by James C. Sherlock
Cavalier Daily, where are you?
There is an article in The Daily Princetonian that is, end-to-end, utterly beyond satire.
It’s title: “3 Princeton DEI staff members resign, alleging lack of support.”
Where to begin?
The “Prince” offers in a single posting Homeric tales of the peripatetic journeys of three school officials that led to their resignations. Three from among Princeton’s 70 (not a typo) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion staffers.
We find in that article indignation; tears; allegations of macro-aggressions; an HIV-positive Chair of the University Health Services Transgender Health Team; a self-proclaimed “Black queer non-binary person (is BQNBP an acronym?)” overseeing DEI in the athletics department; fears of monkey pox; claims of burnout; statements of support by the University; a Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity; an Associate Provost for Diversity and Inclusion; promotion politics; assorted levels of despair; claims and rebuttals relative to structural issues in DEI at Princeton; and more acronyms than you can count.
Like The Pentagon Papers and almost as long, it is exhausting, but you will not be well read until you work through it.
You will be informed that
employees at the University have participated in more than 6,000 learning opportunities across 150 DEI-related classes and that more than 400 managers have been trained on Mitigating Bias in the Hiring Process.
Employees have also engaged in training regarding LGBTQ Allyship; Bias, Power, Privilege and Workplace Communication; Psychological Safety; and more.
One might conclude there may be burnout among the audiences of those “learning opportunities,” too. But it is a very safe bet they do not express it.
We can only imagine the travails of the DEI staff at the University of Virginia.
The Cavalier Daily, challenged, will surely be on it.
