DEI or R&R?

Maybe the woke really are more awake than the rest of us. At a minimum, they seem more alert and nimble. While conservatives are focused, as we must be, on dealing with DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion), the woke are opening new frontiers in discrimination against whites.

Consider the fact that at Johns Hopkins, whites made up only 17 percent of last year’s freshman class, while at Stanford, white representation among undergraduates is only 26 percent. Meanwhile, at Berkeley, 54 percent of applicants for jobs as professor in life sciences and environmental sciences and management are white, but whites made up only 14 percent of those who became finalists for such positions in recent years.

Whites are about 45 percent of America’s high school students. Blacks are about 15 percent and Hispanics about 28 percent. Thus, the low percentage of whites at Hopkins and Stanford cannot be justified by considerations of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Hopkins and Stanford can have diverse and inclusive student bodies without suppressing white representation to 17 percent and 26 percent, respectively. As for equity, that term has been redefined (in a perversion of the English language) to mean that racial and ethnic groups get a share of income, jobs, benefits, etc. equal to their representation in the population.

Equity, so defined, would be served by a white representation in the student bodies of colleges like Hopkins and Stanford of around 45 percent. Equity is disserved by representation at half that level or less.

As for Berkeley professors, it seems unlikely that the life sciences and environmental sciences and management departments need to limit the hiring of white professors to 14 percent in order to have a diverse and inclusive staff. Nor does it seem equitable (as defined by the DEI crowd) for whites to make up 14 percent of new hires when they represent 54 percent of applicants and, undoubtedly, at least that percentage of those with the credentials to teach in these departments.

Clearly, then, our elite colleges and universities are moving beyond DEI when it comes to selecting students and (probably) professors. What have they moved on to?

One answer is reparations, which, in my opinion, constitutes the real motive behind most racial preference regimes. Preferring blacks is viewed as compensation for past discrimination against their ancestors which, allegedly, continues to hold blacks back today.

But even reparations can’t fully explain the suppression of white representation on campus. Blacks can receive a huge advantage in college admissions without driving white representation to 26 percent or below.

Moreover, many beneficiaries of driving white representation that low are Hispanic. There may be some who believe that Hispanics are entitled to reparations, but I’ve never seen anyone try to make that case.

To fully explain the suppression of white representation on campus, we need to invoke a second “R” — retribution. The suppression should be viewed, at least in part, as punishment.

Punishment for what? For the sins the ancestors of white applicants may have committed (but in most cases probably didn’t commit) against blacks in the distant past. And for the “privilege” the applicants themselves are said to enjoy.

If this explanation sounds far-fetched, it shouldn’t. As I said in my post about admissions at Johns Hopkins, Critical Race Theory, talk of “white privilege,” and critiques of “whiteness” hold sway in much of academia today. It’s a very short step from this talk to the belief that whites should receive second-class treatment.