“Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has taken decisive action against DEI in universities, threatening to investigate, punish, and withhold funding from higher education institutions that discriminate in the name of diversity. Most conservatives, who correctly see DEI as a threat to colorblind equality, have celebrated these maneuvers. But some center-right intellectuals, who claim to oppose DEI in theory, have criticized the White House for using administrative power to eliminate it in practice.
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The unspoken reality is that DEI is sustained by those who believe it can be opposed without a fight. Flier, Tabarrok, and others seem to assume that opponents of DEI can win through op-eds, abstract commitments, and pleasant sentiments. This is naïve. DEI is not just an idea; it’s a complex of policies, priorities, departments, administrators, budget numbers, hiring guidelines, and admissions practices, all enforced by flesh-and-blood commissars within the institutions. DEI is an administrative reality and can only be dismantled with administrative tools.
Eventually, someone in a high position—say, a chaired professor at George Mason or a dean at Harvard Medical School—will have to exit the realm of speculation and engage in real politics. They will have to battle DEI supporters, work to slash budgets, and, if in a position to do so, seek to terminate the employment of dozens of diversity bureaucrats. This requires more than the right ideas; it requires guts. The real test of a man’s principles is not whether he holds them in the abstract, but whether he is able to advance or maintain them in reality.
The coming months will separate those who have the courage to implement their values from those who would rather remain on the sidelines. It is easy to be a critic, but what is needed now is reform.”
https://www.city-journal.org/article/trump-universities-dei-diversity-center-right-critics
