majority pushes back against the loony fringe.
I have been needing a story like this. This DEI madness can only go on for so long before it is too late. I hope this trend continues and perhaps even accelerates.
While I detest everything woke, a few grains of salt are needed for this article. Note that the four companies mentioned all have a largely conservative customer base. Their tone-deaf morons in the head sheds ignored the lessons from Bud Light and tried to float the DEI turd. However, once called out, they suddenly remembered Bud Light, and instead of doubling down, they immediately tried to suck that DEI turd back to where it came from. But don’t expect all corporations to follow suit. Some cater to brain-dead morons, the ones who pay $300 for LeBron’s sneakers and $8 for a coffee. That customer base ADORES woke. Nike and StarSucks can stay woke all day long and not miss a step. And then you have monopolies. Target got hammered for being woke. Why? Because they’re not Walmart. It’s easy to boycott Target, but just try boycotting Walmart. Since they and Amazon have basically killed and replaced all local competitors, neither of those companies don’t even bother trying to hide their wokeness. That said, it’s still a good lesson – businesses need to think hard about their consumer base before floating the DEI turd.
Liberalism and its Discontents — Deconstructing Woke Orthodoxy
There is evidence that there is a now a concerted push back against woke orthodoxy even in academic circles. A few days ago, C-SPAN2 rebroadcast a discussion by Profs. Patrick Deneen and Francis Fukuyama on the problems of contemporary liberalism in which they addressed the philosophical antecedents of much that we are now experiencing with respect to our failing social and political institutions.
https://www.c-span.org/video/?535045-4/naval-academy-discussion-liberalisms-past-present
In Prof. Deneen’s estimation, our current problems with the modern versions of liberalism lie in the very philosophical traditions that gave rise to them,* and much of the success of the United States might be credited to the fact that its Founders drew on its earliest incarnation that retained many of the attributes of both the classical and Christian past. More recent offshoots of liberalism, including both its collectivist and woke variants, have proven to be problematic because, paradoxically, they undermine the core tenets of its original formulation, including the primacy and universality of individual rights, freedom of speech, and the rule of law.
*As outlined in his book *Why Liberalism Failed* and his more recent *Regime Change*.
Prof. Deneen’s critique of woke liberalism — classical liberalism’s most recent offshoot — is especially cogent, and (or so it seems to me) it sheds a good deal of light on how we arrived at our current cultural and political impasse. Here is a short review that covers his first book’s main themes: http://www.ethicsandculture.com/blog/2019/why-liberalism-failed-a-review
Similarly, there are two other books, *Common Good Constitutionalism* and *Mere Natural Law* that also seem to follow this same train of inquiry, and they appear to be worth looking at. All of these works address the question of how the various offshoots of classical liberalism can be interpreted in terms of institutional failures today.
The take-away from all of this is that far from being at Prof. Fukuyama’s “end of history,” we are now at a point where the most fundamental attributes of woke liberalism are being reexamined in a way that points toward a renewed appreciation of just how fortunate we are to have inherited the kind of “operating instructions” for the country / culture / civilization that we have thus far enjoyed. Likewise, it appears that many competent academics have begun to successfully confront woke liberalism and DEI mandates with the analytical chops to dispel this intellectual miasma, however late in the game it may be.
PS — In a scene from a lost episode of Star Trek…
Bones: Damn it, Jim, these Wokeulans *keep voting for Democrats*, and my tricorder readings show that there is nothing organically wrong with them.
Kirk: Sometimes, Bones, people are just willfully ignorant, and nobody in the galaxy has found a cure for that.
Those with power will not give it up easily.
https://notthebee.com/article/arizona-woman-arrested-at-city-council-meeting-for-making-complaints-against-a-city-employee/
Right in your backyard, Mr Z. (relatively speaking).
sippin_bourbon: That city council is going to find itself losing a lot of money for false arrest and a violation of her constitutional rights. The Supreme Court has ruled on this numerous times. In fact, when she said she had the right to call him names for two straight minutes she was mostly correct, as per case law.
She should review my list of non-profit free speech law firms, find the right one, and sue big. She will win.
Watch this comment before a Pennsylvania school board that eventually had to pay $300K in a settlement for violating the rights of several speakers.
I thoroughly agree. But they will still fight. This all sounds like rule to protect themselves.
Their loophole is that she signed the release agreeing to the rule. The fact that without it, she would have never gotten anywhere near the podium is irrelevant. That will be their play.
sippin_bourbon: That play will fail so bad it will shake the earth when it hits the ground. The court has also ruled numerous times that such rules are irrelevant and are a violation as well.
She also has a pain and suffering claim, as her 10-year-old daughter witnessed this atrocity. I really do hope she gets a pro-bono lawyer and sues.
“Robby Starbuck @robbystarbuck
Big news: I messaged @Lowes executives last week to let them know that I planned to expose their woke policies. This morning I woke up to an email where they preemptively made big changes.
Here are the changes:
• Ending participation in the @HRC’s woke Corporate Equality Index social credit system.
• No more donations to pride events or other divisive events.
• Ending ERG groups in favor of one large unifying ERG group for all employees, no longer designed to focus on race or sexual orientation.
They also hint at more future changes.
We’re now forcing multi-billion dollar organizations to change their policies without even posting just from fear they have of being the next company that we expose.
We are winning and one by one we WILL bring sanity back to corporate America.
So far you’ve helped me change corporate policy at Tractor Supply, John Deere, Harley Davidson, Polaris, Indian Motorcycle and now Lowe’s. We are a force to be reckoned with.”
https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/1828123733531468008
Next stop: Kroger’s.
https://www.thekrogerco.com/community/standing-together/
FKH
FTW
TRUMP4EVR!
Related: Anyone who lives in the EU take notice:
THE EU ATTEMPTS TO FORCE HUNGARY TO SUBMIT
“Does anyone blame Viktor Orban, Prime Minister of Hungary, for standing up to these authoritarian Globalist “progressive” radicals who seek to destroy, I mean “Improve” his country? I for one do not.”
https://www.sigma3ioc.com/post/the-eu-attempts-to-force-hungary-to-submit
— In the past two months it has become very clear that if Americans are willing to stand up to the left and its Marxist bigoted agenda, Americans will win. —
It’s only our aversion to confrontation that impedes us. That’s been the case for several decades.
Kamala is at least proof of macroscopic quantum superposition when asked about policy.