Tag Archive for: diversity equity and inclusion

Here’s How Schools Are Catering To Illegal Immigrants While Avoiding Federal Scrutiny

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Several schools are trying to fly under the radar with programs providing education to illegal immigrants despite the Trump administration cutting funding for such initiatives.

The Trump administration on June 30 announced it was revoking nearly $7 billion in federal grants that went towards teaching English as a second language — used in part for illegal immigrants — saying the funds are being used to push “a radical leftwing agenda.” Now, some schools are advising staff to use private messaging tactics and are wiping details from their websites to cover their tracks, The 74 reported.

“Because of the threats from the federal administration about revoking the 501(c)(3) status of nonprofits, we want to keep ourselves from being targeted,” an employee of an organization that works with undocumented youth, who chose to remain anonymous, told The 74. “Anything that could be perceived as obstructing or challenging federal immigration policies, we don’t put in writing. Anything that could be seen as a criticism of the administration — or anything that could be seen as partisan — we’re going to completely avoid.”

Some schools and leftwing activist organizations are advising members to use secure messaging apps like Signal rather than text or email, or conduct conversations over the phone, The 74 said. Staff are also directed not to participate in any protests or rallies in support of illegals to avoid the federal government’s radar.

“We’re not trying to draw attention,” an administrator for an Illinois school district told The 74 on condition of anonymity. “I don’t want any light shining on our district.”

The funding being withheld from schools went towards after-school and summer school programs mainly focused on adult education and English learning for non-speakers. The Office of Management and Budget is currently reviewing whether to release some or all of the funding after it discovered some schools used it for illegal immigrants, according to The Detroit News.

School administrators and consultants are even being advised to avoid certain words in emails, such as terms related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), to prevent communications from being discovered through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, The 74 reported.

The Trump administration has also taken aim at states that provide special benefits to illegal immigrants, including several that offer in-state tuition prices for illegals. Texas even joined on to the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) lawsuit against the state to overturn the law allowing the policy, with the state now asking colleges and universities within the state to identify the illegal students.

Reining in illegal immigration has been a main priority of the administration, especially after the Biden administration allowed hundreds of criminal illegal migrants to flood into the U.S. Roughly 11 million total border encounters occurred at the southern border throughout the Biden administration.

So far, the Trump administration has facilitated the arrests of over 30,000 illegal immigrants in the U.S., about half of whom it claims are convicted criminals. Border crossings have plummeted since President Donald Trump took office, with no illegal migrants released into the U.S. in May.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Universities Sit On Billion-Dollar Endowments While Jacking Up Tuition

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Several universities are hiking tuition prices and cutting jobs despite sitting on massive endowments.

Universities are largely blaming the Trump administration’s federal funding cuts for the price increases, but many schools have seen steady rises in tuition for decades and overall increased revenue all while nursing their ever-growing endowments. 

Cornell University is raising its tuition rate by over 4%, bringing the cost to $71,266 for out-of-state students and $48,010 for in-state students, while Duke University’s tuition will jump by nearly 5% to $92,042.

Duke’s price hike marks a 123% increase over the past two decades, despite its endowment steadily increasing over time to about $5 billion. The university’s 2023-2024 fiscal year financial report admitted that the school’s “growth in revenue outpaced expenses.”

At the time, Duke was charging students $83,263 in tuition and other fees and collecting a total of approximately $1 billion in gross tuition and fees even after accounting for financial aid deductions, making up 15% of its total revenue.

Duke is also working to reduce its workforce, offering voluntary buyout agreements to employees. The packages include financial incentives and healthcare in exchange for a three-year separation from the university, in which they can reapply after that period.

Duke did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

Weighing similar staffing cuts, Cornell blamed the Trump administration’s federal research grant terminations, saying the university now faces “profound financial challenges.” Cornell announced it was pausing hiring as it reviewed its “programs and headcount.”

As of 2024, Cornell brings in over $900 million from tuition costs and student fees every year, according to its financial records. Cornell’s endowment is valued at approximately $10.7 billion as of 2024, returning about 10% every year.

Cornell did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Several public universities like the University of Michigan (UM) and the University of Minnesota (UMN) are also raising costs by as much as 7.5% for some students while cutting programs and student services.

UMN is raising its rates by 6.5% for in-state and 7.5% for out-of-state students, also pointing to federal cuts. The school operates on a budget of over $5 billion, with a total systemwide endowment of $6 billion.

UMN did not respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Tuition costs at the University of Michigan (UM) will rise by over 3% for in-state students and just under 5% for out-of-state students while sitting on a nearly $18 billion endowment. The university is blaming ” budgetary impacts of federal actions” and “economic and legislative uncertainty,” according to a June announcement.

A UM spokesman directed the DCNF to the university’s public statement.

College tuition costs have been on the rise for decades, with price increases mostly outpacing inflation. Increased federal financial aid to students has been attributed by some studies to the inflated costs.

The Trump administration has cut billions in grants and contracts to universities, targeting programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) topics or universities that allegedly fail to comply with federal civil rights laws.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Education Reporter.

RELATED ARTICLE: Harvard, MIT Use Law To Limit Legal Payouts While Sitting On Endowments Worth Billions

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Massive Telecom Merger Champions Workers In A Way Biden Admin Never Could, FCC Chair Says

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The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) greenlit Verizon’s $20 billion acquisition of Frontier Communications on Friday — but only after Chairman Brendan Carr insisted on a slate of labor protections he said there was “no way” the Biden administration would have pursued.

The deal requires Verizon to adopt sweeping reforms benefitting tower climbers, trench diggers and fiber splicers — a class of “unsung heroes” he said the previous FCC ignored in an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation.

“I don’t envision a world in which the prior administration would have looked out for America’s tower crews and blue-collar workers in this way,” Carr told the DCNF. “It comes down to the priorities of the administration and what types of deals are struck — and we didn’t see any of these types of deals. We saw deals at the FCC, specifically designed to benefit different progressive stakeholder groups, but there was nothing along these lines happening out of the prior administration.”

Carr, who negotiated the agreement alongside the National Association of Tower Erectors (NATE), made labor reforms a non-negotiable prerequisite for regulatory approval. The chairman emphasized his years of experience embedding himself with telecom crews, scaling towers alongside workers to gain firsthand insight into the risks and realities they face.

“I’ve spent a lot of time with them,” Carr said. “I’ve been on top of several 2,000-foot broadcaster towers with them, on top of water towers — basically every type of pole — and it’s real work. It’s hard work. And it’s important that we make sure they’re being treated fairly.”

