Your 2nd paragraph. It’s more about UVa’s attempt to go with the flow with DEI, inside and outside academia. Which is, well, maybe no better. It depends on the goals the institution lays out and how it’s using this DEI function to pursue them.

My main issue in general, is in how DEI pursues goals in its acronym. Is diversity about different life experiences or simply race (really, just skin color)? Are we making sweeping generalizations about individuals’ perspectives on life just based on race? Is “equity” supposed to mean guaranteed outcomes, or that we look at merit regardless of things like race? For that matter, what does “merit” mean? Overarching question - have we given up on the idea of “content of character, not color of skin”? Do we now actually believe in sweeping generalization by race as a way to pursue “equality”…or is that this slightly different thing called “equity”?

JM gave us easy to spot propaganda. As you and mg say - he’s posting partial truths to whip up grievance over cost. But - somebody else recently posted an interview with Straker, who apparently earns around 200k all in, for…nothing in particular based on that interview. She showed her command over DEI terminology. She strung together a bunch of soundbites, using “sort of” as segues, but I couldn’t tell what she was actually saying, other than some of her brother’s young white friends in Appalachia died in their 20s from something she generalized as “toxicity of whiteness”. She didn’t get into why her profession thinks it’s ok to characterize an entire race as “toxic”, or what “toxic” means.

But one comes away thinking her profession would only stand for such a sweeping generalization about 1 race. So, whatever the real cost is, I’m not sure what we’re paying for. My concern is that we’re inadvertently paying for renewed hyper-focus on race (the far left now advocating types of segregation which would have been outrageous when I was a kid), and instead of uniting people across different backgrounds, driving wedges into our fractured society.
[Post edited by hoolstoptheheels at 03/07/2024 08:06AM]