Should DEI Expand to Cover Jews?

Facing blowback for campus antisemitism, universities have proposed expanding their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs to encompass Jews. Not only does past (and present) persecution justify such expansion, they argue, but it seems politically advantageous. A recent survey showed 79 percent of college-age respondents support the “ideology” categorizing whites as “oppressors” and others as “oppressed” (and deserving of special favor); furthermore, 67 percent concluded Jews “should be treated as oppressors.”

Reconfiguring DEI programs to shift Jews into the “oppressed” category seems highly desirable, but it is a Faustian bargain. DEI is not the solution. It is the problem.

The oppressor/oppressed binary

The oppression binary is antithetical to the critical reasoning that universities should foster. In the world of competitive victimhood, if Israel builds bombshelters to protect civilians, while Hamas steals its people’s food and uses them as human shields, Israel is the villain because it has fewer civilian casualties. If Israel absorbed refugees after the War of Independence but Arab countries did not, Israel is at fault because no Jews remain unabsorbed. It is as if jurors decided a case based not on evidence but the litigants’ clothing. No wonder two-thirds of college students consider it acceptable to shout down a speaker; they do not need to hear speech to decide who is right.

Protesting “Jews aren’t white!” simply legitimizes this intellectual laziness (from students who chant “From the River to the Sea” but cannot identify which river and which sea). And it contradicts Jewish values. Unlike Hammurabi’s Code, which based punishments on a matrix comparing the status of offender and victim, the Torah emphasizes conduct over status: “Thou shalt not favor the poor, nor honor the rich, but in righteousness shall you judge.” [Lev. 19:15.]

And expanding DEI will harm Jewish interests by further empowering those who have led the charge in classifying Jews as oppressors. It is no surprise that Santa Ana adopted a curriculum teaching 10th graders that Israel practices “ethnic cleansing.” After all, the University of California’s Ethnic Studies Council, which has urged the UC to require high school students to pursue Ethnic Studies as a condition for admission, demanded the UC retract its description of October 7 as terrorism and also oppose what it called Israel’s “ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Palestinian people.” Tweaking ethnic studies curricula is rearranging the furniture on the Titanic.

Pavlovian rewards and penalties

The congressional hearings focused on what speech is prohibited, but the real problem is what speech is inhibited—or celebrated. Throughout their childhoods, students have been treated as Pavlov’s dog, rewarded when they embrace the oppression binary and penalized when they resist. While lecturer Erika Christakis was forced out for suggesting Yale should not regulate Halloween costumes, students who agitated against her received its Nakanishi Prize for “exemplary leadership.” One of the Stanford Law students who led the mob shouting down Judge Kyle Duncan was selected as the only student on the search committee for the new dean.

By contrast, opposing the prevailing ethos can be career suicide. MIT rescinded an invitation to Dorian Abbot to speak about climate science, not due to his position on that subject, but because he questioned the DEI program. (MIT’s commitment to free speech commenced on the morning of the December 5 hearing and ended that evening.)

The bias undermines the legitimacy of academic achievement, a primary engine of Jews’ advancement in America. For example, a Berkeley instructor informed students they could improve their grades through political activity “against the settler-colonial occupation of Gaza.” Yes, the school clarified that students could earn credit in other ways. But who believes this instructor will fairly grade students who write favorably about Israel?

These rewards and penalties are not technically “censorship.” But as Chief Justice John Marshall wrote in another context, “the power to tax involves the power to destroy.” This maxim also describes the marketplace of ideas.

The distorted debate

And destroying certain viewpoints is the goal. The original rationale for race- based preferences was their capacity to foster viewpoint diversity, but that is now an unwanted obstacle. A University of North Carolina (UNC) dean candidly recognized the “fundamental conflict between efforts to promote . . . understandings of structural racism [and] efforts to promote diversity of thought” and prescribed UNC should “revisit” the latter to ensure the former.

The diversity-industrial complex now decides which speech is “worth the squeeze” and which is not.

As the U.S. Court of Appeals explained, universities threaten to charge students with bias or harassment if they criticize unrestricted immigration, race-based admissions, or the Palestinian movement, but not if they favor these causes. Colleges thus place their thumb—and fist—on the scale of debate. To paraphrase George Orwell, all speech is equal . . . but some is more equal than others.

Worse, the dogma extends into classroom mandates. When the UNC’s “Task Force to Integrate Social Justice into the Curriculum” revised medical students’ expected competencies, it prescribed they “deploy advocacy skills” for, among other causes, “achieving radical reform of the U.S. criminal justice system” and “ending policies of exclusion and achieving compassionate immigration reform.” (Public opposition forced UNC to suspend the plan.)

Viewpoint bias among faculty is no surprise; it is why they are chosen. Candidates must submit “diversity statements” demonstrating how they will treat students differently based on their status. It is the most important part of the application; Berkeley rejected 76 percent of applicants based on their diversity statement alone, without even considering their academic record. And faculty must repeat this “loyalty oath” to the DEI regime throughout their careers, in annual reviews. Ideological conformity is not a bug of this system but a feature.

Even if universities wanted to consider objective qualifications, fewer are available. Not only are grades subject to bias, but other honors, like editing publications, also involve diversity statements, and outsiders cannot tell who made it by performing and who by conforming. Even the decision of what to publish can depend on the author’s identity, or, especially, viewpoint. Such bias has enabled the academy’s purge of nearly every conservative and classical liberal who is unwilling to hide, and has transformed universities into an echo chamber.

Harvard’s recent conduct showed how far it has strayed from its motto of “Truth.” Alumnus Louis Brandeis, the first Jewish Supreme Court justice, opined that the best answer to “falsehood” is “more speech, not enforced silence.” Accused of plagiarism, Claudine Gay could have followed this wisdom by publicly defending her record through more speech. Instead, Harvard moved to enforce silence by threatening journalists with “immense” damages if they published allegations that were “demonstrably false” (legalese for “completely true”). Harvard can hardly punish bullies who suppress speech by tearing down hostage posters; they are only following the University’s example.

Elite colleges are elite not because they provide a better education but because they attract America’s top high school students. But if these “best and brightest” choose other institutions, those schools will rise accordingly. More than Jews need Harvard, Harvard needs Jews.

The past and the future

The Torah’s promise, that God will bless those who bless the Jewish people, and curse those who curse us (Gen 12:3), manifests in unexpected ways. The world’s leading scientists lived in Germany in the 1930’s, until rising antisemitism prompted many to emigrate to America. Their expertise helped the U.S. prevail over the Nazis a decade later.

Could a similar reshuffling of talent affect universities? It already has begun. Harvard received 17 percent fewer early applications this year, and reduced its selectivity accordingly. Not only observant Jews are disturbed by a university that orders a rabbi to hide the menorah at night because it expects vandalism (and cannot spend any of its $50 billion endowment to prevent it).

Elite colleges are elite not because they provide a better education but because they attract America’s top high school students. But if these “best and brightest” choose other institutions, those schools will rise accordingly. More than Jews need Harvard, Harvard needs Jews.

Universities should not expand the DEI infrastructure but dismantle it. Fundamental justice—and their academic reputations—require nothing less.

Mitchell Keiter, a certified appellate law specialist in Beverly Hills, filed a successful amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court against Harvard and UNC. [www.CaliforniaAppellateAttorney.com/wp-content/uploads/SFA_FINAL_3.pdf]