Texas is right to join states banning DEI. Just look at Harvard’s Claudine Gay | Opinion

Under a new law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts, or DEI, Texas public universities can no longer offer training for its staff or faculty that specifically focuses on these topics or even so much as require diversity statements while hiring staff.

Texas is one of a handful of states to have banned DEI. If you think this is an overreach, silly or even completely unnecessary, you only need to see what’s going on with Harvard University’s president — excuse me, now ex-president — Claudine Gay.

Gay resigned after a double whammy in an episode we’ll call, “What Not To Do If You’re the President of Harvard.” She found herself in a political and cultural hot seat a few weeks ago after testifying in a congressional hearing and failing to draw a clear line about the Ivy League school’s stance on antisemitism, harassment and free speech.

“Antisemitic rhetoric, when it crosses into conduct that amounts to bullying, harassment, intimidation, that is actionable conduct, and we do take action,” Gay said. Her hedging shed light on an ugly double standard among progressives and particularly, progressives at Ivy Leagues: Antisemitism can’t be condemned until Jewish students have bruises, but when riots broke out across the country in 2020, causing millions of dollars in property damage and even deaths in places such as the Twin Cities, those were “peaceful.”

After the hearing, several instances of Gay plagiarizing in her academic research came to light. Still, Harvard remained loyal. When she resigned, Gay claimed to be a victim whose presidency had been “weaponized” to “undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence and truth.”

How did a serial plagiarizer become the president of Harvard? How did a woman who refuses to even denounce antisemitic rhetoric on campus retain such a prestigious job? In hindsight, Gay appears to be both unqualified and unethical. Well: DEI has rooted itself in most public universities, and particularly the elite ones.

In fact, DEI is so entrenched in the culture at Harvard, that despite her resignation, Gay will remain at Harvard as a lecturer or professor, it’s still unclear, raking in a robust salary of $900,000 per year. The elite universities have become a disgrace, not entirely because of DEI but it certainly hasn’t helped. I wouldn’t send my kids to an Ivy League school if they were paid to go.

Of course, we live in a country where indeed, “all men are created equal” and “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” This doesn’t mean everybody has equal talents, discipline or exposure to $900,000 a year jobs. It means that every human being is of equal worth and entitled to the same legal protections.

DEI turned this concept on its head. It not only tried to give people a head start if they were associated with groups that have historically been marginalized — this may not have inherently been a bad thing in theory — but it boosted people to higher education, opportunities and salaries.

The problem is that merit and hard work were no longer considered; all that mattered was if you were a student who could benefit from claiming that you were in some way oppressed, whether due to race, ethnicity, religion or gender. When compared to predecessors or peers, it doesn’t seem like Harvard’s black female president possessed the extraordinary qualities of a person who would have assumed such a prestigious role.

The Supreme Court’s 2023 decision barring affirmative action in college admissions highlighted this discrepancy well. As Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion, affirmative action asserts that “almost all of life’s outcomes may be unhesitatingly ascribed to race.” He added: “Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds seeking to push through barriers, rather than consign themselves to permanent victimhood.”

A diverse student body and faculty is not a bad thing. Everyone in America deserves a chance, but not because their skin is a certain color or because they are part of a group that’s traditionally been excluded, but because they are inherently of equal worth to others.

Texas’ DEI ban should inspire other states to do the same, not so that minorities or excluded kids struggle more, but so that they are inspired to look beyond a victim mindset, work just as hard as anyone else and be rewarded for it.

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