The agreement — outlined in Verizon’s letter to the FCC — cracks down on persistent industry pain points, limiting Verizon’s reliance on 1099 workers, creating hotlines to report illegal laborers and ending the “turf vendor” model. Under that system, local firms were routinely shut out by middlemen who parceled out contracts to low-cost subcontractors, driving down wages and weakening safety standards on site, according to a NATE press release from January. The trade organization didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Verizon will also scrap its matrix pricing structure, a flat-rate payment scheme NATE criticized for ignoring regional cost variations and the real-world complexities of certain projects.

NATE, which represents over 1,000 businesses in the telecom construction sector, lauded the agreement as a “breakthrough” in a Monday press release — specifically thanking Carr for his role.

“Chairman Carr has invested a lot of time and sweat equity visiting sites and conducting tower climbs with some of America’s best contractor firms and technicians,” CEO Todd Schlekeway said. “These tangible field experiences have provided the Chairman with a deep understanding of the prominent role that NATE members play daily conducting the tough, gritty work on the frontlines to enable connectivity.”

Smaller contractors also scored practical financial wins under the deal. Verizon agreed to accelerate audits — ending long payment reviews by capping them at six months after project completion — and committed to covering third-party compliance software fees, removing a costly headache for firms forced to buy expensive reporting tools just to collect payment. New joint working groups between Verizon and NATE will keep tabs on implementation, ensuring the changes stick.

“Most people, when they turn on their smartphone or turn on their TV — if they think about it at all — maybe they think it’s magic or pixie dust,” Carr said. “But it’s some of the best people you’ll ever meet. Just real, salt-of-the-earth American workers.”

To secure FCC approval, Verizon also agreed to scrap its company-wide diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs “effective immediately,” according to a letter filed with the commission Friday. The telecom giant dropped its workforce diversity targets, ended bonus incentives linked to demographic quotas, and folded multiple employee resource groups into a single compliance-focused office. Verizon didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.

Carr described this change as a “good step forward for equal opportunity, nondiscrimination and the public interest” in an X post Friday.

Hours later, the FCC announced its approval of the Verizon-Frontier merger, with Carr casting the included protections as part of the broader pro-worker posture of the Trump administration.

“Usually when you see large transactions, they have a way of taking care of Wall Street interests and Main Street can get left to the sidelines,” the chairman explained. “But one of the things President Trump has been very clear about is that his administration is looking out for the blue-collar worker. You can certainly see that in this particular FCC decision.”

AUTHOR

Thomas English

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

EXCLUSIVE: Conservative Org Lays Out Roadmap To Rebuild America’s Crumbling Education System

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The James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal released recommendations Thursday to reform teacher training programs across the nation as student test scores have plummeted to historic lows and schools have become increasingly defined by radical ideology.

The organization, a conservative public policy group focused on higher education, first shared the blueprint with the Daily Caller News Foundation, outlining recommendations to improve university education certification programs and contending that the changes would result in improved outcomes for K-12 children. The memo recommends schools of education at universities to take steps to eliminate diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) requirements and set standards to equip future teachers with the knowledge necessary to educate children.

“Too many teacher preparation programs ignore subject matter expertise to focus on pedagogical fads or trendy ideologies,” Jenna Robinson, president of the center, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. Robinson added that one of the causes of low student achievement in schools is the “irresponsible schools of education” training the teachers.

The blueprint further recommends that lawmakers better regulate such programs to ensure universities are teaching fundamentals and not indoctrinating students who will go on to do the same to the next generation. The center also suggests that policymakers consider creating alternative paths to obtaining a teaching certification — such as demonstrating mastery in a field rather than attending corrupted teacher education programs. Current state licensure requirements should be placed under scrutiny to ensure programs are not being overrun with divisive ideology and teachers are being properly equipped with the skills to teach students reading and math skills, the blueprint says.

Some states have taken steps to lower the bar for teaching candidates, no longer requiring aspiring educators to pass a basic reading, writing and math test for certification.

The blueprint cites a recent report from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which found that as many as one-third of eighth grader students failed to reach the NAEP’s reading assessment benchmark in 2024, the largest percentage ever recorded, and 40% of fourth graders tested below NAEP’s reading proficiency, the largest percentage recorded since 2002.

While some of these failures can be attributed to the learning losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools remained closed for over a year and students struggled under remote learning, much of the responsibility also falls on schools prioritizing teaching divisive concepts over fundamental education, the center argues in its blueprint.

“When teachers focus on inequity or social-emotional learning instead of teaching students to read using proven methodologies, they send two messages,” Robinson said. “One is that students are destined to fail. The other is that reading isn’t important.”

Under the Biden administration, the Department of Justice (DOJ) poured over $100,000,000 into DEI efforts for K-12 schools, funding projects aimed toward “LGBTQ inclusion” in which “anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded.” Upon taking office, President Donald Trump immediately got to work eliminating some of the radical topics from schools, signing a series of executive orders banning critical race theory, diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) and gender ideology from being taught in federally-funded schools.

“I hope this Blueprint will encourage state legislatures and university boards to take a hard look at what’s going on in their schools of education,” Robinson continued. “Schools of education must change if we want students to succeed.”

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Gay Choirs, Trans Cafes And Social Justice Art: What LA Spent Money On While Cutting Its Fire Budget

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The City of Los Angeles cut funding for its fire department and allocated thousands of dollars to various progressive programs, including a “Midnight Stroll Transgender Cafe” and a Gay Men’s Chorus.

Fires swept through Southern California on Wednesday, destroying hundreds of homes in Los Angeles County, and high winds only fueled the destruction. The Democratic mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, was slammed for slashing the Los Angeles Fire Department’s (LAFD) budget by $17.6 million for fiscal year 2024 to 2025, Fox 11 reported, citing LA City Controller Kenneth Mejia.

Bass claimed in a press conference that none of the reductions made “would have impacted the situation that we were dealing with over the last couple of days.” She added that the city is “in tough budgetary times.”

Los Angeles allocated $100,000 to the Civil + Human Rights and Equity Department for a “Midnight Stroll Transgender Cafe,” according to its 2024 to 2025 budget. The funding’s purpose is to “support a safe haven for unsheltered transgender individuals in Hollywood,” the document noted.

Similarly, the Cultural Affairs Department Special Appropriations budget allocated $100,000 for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Awards.

The budget also appropriated $8,670 for the “One Institute the International Gay and Lesbian Archives.”

The ONE Archives at the University of Southern California (USC) Libraries currently has an exhibit titled “Sci-fi, Magick, Queer L.A.: Sexual Science and the Imagi-Nation,” which focuses on the occult and “the LGBTQ movement.”

