by James A. Bacon

I didn’t know it but, apparently, I’m part of the vast right-wing conspiracy. I’m so clued in to the machinations of the conservative claque seeking to rid higher-ed of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion that I predicted that George Mason University President Gregory Washington might be forced to step down over DEI policy.

As the old saying goes, the perception of having power is in itself a form of power. In a column published Tuesday, contributors to the Chronicle of Higher Education lumped me with the Department of Justice, the Youngkin administration, the Manhattan Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the National Review, and the Washington Free Beacon as part of the shadowy army arrayed against DEI at GMU and the University of Virginia.

That’s good company. It’s nice to be part of the power elite. I only wish my co-conspirators knew it!

I doubt that most of the individuals cited in the Chronicle column have the slightest idea who I am. But as long as campus lefties think I’m part of the conservative media elite, that’s consolation of a sort.

Let me launch the critique of this latest nonsense with the paragraph in the Chronicle that’s all about me (!!) as a way to approach the column’s larger thesis.

The Chronicle authors — GMU professors Tim Gibson, Bethany Letiecq and James H. Finklestein — cited a brief post in Bacon’s Rebellion in which I was quoting the Educational Freedom Institute’s Ian Kingsbury piece in the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal, which chronicled Gregory Washington’s track record on DEI. I concluded (ominously, it seems): “Don’t be surprised if GMU attracts Department of Justice scrutiny.”

From the Chronicle:

… Bacon’s Rebellion, a conservative political blog run by James A. Bacon, then posted an article predicting that George Mason could be the next university to be investigated by the Department of Justice, and Washington might be the next university president forced to step down. Lo and behold, he was right. It’s almost as if he had inside information.

Inside information? I wish.

The authors continued: “All of this is part of the strategy [journalist Christopher] Rufo laid bare in an interview with Politico — publish relentless character assassination attacks in right-wing media until mainstream outlets feel they can no longer ignore the allegations.”

See if you can follow this train of thought.

Rufo, who writes in the City Journal for the Manhattan Institute, has worked tirelessly to expose the breadth and depth of the DEI apparatus at leading American universities. As the “mastermind” of the “moral panic” over critical race theory, the journalist has said his long-term goal is, as he told the New York Times, to “adjust the formula of finances from the federal government to the universities in a way that puts them in an existential terror.”

So far, so good. I like the bit about “existential terror.”

Unfortunately, the GMU profs jump from actual quotes to wild speculation. “Rufo’s playbook is now being used against Virginia’s public universities, with Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin, a Republican, setting the table for a federal takedown.” They elaborate: “These investigations seem to be politicized, scripted, and coordinated by government officials, university board members, a small group of faculty members, and outside conservative journalists, bloggers, and ideologues.”

How do they reach the conclusion that the “takedown” is politicized, scripted and coordinated?

The profs basically do a data dump of conservative online commentary published in the City Journal, the Washington Free Press, the Heritage Foundation, the Liberty Unyielding blog, the National Review, and — gulp! — Bacon’s Rebellion.

“The interconnections among the players in this little piece of political theater boggle the mind,” write the GMU profs.

What boggles the mind is that the GMU Profs demonstrate so few interconnections between these critics.

It does turn out that Jay Greene and Lindsey Burke have Heritage Foundation connections, and they, with Kingsbury, have Education Freedom Institute connections. That’s quite the far-reaching conservative cabal — three think tankers with ties to two conservative groups focused on higher education.

Otherwise, the only tissue connecting the vast array of DEI critics is that they have a proclivity for quoting one another’s articles online. By way of example proffered by the profs, a National Review article quoted Liberty Unyielding, a blog published by conservative Northern Virginia attorney Hans Bader.

Egads! Let me add to the web of connections. I cross-post many of Bader’s Liberty Unyielding articles on Bacon’s Rebellion! I’ve cited Greene’s DEI research on the blog!! And I’ve blogged about Lindsey Burke’s experience as a GMU board member!!!

Gibson, Letiecq and Finklestein forget that in a world in which journalistic content is readily accessible online, conservative writers who opine about a specific topic like DEI tend to read and cite one another’s work. That doesn’t mean they are part of a coordinated effort to accomplish anything.

I can assure readers that I’m not part of any organized effort other than my participation in the Jefferson Council. I personally know Bader. Not very well, but he contributes to Bacon’s Rebellion and we did have lunch one time. Although I’ve cited Greene’s work, I’ve never met him or even communicated with him (to the best of my recollection). I’ve never communicated with Burke, Rufo, Kingsbury or George Leef, all mentioned in the column. I do know the Department of Justice’s Greg Brown, dating to legal work he performed for UVA students championed by the Jefferson Council, but I have had zero communication with him since he joined DOJ. I have never spoken to or corresponded with Governor Youngkin, or communicated to him through intermediaries.

In my capacity as a journalist and member of a “conservative alumni group,” I had no foreknowledge of DOJ action against UVA (which I follow closely), much less against GMU (which I observe from afar).

I have a very different understanding of reality than the GMU professors. Thanks to the propagation of information via the Internet, many conservative journalists and organizations have developed a shared critique of DEI. That doesn’t mean they are acting in concert. It’s the mirror image of how leftist academics and journalists pool ideas without anyone orchestrating their efforts. There is no need to suppose scripting or coordination to explain such behavior.

I don’t know this for a fact — I’ll readily admit that this is only a surmise — but I’d go so far as to question whether DOJ and the Youngkin administration are working in concert. DOJ has its agenda, and Youngkin has his agenda. Their goals overlap but are not identical. I have no idea what goes on between the two, but the GMU professors have nothing but their runaway imaginations to suppose that they are acting in concert.

I certainly had no access to inside information when making my prediction July 4 that DOJ might begin investigating GMU. I was making a logical deduction based on the march of events. Five days later, U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner reached the very same conclusion in a Richmond Times-Dispatch piece. “Already,” they wrote, “the Trump administration appears to be eyeing its next target: George Mason University President Gregory Washington.”

Of course, there’s the small matter that no one at DOJ has actually asked Washington to step down. Not yet anyway. My Nostradamus-like power of prophesy has yet to be demonstrated.

But if lefty GMU profs want to think that I’m part of a shadowy but powerful group in control of events, I’m happy to let them. Perception, after all, is a form of power. That’s a nice feeling for a humble blogger.

James A. Bacon serves on the executive committee of the Jefferson Council. The views expressed here are his own.