But the administration attack is so ridiculously egregious and demands an even worse, government-imposed ideological alignment, that making logical arguments in this environment feels almost pointless.
Unfortunately this is the culmination of social media as a controversy machine, that promotes the worst arguments.
> ideological purity tests like required DEI statements
Example?
There's a controversy industry that cherry picks the worst examples of student-politics excess in these regards and then carefully conflates it with university policy.
As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, etc.
Diversity statements were widely suspected of being a smokescreen for racial preferences. Much like the "personality score" Harvard used to curate its desired racial makeup in its student admissions.
A total of 993 applications were received, of which 893 met basic qualifications. The LSI Committee conducted a first review and evaluated candidates based solely on contributions to diversity, equity and inclusion. Only candidates that met a high standard in this area were advanced for further review, narrowing the pool down to 214 for serious consideration.
Do you have any substantial criticism of the factual claims made here? Or are you just insisting that this is a misinterpretation, without any evidence?
I literally linked an article in my comment that had an overview, but here is a more specific one that addresses diversity statements in particular:
https://reason.com/2022/09/30/mandated-diversity-statement-d...
> As well as the sad truth that as soon as you take away "DEI" requirements the segregationists come back and purge the library, delete all the black Medal of Honor recipients from the website, etc.
This is literally my exact point. There absolutely should be a rational place that denounces both these diversity statement ideological requirements and the egregious memory-holing that the current administration is implementing.
Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-...
More examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43692945
Your comment evoking a victim complex on the other hand I find a far more annoying element of online discourse.
FWIW, that was my original approach, and I thought that the worst excesses of "wokeism" were just caricatures that the right was using to paint all on the left with a broad brush, so I was pretty dismayed when, over time, I felt that a lot of this "race first" thinking had infested many areas of elite universities. Many university professors (ones who would not have in any way identified with being "on the right") who I deeply respect have spoken out about this, sometimes at great professional cost.
You can't stake out a position without getting called some name somebody invented to denigrate that position. Welcome to modern politics on the internet.