The budget also allocated $13,000 for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Heritage Month Programs” and $14,010 to the “Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.”

Los Angeles’ African American History Month, American Indian Heritage Month, Latino Heritage Month and Asian American History Month Programs were each allocated $13,000. 

The budget also appropriated $170,000 in total for “Social Justice Art-Worker Investments.”

The LAFD was blasted for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, and its 2023 to 2026 strategic plan stated that DEI was one of its “key goals.” A stated priority of the city’s first “LGBTQ” and woman fire chief, Kristin F. Crowley, is “promoting a culture that values [DEI].”

The Daily Caller reached out to the Los Angeles city controller, the city administrative officer and the mayor’s office, but has not heard back as of publication.

AUTHOR

Eireann Van Natta

Intelligence state reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Biden DOJ Poured Over $100,000,000 Into ‘Restorative Justice,’ DEI Efforts For K-12 Students, New Report Finds

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) under President Joe Biden awarded K-12 schools $100,113,942 in grants aimed at increasing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts since 2021, a new report says.

The DOJ divvied up at least 30 grants that explicitly mentioned DEI or stated an intention to improve outcomes for a specific demographic group. Many more included topics of restorative justice and social emotional learning, according to Parents Defending Education (PDE). A total of 102 grants involving such topics were sent to 946 school districts in 36 states, representing about 3,235,414 students.

Nearly $2 million went to the Minnesota Department of Education to “create safe learning environments where practices of anti-racism and anti-oppression are embedded,” PDE said. The award said the Minnesota department was committed to “supporting LGBTQ inclusion” within all school districts.

Many of the grants mirrored this promise, specifically naming LGBT and nonwhite students as their intended targets.

Pennsylvania State University received $1,785,773 as part of an anti-bullying campaign to help K-12 schools “provide an opportunity to meaningfully advance equity in violence prevention for communities historically underserved, marginalized, adversely affected by inequality, and disproportionately impacted by crime, violence, and victimization (People of Color (POC), women, people with disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ community),” according to the grant document.

The Milwaukee Public Schools was awarded $986,757 for a project meant to “promote racial equity” and “dismantle institutionalized barriers,” documents show. Another program implemented in Pennsylvania school districts received $1,688,668 from the DOJ to teach students “community policing, trauma informed conflict emphasizing racial/historical and intergenerational trauma, impacts of social media on conflict and conflict escalation and management, anti-bias education, restorative practices.”

DEI is being uprooted in many states as governors move to ban such programs. Major companies like Walmart and several universities are also moving to end their employee and student DEI trainings and race-based admission and hiring decisions.

A report released after Texas banned the programs said that schools with DEI policies did not improve learning outcomes for their target groups. Another report said that DEI policies made people much more likely to agree with racist statements from Adolf Hitler.

The DOJ did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

AUTHOR

Jaryn Crouson

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Costco Embraces DEI As Other Companies Move In Opposite Direction

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Costco has urged its shareholders to vote against the push to limit the major retailer’s commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) after receiving a proposal about striking “discriminatory practices.”

The National Center for Public Policy Research requested that Costco publish a report about the risks the company could face by maintaining its current DEI policies, according to The Hill.

“It’s clear that DEI holds litigation, reputational and financial risks to the Company, and therefore financial risks to shareholders,” the proposal stated.

“And yet Costco still has such a program, though it was apprehensive enough to recognize this as it recently and quietly rebranded its DEI program to ‘People and Communities.’ But sticking a new label on discriminatory practices does not protect Costco and its shareholders from these risks,” the proposal continued.

The proposal noted the renamed program still contains a “commitment to equity,” meaning an “equality of outcome, not opportunity,” in addition to employing a “Chief Diversity Officer” that “picks suppliers based on their race and sex, still appears to factor in race and sex in hiring and promotion, and still contributes shareholder money to organizations that advance the discriminatory agenda of DEI.”

“With 310,000 employees, Costco likely has at least 200,000 employees who are potentially victims of this type of illegal discrimination because they are white, Asian, male or straight,” the group stated. “Accordingly, even if only a fraction of those employees were to file suit, and only some of those prove successful, the cost to Costco could be tens of billions of dollars.”

Costco said the request is simply “inflicting burdens on companies with their challenges to longstanding diversity programs.”

“The proponent’s broader agenda is not reducing risk for the Company but abolition of diversity initiatives,” the wholesale corporation said.

“Our Board has considered this proposal and believes that our commitment to an enterprise rooted in respect and inclusion is appropriate and necessary,” Costco said, adding that the Board “unanimously” recommends shareholders vote against the proposal. 

The meeting where shareholders will vote on the issue is set to take place on Jan. 23.

The matter comes after companies like Walmart, Lowe’s and Harley Davidson announced they were repealing DEI practices following similar pushback.

AUTHOR

Fiona McLoughlin

Contributor.

RELATED ARTICLE: Appeals Court Deals Blow To Nasdaq’s Efforts At Pushing Diversity Rules On Companies

EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

‘We Will Be Relentless’: One. Simple. Trick … And Corporations Scramble To Kill ‘Divisive’ Diversity Policies

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Robby Starbuck has been collecting scalps.

First came Tractor Supply Co. Then John Deere. Most recently, Coors scrapped their participation in the Human Rights Campaign’s (HRC) Corporate Equity Index, a social credit score-style running tally of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) marks for publicly traded companies.

The corporations all dropped their participation in HRC’s index after Starbuck simply started highlighting them in public, amplifying complaints from internal whistleblowers to his massive X (formerly Twitter) following.

Harley Davidson, Ford, Lowe’s and the parent company of Jack Daniels have all joined the ranks of companies that ended their participation in the index and committed to backtracking on woke corporate policies like deploying racial quotas, segregating employees into resource groups based on race and sexuality and celebrating pride events.

Each company announced the policy shift after Starbuck merely shined a spotlight on their practices.

“We’ve shown our teeth here. We’ve shown what we’re capable of. We’ve shown that we will be relentless when a company does not do the right thing, and that we will not stop, will not back down,” Starbuck, a conservative activist who focuses mostly on issues of family, told the Daily Caller.

The First Domino To Fall

Tractor Supply Co. was Starbuck’s first target after an internal whistleblower tipped him off to some of their HRC-compliant policies like providing LGBT and intersectionality training and sponsoring a “family friendly” drag show.

“I didn’t believe it until we vetted the information,” Starbuck told the Caller. “I go to Tractor Supply … I took my kids there every week,” Starbuck said.

