by James A. Bacon

Virginia Tech President Timothy Sands held a special meeting Friday to discuss the impact of the Trump administration’s order to shut down higher-ed Diversity, Equity & Inclusion programs across the country. Tech’s Board of Visitors voted recently to comply with the directive, and Sands said that the university would no longer require diversity-and-inclusion training for incoming students.

As summarized by Radio IQ, however, Sands said it’s important for members of the campus community to be politically active and explain to friends and neighbors about why they believe diversity in higher education is vital to democracy. “I appreciate all of your willingness to engage, whatever way you can. Because we have to be able to make that case for the public.”

Sands did not elaborate upon his thinking — at least Radio IQ did not mention it in the article, which went on to cover other issues that the Tech president addressed in his two-hour Q&A — but there is enough there to warrant a closer look.

Sands is using “diversity,” a concept no one disagrees with, to shield a broader amalgam of concepts in “Diversity, Equity & Inclusion,” including a slew of controversial propositions intrinsic to the word “equity.”

The Trump administration directive does not take issue with “diversity.” It is aimed at racial preferences. No one opposes diversity. We live in a diverse society, and the overwhelming majority of Americans are OK with that. No one opposes inclusion either. People who study or work at Virginia Tech or other Virginia higher-ed institutions should never be excluded on the basis of their racial, ethnic, religious, sexual or gender background.

The problem is “equity,” a word which has suddenly dropped from the parlance of DEI defenders but is integral to their understanding of DEI. Implicit in the word “equity” is that previous institutional arrangements were “inequitable” — inequitable as understood by the oppressor/oppressed paradigm derived from critical theory, which views existing structures as racist (as well as sexist, homophobic and transphobic).

DEI training at the University of Virginia, as described in my three-part series, “DEI in the Dormitories,” elevates students’ racial, religious, sexual, and gender identity to the center of their concept of self, thus contributing to the balkanization of the student body. Adopting a tribal identity is supposed to miraculously increase the feeling of “belonging.” Perhaps tribalism actually does do so, in the sense that the inhabitants of Northern Ireland felt an intense sense of belonging with their Catholic or Protestant co-religionists while bombing and assassinating one another… and that Hutus felt with fellow Hutus while slaughtering their Tutsi neighbors with machetes… and that White Southerners long felt in justifying race-based slavery and segregation.

Do we want such a tribal “identity” for Americans today? Is that the factor we want college students to hold foremost in their minds when they interact with their peers? Or, as difficult as it might be, do we want to move toward a post-racial society?

Americans disagree on how much progress we have made toward achieving a color-blind society, but a large majority share the goal. Instead of fixating on racial/ethnic differences to increase “belonging,” should not Virginia Tech encourage students to look beyond differences in background and forge friendships on the basis of common interests and passions?

That choice, I believe, is the underlying divide between those who seek to dismantle DEI as currently configured and those who defend it.

You don’t hear DEI’s defenders framing the issue that way. Consider statements from two George Mason University professors who spoke during a public comment session last week held by the Board of Visitors (my bold).

“Please take a stand for principles and values of openness, diversity, equity and inclusion and join us so that we can all get to the important work of building a better Mason for all students, no matter who they are, where they came from or what they believe,” Tim Gibson, an associate professor and vice president of the Mason chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) said, as reported by The Fourth Estate.

Bethany Letiecq, a professor and president of the Mason chapter of AAUP, added this: “Today, I urge you to stand up for us, stand with us, stand for DEI and commit to the free exchange of ideas and upholding the economic freedom right of all who come to Mason to make the world a better place.”

Free exchange of ideas? Regardless of what people believe? That’s a howler. DEI introduced litmus-test DEI statements for job hirings and promotions… and Just-Report-It systems for reporting microaggressions to university authorities… and struggle sessions in which students are terrified to contradict DEI orthodoxy… and Twitter Outrage Mobs that ostracize anyone guilty of Wrong-Think. “Equity” is the antithesis of openness and the free exchange of ideas.

Perhaps sensing that the general public doesn’t buy this nonsense, many DEI defenders are repositioning their programs as DEIB — diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging. Who could possibly question the goal of ensuring that everyone admitted to a university should feel welcome there?

But the logic behind this rebranding has never been explained to the public. There has never been any open debate about it. Here are questions we have yet to hear DEI (or DEIB) proponents ask:

Is there any evidence whatsoever that DEIB programs accomplish what they set out to do: create a greater sense of belonging?

How do we even define “belonging”?

What is the ultimate goal? When can we say the job is done? Given the nature of bureaucracies to perpetuate themselves by inventing new justifications for their existence, will the job ever be done?

How do we measure “belonging”? Through campus climate surveys? If so, are we asking questions in an open-ended way or in a way that perpetuates the DEI paradigm? If some students say they feel like they don’t belong, do the questions capture the multitude of possible reasons why, or do the questions presume the reasons?

University presidents like Tim Sands are too invested in the status quo to ask these questions. The media has demonstrated that it is incapable of even thinking to ask them. That leaves the governing boards. University boards of visitors across Virginia must step up and lead the conversations.