DEI at W&L: Is the End in Sight?

DEI at W&L: Is the End in Sight?
Can President Trump’s pressure finally right the course of our beloved institution?

(Center for Inclusion and Engagement, Elrod Commons | SOURCE: Washington and Lee University)

On June 4, 2021, four tragedies occurred for the Washington and Lee University community.  Lee Chapel lost its name; its interior was stripped, and the school erased two annual rituals after well over 150 years: Founders Day and the namesakes’ images on all future diplomas.

Concurrently, the school established a new tradition, what The Spectator described as “innocuously labeled continuing education” for all freshmen students. This mandatory annual training — really diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training — uses mechanisms such as the identity compass and critical confessions to indoctrinate students and bring to life both the make-believe and real, hard-punishing worlds of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Numerous articles have been published trumpeting the destructive impact these exercises in identity-based politics have on students. After the nationally troubled summer of 2020, triggered by the tragic death of George Floyd, cancel culture descended upon and enveloped W&L’s historic campus and its broad and diverse community.

Fast forwarding, the inauguration of Donald Trump as president of the United States has drastically changed the landscape for such practices across the board.  For instance, he has slashed DEI for hiring and training purposes in all federal government agencies.  And a steady stream of notable American corporations have followed suit, finding DEI programming irrelevant to their operations.

Most notably, he campaigned on and delivered an executive order that banishes DEI training from higher education, threatening the loss of federal funding for non-compliance.  Bottom line: America’s voters flipped the culture overnight on DEI’s arguably radical and racist practices.

In national journalism, The Washington Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, recently declared a 180-degree turn for its opinion section, stating that freedom will be the centerpiece theme. According to Bezos: “I am of America and for America, and proud to be so. Our country did not get here by being typical. And a big part of America’s success has been freedom in the economic realm and everywhere else. Freedom is ethical — it minimizes coercion — and practical — it drives creativity, invention, and prosperity.”

Critical byproducts of this change follow naturally: freedom of speech, viewpoint diversity and prohibitions on compelled speech for individuals and institutions. The DEI practiced at Washington and Lee and thousands of other colleges cannot exist in a culture whose bedrock is freedom in life practices and civil exchange, which are the foundational liberties people value most. These are sacred rights and shall not be abridged by a band of radical activists.

With that overview, I aim to highlight an argument against DEI that is not often featured. Owen Anderson, Ph.D., a professor of Religion, Natural and Philosophical Theology, Epistemology, and Ethics at Arizona State University, makes an exceptional argument against this movement in higher education.

Professor Anderson opens by citing DEI proponents, who use name-calling to intimidate opponents. He argues they do so because they cannot logically defend their case. DEI activists cleverly leverage positive language to mask the inherent discrimination that exists in DEI’s worldview.

Anderson skillfully works through the many ways that DEI champions the deconstruction of the American experience. He successfully attacks their goal of social justice, the inherent fallacies of equal outcomes when compared to the benefits of meritocracy, the double standard of claiming its philosophy of anti-racism when, in fact, it is racist, and its promotion of inclusion as a pathway to wealth redistribution. Throughout his paper, Anderson cites DEI activists’ clever rhetorical sleights-of-hand.

He identifies liberal white Christians as a key driver of this rhetorical maneuver. According to Anderson, these white liberal Christians use scripture to distort the concept of social justice and push their wealth redistribution campaign.

In many ways, DEI has become a pseudo-religion, embracing an identity-driven social gospel.  But Anderson eloquently writes that DEI is a false gospel, a bumpy path that leads to tyranny and ultimately results in a failed vision of social salvation.

In closing, Professor Anderson makes a strong case that DEI is what I call an unshakeable mind virus that incorrectly posits white males as oppressors of other minorities. He does this by making the opposite case: that DEI practitioners and activists themselves are the true authoritarians.

What might this mean for Washington and Lee in the weeks and months ahead, given the broad national momentum of the anti-DEI programming movement?  Presidential executive orders have been issued banning DEI driven hiring and training for institutions of higher learning. A number of well-known institutions have announced plans to end their programs.

Among these are the University of Michigan, Ohio State University, the University of Iowa and the nearby University of Virginia.  In May of 2024, the 17 institutions comprising the UNC System were introduced to a broad and revolutionary approach entitled Equality Within the University of North Carolina. The details of these changes are found in a policy manual extract which can be found here, which I urge you to review when you have time.

Will Washington and Lee address the ongoing downside of its well-embedded, mandatory student DEI training for members of each new freshman class, as well as required training for other campus groups, such as Greek organizations? Are they aware that impacts of these sessions are exclusionary and not the inclusionary activities implied by the name of its Office of Inclusion and Engagement?

Put simply, the administration, faculty and trustees might closely monitor what is going on in higher education, such as recently announced losses of federal funding at Columbia and Princeton; activity at the federal government level and some state governments; and announcements by national corporations (Amazon, Target and McDonald’s).

After examining the rapidly evolving landscape, it might decide simply to get on with the program.

Arguably, it is time to examine Jeff Bezos’ idea about freedom as the key to American life and to investigate the path to higher educational exceptionalism charted by our friends in North Carolina. The UNC System program is highly constructive, legally well-grounded, and seeks goals that support the vision of Washington and Lee’s own Strategic Plan. It is worth a close look.