But upon review, Starbuck found that the Brentwood, Tennessee-based farm supply company was engaged in things like selling the Queer Agenda card game on their website.

Starbuck released a seven-minute video detailing the company’s comprehensive compliance with the HRC’s index and their CEO Hal Lawton’s support for progressive causes in early June.

WATCH: ‘We Will Be Relentless’: Corporations Scramble To Kill ‘Divisive’ Diversity Policies

He included contact information for the company in the video. What happened next, he told the Caller, was the result of a grassroots campaign of thousands of the company’s customers calling and placing pressure on the company to drop their policies.

Three weeks after his video, Tractor Supply Co. released a statement detailing policy changes that included ending their submission of data to the Human Rights Campaign, eliminating DEI roles and DEI goals and a withdrawal of their carbon emission goals.

“This monumental change is thanks to all of you who supported my work exposing this, to the whistleblowers in Tractor Supply and my fellow farm owners who respectfully spoke up,” Starbuck wrote on X.

Others took notice. “Robbie Starbuck is a hero. He’s a one-man band,” Monica Crowley, a former Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs for the U.S. Treasury Department under President Trump, told the Caller.

“It’s perfectly within the American consumers’ right to understand and decide for themselves whether or not they want to support those companies with their hard earned disposable income,” Crowley said.

Starbuck replicated this model for other companies, continuing to use social media — X in particular — to highlight companies with a largely conservative consumer base for their woke policies.

“When I recognized that a company that depended on conservative consumers had fallen for this woke nonsense, I said they’re probably not the only one.”

Social Credit Scores For Business

The companies all announced they would stop sending data to the HRC, which had previously given many of them high scores on its Corporate Equality Index (CEI).

The CEI is a social credit score-like rating system that awards businesses up to 100 points on a scale that includes criteria like “nondiscrimination policies,” “equitable benefits for LGBTQ+ workers” and “supporting an inclusive culture,” according to their website.

The seemingly innocuous language stands in front of policies that, upon closer inspection, represent explicitly discriminatory policies like requiring companies to buy from suppliers with specific same sex preferences.

“82 percent of rated employers in this year’s CEI have supplier mandates with respect to non-discrimination in place, and 98 percent of these mandates (1105 of 1131 companies) explicitly include sexual orientation and gender identity alongside other named categories,” the HRC touts on its website.

The index also encourages businesses to “provide education, training, and accountability measures on diversity and inclusion in the workplace.” The index specifically mentions the formation of LGBT employee resource groups and “diversity councils.”

“When a company offers ’employee resource groups’ to support workers of certain skin colors or ethnicities, it’s also unwittingly supporting a form of segregation by separating employees based on their immutable characteristics,” Monica Harris, the Executive Director at the Foundation Against Intolerance & Racism (FAIR), told the Daily Caller. “When employers separate people who are supposed to work together, it’s not inclusive; it’s divisive,” she said.

Before breaking with the HRC, some of the businesses courted high scores on their index by setting targets for hiring specific percentages of employees of different racial heritage.

John Deere said they aspired to increase black hires by 85 percent, hispanic hires by 61 percent and Asian hires by 10 percent, according to company documents obtained by Starbuck.

John Deere also apparently tied employee bonuses and pay raises specifically to DEI performance, writing in their 2022 Sustainability report that “DEI is the only global behavioral performance metric upon which salaried employees are evaluated,” according to Starbuck.

They also encouraged employees to snitch on each other. In July, their mandatory code of conduct included a pledge to “report any diversity, equity, or inclusion-related concerns to a manager … ” a screenshot Starbuck took of the code of conduct shows.

John Deere dropped their participation in the HRC’s index after their stock price reached a one-year low and announced it would stop its participation in “social or culture awareness parades, festivals, or events,” following Starbuck’s campaign.

HRC has pushed back against the companies’ rejection of their index in a big way, noting that they would still be indexing companies that choose not to send them data. Their website landing page now has a large graphic highlighting Ford and other companies that rejected their index and says “This Isn’t Just Policy. It’s Personal. Millions of hardworking Americans and their families count on these companies.”

They’ve also returned fire on Starbuck, starting their own pressure campaign against him.

“They’re doing a text and email campaign against me right now,” Starbuck told the Caller. “It’s silly, but in a weird way they’re actually helping me, and I don’t think they realize it. They called me a MAGA weirdo. You’re only proving my point to these major companies that you are a partisan actor. You just said MAGA weirdo. So that means anybody who believes in MAGA that shops in one of these stores at these Fortune 500 companies is going to be thinking, ‘Why are they partnered with a group that calls people who think like me a MAGA weirdo?’”

Many of the companies mentioned the HRC by name in their announcement in policy shifts. A Ford spokesman said their CEO Jim Farley did so because it was the group their employees asked about the most often, according to The Wall Street Journal.

HRC’s President Kelley Robinson said in a statement the decision “will hurt the company’s long-term business success, from employee retention to consumer decisions about how they will spend their dollars.”

Starbuck, however, disagrees.

“If DEI and wokeness were making these companies money, and nobody on my end was making them feel pressure, these companies would not change policy,” he told the Caller.

Some experts note that these extremes are not the only way to go about building an inclusive workspace. Before the DEI craze, companies centered their diversity efforts along non-racial lines like differences in class, geography, religion and political perspective, Harris told the Daily Caller.

“My sense is that companies adopting aggressive, discriminatory DEI policies are out of sync with the current racial landscape in our country, but they don’t realize it,” Harris told the Caller.

“They’re being advised to use a sledgehammer to swat a fly. Does racism still exist in America? Unquestionably, yes. But unlike 60 years ago, race no longer defines the experience of black or white Americans. Increasingly, class, not race, is what’s causing system inequities. As a society, we’ve made tremendous progress in race relations that is being minimized and even ignored and, sadly, many DEI programs lean hard into this distortion of our racial reality,” Harris said.

American corporations spend a pretty penny on DEI training, over $8 billion, according to a review by Harvard’s Iris Bohnet. A McKinsey analysis predicts that number to nearly double by 2026.

While companies are incredibly secretive about the specific figures they spend on DEI initiatives (both Starbuck and the Daily Caller have conducted extensive reviews of HRC-indexed company financials and have been unable to find concrete figures), American educational institutions publicly spend millions on their efforts.

A January analysis by University of Michigan professor Dr. Mark J. Perry found the school was spending over $30 million in salary for employees “whose main duties are to provide DEI programming.”

A 2021 report by the Jefferson Council found the University of Virginia was spending almost $7 million yearly for their DEI efforts.

