Michael Shellenberger | DEI creates a toxic, divisive cult-like atmosphere

Michael Shellenberger | DEI creates a toxic, divisive cult-like atmosphere

For decades, universities, corporations, and nonprofit organizations have argued that they need diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs to create positive work and educational environments. The idea has been that training employees, students, and faculty to see and denounce structural racism and white supremacy everywhere will improve relationships.

And yet, nothing that employers and universities have done in the last several decades has proven more toxic, divisive, and dispiriting than DEI. Dozens, if not hundreds of individuals have gone public to describe the cult-like mistreatment of people who refused to accept the DEI dogma that white supremacy is all-pervasive, that non-whites are inherently victims of oppression, and only whites and Asians, not blacks and Latinos, can be racist.

Not everybody dislikes DEI programs. Their rapid spread across America’s colleges and universities, major corporations, and nonprofit organizations is a testament to the genuine demand for such programs among boards of directors, trustees, and executive staff. The thousands of DEI executives, consultants, and authors are a testament to the desire for DEI. Today, DEI is a $10 billion annual global industry.

But telling millions of people that they are inherently racist by the color of their skin has provoked an understandable backlash. After all, it’s a racist claim made in the name of fighting racism. The central idea of DEI is that all whites and, depending on the DEI variant, all Asians are racist, for reasons outside of their control. It is a dehumanizing ideology. It is also conspiratorial, paranoid, and insulting.

Consider the case of former Pennsylvania State University assistant professor of writing, Zack De Piero. In June 2020, the DEI director of the university sent a memo ordering “white people” to “Stop talking and listen to what needs to be done,” accept that they had “internalized white supremacy,” and “hold other white people accountable…”

Then, the university’s DEI Vice President held a Zoom and “told everybody in attendance, ‘I want you to hold your breath in honor of George Floyd. And for all the white attendees, I want you to hold your breath even longer until you feel the pain.’”

A few months later, De Piero’s employer made him watch a video called “White Teachers Are a Problem.” One year later, he says, The Penn State Affirmative Action Office told him, point blank, “There is a problem with the white race” and ordered him to attend “antiracist” workshops “until you get it.”

De Piero refused to accept that he was racist, simply for the fact of being white. He refused to accept that he should lower the standards he used with his minority students simply because they were minorities. In various ways he pushed back, until he got in trouble with his supervisor. “It’s not that complicated,” he said. “You shouldn’t have to go to work and be told that you’re morally deficient because of your race.”

De Piero eventually got into trouble with his advisor for asking too many hard questions about the “antiracism” trainings. De Piero looked into hiring an attorney to sue the college but couldn’t afford it. “I was just about to drop it,” he said, “and in the 12th hour I got news from the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR) that they had some funds to help me file a complaint. None of this would have been possible without them.”

In our podcast interview, after I asked De Piero why he thought he stood up to DEI bullies where millions of other people had done nothing...

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