College DEI programs can be saved, but they must change

(Editor's note: This opinion piece was first published in The News and Observer.)

Just as DEI seems poised to die, there are promising signs that its original goals of diversity, equity and inclusion may yet be restored.

Small but influential bands of faculty at Harvard, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Chicago object that DEI’s original appeals to conscience got distorted by zealots whose political agendas were less lofty. These professors are proposing reforms based on lifting up students and faculty from disadvantaged minority backgrounds, without harassing or despising others.

Recent years have seen a colossal failure for corporate and educational institutions where DEI was manipulated into a war against meritocracy and high standards.

Diversity’s contortion was reinforced with conformity at some schools, as candidates for faculty positions were required to show total allegiance to its divisiveness. Equality of opportunity was transfigured into equal outcomes, as grade inflation qualified too many students to graduate with honors. Inclusion became exclusion, with angry suspicion disrupting the vital unity of teams and the community of scholars.

Widespread failure of DEI distortions needs a reform movement to revive its fundamental principles. Instead of inciting hatred and class warfare, let’s promote high standards and self-discipline. Instead of blaming lack of achievement on supposedly unfair privileges of others, let’s offer tutoring and encouragement. Instead of rejecting achievers as oppressors, let’s insist that more study time improves subject mastery.

My alma mater, Davidson College, should help lead this effort to restore diversity, equity and inclusion as worthy, achievable goals, based on trust and personal commitment, not on contemporary infatuation with cynical theories of identity politics. In August, Davidson will welcome its inaugural Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Fresh from a similar position at Dartmouth, Chloe Poston will find an opportunity to redirect emphasis away from the negatives of America’s recent past to positives for the future.

We haven’t met. She may not see the need for deep reform just yet. I can express hope with optimism, since her doctorate is in chemistry, a discipline guided by systematic evidence, not hostile feelings. She shouldn’t be prejudged based on missteps of others.

Davidson earned distinction as the first private college in the Carolinas to craft its own version of the Chicago Statement, a commitment to freedom of expression. Beyond any ambitions of DEI, diversity of viewpoint is the true measure of freedom, without which no one has real academic diversity, equality of opportunity, or useful inclusion. Davidson’s leadership is needed again.