“I Felt Like I Was Sinning”

Rather than driven by financial motives, the DEI initiatives, incubated at the HRC, are pushed upon companies by their human resources and public relations departments, a nerve center Starbuck likens to “tumors.”

“Those two departments worked in tandem to convince executives you needed to do this or you were going to look racist,” Starbuck told the Caller.

An HR initiative at one of the companies Starbuck took down, Harley-Davidson, apparently encouraged employees to read the book “White Fragility” by author Robin DiAngelo, which among other things, claims “a white supremacist worldview” is “the bedrock of society.”

Other companies encouraged employees to sign LBGT ally pledges. Employees felt pressured to sign the pledges, telling Starbuck they felt they might be fired if they didn’t.

“I thought I would be fired if I didn’t do it. I’m a Christian. I felt like I was sinning by doing it,” Starbuck told the Caller, echoing an employee’s sentiments.

Harley-Davidson even sent white male employees to white male only diversity training, according to Starbuck.

The HR and PR departments are the “nerve center” of these movements, with the CEOs of the companies often wholly unaware of the radical takeovers, Starbuck said.

“They said, ‘Honestly, I watched the video you sent us, and I was shocked. I didn’t know this was going on,’” Starbuck said of some executives he’s spoken to. “‘It’s a real wake up call,’ is the term he used. There were things that were being done that he just didn’t know. He had kind of lost control of a certain department of people, and their ability to just do certain things without him ever knowing about it.”

Outside of the CEOs, many of the companies’ corporate leadership and executive class are simply out of touch with their consumer base, Crowley told the Caller.

These executives tend to all come from the same socioeconomic and educational class, Crowley said.

“There’s tremendous peer pressure to toe the social justice line, policy line, because their social group is all doing it, and that if they refuse to do it, that somehow they would be ostracized from their social group, their economic group, their fellow CEOs,” Crowley said.

Wilfred Reilly, a professor of political science at Arkansas State University, concurred with Crowley’s assessment.

“The root issue here is a total disconnect between an Ivy League and Big 10 educated executive class and hard workers at their own companies … regular Americans who buy motorcycles, heavy equipment and Bud Light,” Reilly told the Caller.

The HR and marketing departments, Starbuck told the Caller, are often spearheaded by young, radical leftists who attach to pseudo-Marxist ideology in college and infect the companies with it.

“The belief system coming out of a lot of colleges that folks have … They think it is their job to inject this stuff into the DNA of a company. Those folks, in many ways, use the fear of CEOs after George Floyd against them to create a lot of the space for wokeness in the workplace, and then it takes on a life zone. It becomes a disease that spreads to every part of the company’s body. And I would say what we’re doing is something akin to removing the tumor.”

While Starbuck has been able to declare victory over many of the companies, he’s not stopping. He has thousands of whistleblowers in his inbox ready to expose more of the over 500 companies who the HRC lists in their index.

“If they were able to shift the Overton window that fast, I realized we could do the same thing by waking up companies to where their customers are,” he told the Caller.

The majority of the companies he’s gone after so far have had largely conservative consumer bases, but Starbuck says it doesn’t have to be solely right-leaning companies who feel the heat.

“If conservatives even just make up 20% of your customer base, you really can’t afford to do things that are just openly sort of discriminatory toward them or violating their values in some way,” Starbuck said.

AUTHOR

Robert McGreevy

Reporter.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

Critical Race Theory

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Just as Karl Marx interpreted all of human history as a fight between the “proletariat” (oppressed) and the “capitalists” (oppressors) using a method I can only call “Illogical Abstractionism,” so also do the “critical race theorists” use a rigid abstraction to divide all of mankind into one of two groups.

Karl Marx had no understanding of history or the time course in human affairs. He never set foot in the situations he wrote about with such stupid certainty. The “revolt of the proletariat” never happened, because the people whose strengths did not include invention of machinery, or founding of factories, (the proletariat) became much more comfortable and wealthier as a result of the existence and work of those whose strengths did include those things (the capitalists). The capitalists provided useful work, and it was an enormous benefit to the workers (proletariat).

Could humanity have managed without refrigerators and automobiles? We did so for millennia. Do you want to return to a world without refrigeration or the other comforts brought to u you thanks to capitalism?

To take abstract theories and apply them with deadly force to human beings does not appear to me to be a viable formula for happiness, or for unchaining anybody from any kind of oppression. In fact, we have history as our guide in judging the result of the abstract theories of Marxism as it was imposed in the Soviet Union. In all places where Marxism, Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and Socialism have been imposed, the major result is not tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, but millions of corpses.
Where less force has been used, the most benign result of these economic and political systems has been economic stagnation and the blighting of human lives.

At least a few people do well. Not necessarily the people who are so eaten up with the abstract theories that they have decided they must be imposed on everyone, but those who survive the brutal political power struggle—like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, and the Kims in North Korea. They live in luxury while people starve and suffer all around them.

Marxists like Patrisse Cullors, the “Black Lives Matter” queen, may hope to remain on top but should remember that the revolution devours its children.

Critical Race Theory’s view of the oppressor (whites) and oppressed (people of color) classes quickly leads to logical contradictions. Where is Barack Obama? He is half “White” on his mother’s side, and half “Black” on his father’s side, whether his father was the elder Obama or Frank Marshall Davis.

So, is half of Barack Obama oppressing the other half? Sounds schizoid, but of course, that’s why we have psychiatrists. The question also arises, which half is which? Does the left half oppress the right? The right side of the brain is not exactly the same as the left half, so right away we run into a problem. Same with the front side fighting the back. There are no eyes in the back of the head, so they are not exactly equal halves. I suppose maybe each cell could line up its mitochondria, and uncurl its chromosomes, and
each divide into half. Obviously crazy, but crazier than dividing society by skin tone?

More conundrums ”Are Arabs people of color?” They enslaved “Black” Africans for centuries. In fact, they bought “Black” people as slaves from other “Black” people in Africa, and sold them to British slave-traders, or took them east to their lands, where they were enslaved. Arabs also enslaved “White” people. Do those “White” people somehow become “Black” because they were oppressed? Do “Black” people who enslaved other “Black” people get transmogrified into “White” people?

Perhaps an easier solution would be for all oppressed people to identify as oppressed victims. It works for gender, so why not for race?

As we see, human beings and productive enterprises are not all that Critical Race Theory, Communism, Nazism, Fascism, and Socialism kill. They also kill reason and logic. They kill love and hope. They also try to kill faith in Jesus Christ, whose teachings led William Wilberforce to get rid of the slave trade in the British Empire.

Think about it.

