Search Results for: dei

My old Washington Monthly colleague Nick Confessore, now at the New York Times, has a long magazine piece up today about the DEI program at the University of Michigan, one of the oldest and most expansive in the country: Most students must take at least one class addressing “racial and ethnic intolerance and resulting inequality.”... ...continue reading "How is DEI going at the University of Michigan?"

The American Association of University Professors has issued a new policy that supports the mandatory use of "DEI statements." These are written accounts by faculty members of how they advance the goals of diversity in the workplace, often used as part of the decision to promote or grant tenure: Since the 1990s, many universities and ...continue reading "University DEI statements are a demeaning charade"

The Washington Post writes today about the decline of DEI initiatives in Silicon Valley: Despite these initiatives, the tech industry’s demographics remain largely stagnant. In 2022, 26 percent of science, tech, engineering and math workers were women, an increase of one percentage point from the year 2000, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. It's ...continue reading "Silicon Valley is throwing in the towel on DEI"

A few days ago I came across this tweet from Matt Yglesias during a stretch of bad weather that was tying up air travel: This has been followed by a bunch of edgelord conservative types complaining that DEI initiatives are making it unsafe to fly. Is this just an offshoot of the recent right-wing kvetching ...continue reading "Here’s the story of DEI in our nation’s skies"

For the past year or so, the new hotness on the right has been an all-out attack on DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They object to it pretty much everywhere, but most of their attention recently has been focused on universities. As usual, this got me curious. Unfortunately, it appears all but impossible to get reliable ...continue reading "Does DEI even work?"

In its initial incarnation USAID was a Cold War agency designed to help poor countries, but also to ensure that the United States was very visibly the one doing the helping. This focus produced both considerable efficiency and bipartisan support. When the Cold War ended, USAID lost some of its support, especially among conservative Republicans. ...continue reading "The real story behind the downfall of USAID"

Donald Trump has been on a tear to eliminate DEI programs throughout the federal government. Now, in one sense, he clearly ran on this, so fair enough. What's more, if we're talking about killing Robin DiAngelo programs or similar beacons of enlightenment, well, even a lot of liberals will cheer you on. But in MAGA ...continue reading "Trump is merrily ending civil rights protections for everyone"

Here's a list of court orders that have put a halt to various Trump/DOGE firings and spending cuts. It's by no means comprehensive, just everything I could find at the moment. Its purpose is to show that neither Trump nor DOGE are steamrollers. They've had some wins, but they've had a lot of setbacks too. ...continue reading "Trump has suffered a lot of losses in court"

Here's a chart showing airline fatalities over the past century. In 1980, at about the same time that commercial airlines began hiring Black and women pilots, fatalities began a 30-year decline to zero: This is not a smoking gun. Fatalities likely went down for reasons of their own that were unrelated to civil-rights era hiring ...continue reading "Diversity in the air: Don’t worry, everything is fine"

Donald Trump has now fired seven senior military officers, including the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff; the Chief of Naval Operations; the Commandant of the Coast Guard; the vice chief of the Air Force; and three judge advocate generals (Navy, Army, and Air Force). All were apparently fired for being a little too ...continue reading "Trump fires diverse military officers"