©2024. Dr. Tamzin A. Rosenwasser, M.D. All rights reserved.

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EXCLUSIVE: ‘A Huge Blow’: Decline In White Recruits Fueling The Military’s Worst-Ever Recruiting Crisis, Data Shows

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Each U.S. military service saw a notable decline in white recruits over the past five years, according to data obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation, likely factoring into the military’s crippling recruiting crisis.

The Army, Navy and Air Force missed their recruiting objectives by historically large margins in fiscal year 2023, which ended on Sept. 30, as the broader American public has grown wary of military service, according to Department of Defense (DOD) statistics, officials and experts who spoke to the DCNF. Since 2018, however, the number of recruits from minority groups has remained steady — or, in some cases, increased — while the number of white recruits has declined, according to data on the demographics of new recruits obtained by the DCNF.

The data “reveals the decline of white recruits is almost entirely responsible for the recruiting crisis,” Will Thibeau, director of the American Military Project at the Claremont Institute, told the DCNF.

“A smaller proportion of white Americans serve now than ever before. This is fundamental, because complimentary increases in black and Hispanic recruits have not taken place,” he added.

U.S. troops are under attack in the Middle East, maintaining a heightened posture against a belligerent Russia in Europe, and bolstering deterrence against the People’s Republic of China. The U.S. military is weakening, unable to respond to some of the most pressing challenges to U.S. national security, according to a report released by the Heritage Foundation.

“This is a huge blow as the recruiting crisis is the worst in the history of the all volunteer force,” Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at Heritage, told the DCNF, referring to the plummeting numbers of white recruits since 2018.

A Dramatic Decline In White Recruits

Other demographic groups have fluctuated over those five years, but none consistently tumbled over time like the white demographic.

In fiscal year 2018, 44,042 new recruits to the Army — or 56.4% of the total — were white, according to data obtained by the DCNF. That number collapsed to a low of 25,070 — or 44.0% of the total — in fiscal 2023.

Over the same time period, black Army recruits increased from 19.6% of the total in 2018 to 23.5% in 2023, and Hispanic Army recruits rose from 17.2% to 23.5%. However, the real number of recruits from the remaining non-white demographic groups also dipped from fiscal 2018 to 2023, as the total number of new personnel the Army signed on each year fell dramatically, the data shows. None of these groups saw the same degree of decline as white recruits, however.

Military.com first reported the precipitous drop in the number of Army soldiers recruited in fiscal year 2023 from five years prior.

“What we’re seeing is a reflection of society; what we know less of is what is driving all of these things,” an Army official told Military.com. “There is no widely accepted cause.”

Click here for Army New Recruits By Race infographic.

The Army implemented new race categories in fiscal year 2023 that split Asian or Pacific Islander into individual categories and introduced multiple options combined under “Two or More” in the data obtained by the DCNF. For visual aid purposes, the DCNF re-combined Asian and Native Hawaiian/Other Pacific Islander in 2023.

While the Army may have experienced the worst of the military’s recruiting woes, the data obtained by the DCNF shows that a similar pattern exists across all branches of the armed services. White people are joining the military in lower numbers than before as other racial or ethnic groups do not demonstrate the same shortfalls.

Data for the Air Force shows that Asian recruits increased from 1,110 — or 3.7% of a total 29,831 recruits — in 2018 to 1,471 — or 6.1% of a total of 23,967 recruits — in 2023. While the number of black Air Force recruits was nearly identical during this period — 5,144 in 2018 and 5,155 in 2023 — they comprised a larger percentage of the incoming force in 2023, at 21.51%, than they had in 2018, at 17.2%, as the Air Force’s incoming classes shrunk.

White Air Force recruits, by contrast, dipped from 21,593 in 2018, or 72.4% of the total, to 15,068, or 62.9% of the total, in 2023, the data shows.

Hispanic recruits were tracked as a separate, binary measure of ethnicity. The number categorized as non-Hispanic dropped from 24,204 in 2018 to 17,913 in 2023 — a decline of 6,291. At the same time, the number of Hispanic recruits increased only slightly — from 5,627 in 2018 to 6,054 in 2023.

It was unclear precisely how many white Air Force recruits also selected Hispanic as their ethnicity, or how many Hispanic recruits selected the “white” or “multiple” race category. Data for the Space Force was not included in the DCNF’s analysis.

Click here for Air Force New Recruits By Race infographic.

In the Navy, the number of white recruits fell from 24,343 in fiscal year 2018 to 18,205 in fiscal year 2023, accounting for some of the overall drop of about 9,000 new recruits over the same time period, the data shows. The numbers of black and Asian Navy recruits increased over the same period, with black recruits increasing from 6,798 in 2018 to 7,947 in 2023 and Asian recruits increasing from 1,518 to 2,075 over the same period.  As with the Air Force data, Hispanic recruits were not included in the dataset as a category.

The ethnicity of 10% Navy recruits in 2018 was listed as “none-unknown,” but that number dropped to nearly zero by 2021, potentially clouding any true comparison of data between years. There were also small drops in recruits listed as American Indian or Alaskan Native, “multiple races” and Native Hawaiian-Other Pacific Islander.

As in the Air Force, a separate measurement of ethnicity for Navy recruits included only two categories: Hispanic and Non-Hispanic. The proportion of Hispanic recruits grew from 18% in 2018 to 25% in 2023, while the real number of Non-Hispanic recruits actually dropped from 31,977 to 22,746.

Click here for Nave New Recruits By Race infographic.

Unlike with the Air Force and Navy, the Marine Corps calculated race and ethnicity together, placing Hispanics in a separate category alongside white, African American and “other” recruits. It also included specific data for officers and enlisted recruits, further complicating any comparison between the services. However, this data appears to suggest that, although the Marine Corps has not struggled to meet recruiting objectives like the other services have, any decline in overall numbers of new recruits has been driven by a smaller pool of white Marines in the new cohort.

White enlisted Marine Corps recruits dropped from 21,455 — 58% of the total — in fiscal 2018 to 14,287 — 43% of the total — in fiscal 2023. Hispanic recruits climbed from 9,984 — 27% of the total — to 12,859 — 39% of the total. The number of black recruits did not change appreciably: 3,708, or roughly 10%, in 2018 to 3,603, or roughly or 11%, in 2023.

The “other” category for enlisted Marine recruits jumped from 1,765 to 2,574.

The largest drop in white enlisted Marines occurred between 2021 and 2022, when they declined by 3,090, accounting for most of the overall decline of 3,214.

Combining both enlisted personnel and officers, there was an overall 32.2% decline in the number of white Marines joining. In 2018, there was a combined total 22,699 white enlisted personnel and officers recruited; in 2023 it was 15,387. The number of African American Marine recruits decreased marginally — from 3,708 to 3,603 — while recruits categorized as Hispanic increased from 9,984 to 12,859, as did recruits categorized as “other” — 1,765 in 2018 to 2,574 in 2023.

Click here for the Marine Corps Recruits By Race infographic.

Behind The Decline In White Recruits

Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps officials could not explain why there has been a decline in whites recruited to serve.

“Factors influencing recruitment demographics can be complex and multifaceted,” an Air Force spokesperson told the DCNF.

Spokespeople for each of the services cited various reasons recruitment overall has fallen dramatically in the past three years.

For example, only 23% of 17-to-24-year-old Americans meet the minimum physical and academic standards for joining without a waiver and even fewer — about 10% — express a desire to join, according to an Army press release. The civilian job market may present more attractive opportunities with better benefits, while fewer members of the younger generation are familiar with the military at all, officials say.

Young Americans are also losing trust in institutions in general, including the U.S. military, the Army has said.

In a 2022 survey the Army commissioned, young people cited safety concerns and the stress of Army life as inhibitors to enlisting and also said they didn’t want to steal time away from pursuing other careers.

“Additionally, recognizing that Generation Z represents the newest cohort of service members, it is essential to meet their expectations for an inclusive workplace. As we engage with youth, a fundamental principle remains steadfast – the recruitment of qualified Americans who mirror the society the Department of the Air Force serves,” the Air Force spokesperson said.

Army officials attributed factors including drug use, obesity and a drop in white male representation in the labor market in comments to Military.com. They also blamed Republicans’ partisan attacks against perceived left-wing infiltration of the military, saying an excessive focus on “wokeness” had presented the military as an institution hostile to white people, according to Military.com.

Conservative lawmakers and media highlighting the Army’s preoccupation with diversity could contribute to the problem, some Army officials told Military.com.

“No, the young applicants don’t care about this stuff,” one Army official told Military.com. “There’s a level of prestige in parts of conservative America with service that has degraded.”

The Army did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment on the data.

Experts cast doubt on the Pentagon’s talking points about problems with eligibility to serve.

“All of that historically has been a challenge, and it is no different today. Those aren’t the reasons why they’re not getting recruits,” Greenway told the DCNF.

And, they don’t explain why the numbers of white recruits are falling.

“Fewer white Americans see the military as a righteous way to serve their country, but it is readily apparent the military is trying to recruit fewer white Americans in order to meet various policies of race composition in place throughout the Armed Forces. For every diversity objective, there is an imperative to reduce the proportion of white recruits. Since 2018, that’s exactly what has happened,” Thibeau said.

Race-Focused Recruiting

The military for years has prioritized reaching out to women and minority racial or ethnic groups, adding new initiatives each year aimed at increasing the proportion of underrepresented groups among the total ranks.

Pentagon officials and official documents outline the military’s goals to increase the proportion of minority ethnic and racial groups in the total ranks.

The military does not have explicit quotas for representation in the ranks. But, the Pentagon’s guiding strategic plan through 2026 sets year-over-year targets for “increased representation of racial/ethnic minorities and women” in military career fields where the breakdown is seen as out of balance. It also sets goals of having more minorities included in the pool of applicants eligible for promotion to higher ranks.

The Pentagon’s top military officer has stated that he hires “for diversity.”

“We focus on recruiting the best and brightest of America,” a Navy spokesperson told the DCNF.

“Though faced with a challenging recruiting environment, the Navy has and continues to provide several opportunities to all who choose to wear the uniform, and we will continue to build pathways for all qualified individuals to serve.”

The Air Force “seeks to reflect the broader population to ensure a well-rounded force,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.

A Marine Corps spokesperson explicitly denied the service follows diversity-focused recruitment policies.

“Marine Corps Recruiting Command does not have diversity-oriented policies. Applicants must be morally, medically and physically qualified in order to serve,” the spokesperson told the DCNF.

A shift in emphasis to criteria aside from performance, such as race, ethnicity or gender, “is going to impact the groups that would be disadvantaged by that for the perception that that they would be disadvantaged by that,” Greenway told the DCNF.

“The services are prioritizing racial goals, and when you pursue racial goals and composition, you’re going to change your recruiting policy,” Greenway told the DCNF. It also contributes to declining trust in the military as white young people who would otherwise be eligible and interested in service lose confidence they would be evaluated and promoted based on their qualification, he added.

Complaints about the military’s diversity-oriented policies emanating from Congress are more likely reflective of feedback lawmakers receive from constituents, Greenway said.

The Worst Recruiting Crisis In 50 Years

The size of the active-duty force fluctuated between 2018 and 2023, but reached dramatic lows at the end of 2023, data shows.

The DOD maintained an estimated 1,314,000 active-duty troops out of an authorized end strength of 1,322,500 at the end of fiscal year 2018, according to department statistics. The Army missed its active duty recruiting goal by 6,528 troops, while the other services slightly exceeded theirs, data shows.

Congress’ fiscal year 2024 defense policy bill capped military end strength at 1,295,700 active-duty personnel, down from an authorized 1,316,944 in 2023, when it achieved only an estimated 1,296,271, data shows.

“This fiscal year was without a doubt the toughest recruitment year for the Military Services since the inception of the all-volunteer force. The Marine Corps (active and reserve components) and the Space Force are the only Services to achieve their FY recruitment goals. The Department continues to work collaboratively to develop innovative ways to inspire service and mitigate recruiting shortfalls,” DOD said in a statement announcing the fiscal year 2023 recruitment numbers.

The Army fared worst, achieving just 76.61% of its target — 50,181 out of 65,500, according to DOD data. Only the Marine Corps and Space Force met their goals.

The Army had 485,000 active-duty troops in 2021, but it finished out 2023 with just 452,000, the smallest full-time force since before WWII. Sweeping reforms to the Army’s recruiting structure announced in October have yet to materialize.

Some steps the Army has taken so far appear to be successful. The Army’s Future Soldier Prep Course, which provides academic tutoring or physical fitness training for prospective soldiers who don’t quite meet entrance standards, has graduated nearly 9,000 Army recruits since implementation in August 2022.

The U.S. Navy missed active duty recruiting objectives for 2023 by about 20%, despite rolling out a score of initiatives aimed at relieving pressure on recruiting — including offering bonuses up to $75,000 for enlistees in certain highly technical occupations and raising the maximum age to join from 39 to 41.

It also pushed the limit of the congressionally-mandated maximum percentage for recruits who score between the 10th and 30th percentile on the Armed Forces Qualification Test, according to the statement.

Seeking to recreate the Army’s success in boosting the test scores of potential future soldiers, the Navy also implemented “Future Sailor Preparatory Courses” at boot camp to help possible recruits meet the Navy’s academic and physical standards, the statement said.

The Navy strove to take on a total of 40,232 active-duty officers and enlisted personnel, but only achieved 32,316 in fiscal year 2023, according to a press release.

The Air Force achieved only 24,923, or 89%, of its goal 27,851 new active-duty officers and enlisted troops for the fiscal year, while the Air Force Reserve fared even worse.

The Marine Corps reached its recruiting goal, Commandant Gen. Eric Smith announced on social media on Sept. 28. “I’m mindful of how challenging an environment this is and want to publicly give credit to our professional recruiters and all our Marines who uphold our rigorous standards 24/7,” he said.

In addition, the Space Force had obtained more than 99% of its proportionally small accessions goal by July.

“The Marine Corps recruits the best this country has to offer who reflect our culture and values in every demographic which is reflective of the American population,” the Marine Corps spokesperson told the DCNF.

AUTHOR

MICAELA BURROW

Investigative reporter, defense.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Texas Universities Rebrand ‘Diversity’ Programs As Statewide Ban Goes Into Effect

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Texas’ public universities are scrambling to rebrand their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts after Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law prohibiting DEI offices.

The new Texas law, which goes into effect Jan. 1, 2024, bans DEI departments and initiatives in public universities and prohibits colleges from holding activities that discriminate on the basis of race, gender or ethnicity. In anticipation of the law going into effect, some colleges in Texas have shut down their DEI departments, while others have renamed their DEI offices and altered their mission statements while retaining the offices’ staff.

“Public colleges work for the benefit of the state and should not try to undermine the state or state policy. Under state law, college DEI offices may no longer perform a variety of activities that focus on group identities,” Adam Kissel, visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Education Policy, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Several Texas colleges are opening new centers with employees from the DEI departments, and many are renaming the departments and giving them new mission statements.

“Our office will definitely be engaged with any sort of signals or indication that we see of any public universities not following the spirit and intent of the law,” Republican Texas state Sen. Brandon Creighton, author of the law, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) announced in November it would close its DEI office, according to Inside Higher Ed. The school said they would be opening a new office called the Office of Campus Resources and Support in a Nov. 29 letter. UTD’s president previously said in August that no one in the DEI office would be losing their jobs, according to Dallas Morning News.

The Office of Campus Resources and Support will foster a “welcoming university climate” and house The Galerstein Community Center, which was previously named The Galerstein Gender Center.

The University of Houston (UH) closed its Center for Diversity and Inclusion and LGBTQ Resource Center and announced a new center called the “Center for Student Advocacy and Community” in August.

The goal of the center is to “build and maintain a network of campus and community stakeholders for student populations,” according to their website. The center will also hold events for “programs that promote a welcoming climate and cultural competency” and “heritage month and cultural programs and celebrations.”

The University of Texas (UT) at Austin renamed its Division of Diversity and Community Engagement to the Division of Campus and Community Engagement, according to Inside Higher Ed. The division offers programs such as “Inclusive Innovation and Entrepreneurship” and “Women in STEM.”

Some universities in Texas previously required prospective professors to submit “diversity statements,” in which they signaled their commitment to the tenets of DEI.

“Essentially, many of our universities requiring those loyalty oaths had a neon sign above their doors saying, ‘if you don’t agree with us politically and you won’t sign this oath, you need not apply here,’” Creighton told the DCNF.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis banned the use of DEI in public schools and universities in May. Several other Republican state Legislatures have proposed similar bans on DEI programs using public funds.

The Republican-led Wisconsin Legislature withheld pay raises from the University of Wisconsin (UW) system in October over its expenditures on DEI, and in December the UW system accepted an $800 million deal to slash its DEI efforts. The Iowa Board of Regents voted in November to eliminate DEI programs at state universities.

“Workarounds are challenging and put colleges at financial risk for noncompliance. DEI offices should be replaced with success initiatives that help students without regard to group identity,” Kissel told the DCNF.

UTD, UH and UT Austin did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s requests for comment.

AUTHOR

BRANDON POULTER

Contributor.

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EDITORS NOTE: This Daily Caller column is republished with permission. ©All rights reserved.

All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.

Assistant Professor Sues University That Allegedly Forces Faculty To Pledge Commitment To Diversity

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An assistant professor is suing a California university that allegedly requires faculty applicants to pledge their commitment to “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) policies and ideology.

The Pacific Legal Foundation filed a lawsuit Thursday on behalf of Dr. John D. Haltigan, an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, against the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz alleging that institution violates faculty applicants’ First Amendment rights by requiring them to submit a statement displaying their support of DEI. Requiring a statement on increasing diversity along racial and ethnic lines forces faculty applicants to agree, or pretend to agree, with such values, the lawsuit alleges. 

“UC Santa Cruz’ DEI statement requirement is nothing more than a rebranding of the unconstitutional loyalty oaths that proliferated during the Cold War,” Wilson Freeman, an attorney at Pacific Legal Foundation, said in a press release. “Universities are not permitted to discriminate against applicants because of their political views. UC’s DEI statement screening is a thinly veiled attempt to do exactly that.”

Haltigan, who holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Miami, wished to apply for the institution’s tenure-track position in Developmental Psychology but did not because of the required DEI statement, the lawsuit shows. The application for the tenure-track position in Developmental Psychology allegedly tells applicants that its scoring rubric grants low scores to those applying if they “believe race and sex should not be used to judge individuals.”

“If Dr. Haltigan were to apply for this position, he would be compelled to alter his behavior and either remain silent about the many important social issues addressed by the DEI Statement Requirement or recant his views to conform to the dictates of the University administration,” the lawsuit alleges.

Throughout the country universities are requiring some sort of DEI statement from applicants outlining their competencies in diversity; in May 2022, Indiana University School of Medicine updated its standards mandating that professors who wish to be promoted, “show effort toward advancing DEI.” The University of Tennessee requires applicants to submit a diversity statement, which they are judged on, telling how they will help contribute to diversity and inclusion at the school.

“The University of California has adopted a modern day loyalty oath for professors who seek to join the faculty,” the lawsuit alleged. “Today’s loyalty oath does not demand a pledge that professors are not members of the Communist Party, but professed agreement with ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ policies and ideology.”

The University of California, Santa Cruz did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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