What Comes After DEI? Better DEI

The recent New Yorker article by Emma Green, “What Comes After D.E.I.?”, chronicles what some are calling the “pluralism pivot” — a rebranding effort by institutions seeking to continue DEI-related work under a supposedly less controversial label. And while the intentions may be sincere, this pivot is nothing more than a semantic sleight of hand and a surrender to those who seek to divide and terrorize those who are trying to do the crucial work of helping people live in peace and justice. To begin to deconstruct what’s problematic about this development let’s start by applying the logic of asking what comes after DEI to some other human endeavors.

The medical system is corrupted by biased care, biased hiring, and the prioritization of profit over access. It’s time to ask what comes after medicine.

Policing practices are fraught with excessive use of force, biased hiring, and biased treatment of citizens rooted in social identity bias. It’s time to ask what comes after policing.

Science professes to be an objective source of truth, yet research is tainted by funding by those who seek outcomes that serve them and their profits, scientists are human and therefore anything but objective, and the field excludes people based on social identity bias. It’s time to ask what comes after Science

Education has become about improving the lot of some while denying social mobility and even safety to others. Teachers demonstrate bias, and there is no settled understanding of what education should be for, let alone how to go about it. It’s time to ask what comes after Education.

Technology, the Arts, the Justice System….

Would changing what we call medicine to “Healing” make everything better? Would changing what we call policing to “Safekeeping” make all the current problems of policing go away. Should we stop calling science “Science,” and start calling it, I don’t know, maybe “Practical Epistemology?” Should “Learning” replace “Education.”

And what makes anyone think they will have a choice in naming what they do anyway under the current regime of complete capricious and cruel command and control? Do you think that when the Inquisition comes to your place, they’ll be so happy to see that you’ve stopped using forbidden words and swapped them for something that might be more favorable to them that they’ll leave you with hugs, kisses, and a pile of money?

“We see that you’ve stopped using “Arts” as the name for what you do. We commend you for that. We see that you are now calling what you do “Expression” but we don’t see any substantive changes in what you do under this new banner. That simply won’t do. You seem to fail to understand that we don’t just hate your name, we hate your guts. This isn't about simple relabeling. This is about evisceration. Henceforward what you do is to be referred to as the “Tarts,” (meaning Trump-approved artistic expression). Here is a five-hundred page nmanual [meaning nebulous manual - which no one even knows how to pronounce] that explicates what will and will not count as Tarts. See to it that you color inside the regulation lines going forward. We’ll be back to see what you’re doing and determine whether or not we should support it.

Every field mentioned above represents an integral aspect of civilization. Nothing comes after them. As long as there are humans and as long as there is human interaction, these essential functions will remain essential. Nothing comes after them. It is intellectually careless, practically ineffective, and morally misleading and dangerous to suggest that anything could and should.

DEI is the eternal and ineluctable human activity of determining the acceptable range of how to be human (diversity), how members of a group are treated in terms of respect, rights, and resources (equity), and who gets a seat and a say (inclusion).

DEI sensibilities, ideologies, policies, and practices can land anywhere along a spectrum from extreme expansivity (an ongoing effort to realize the vision that whoever you are, however you are, you are safe here) and extreme restrictivity (belonging, power, and privileges for a self-declared superior social identity group. America’s view, values, and actions have been swinging forth and back between DEI-Expansivism and DEI-Restrictivism since its founding.

We are currently in a period of extreme and severe DEI-Restrictivism, one in which a super-powered bigotry is on the march. It’s crucial both theoretically and practically to understand what DEI is and to determine what form it will take. This is not a new moment. It is a “the-past-isn’t-even-past” moment. It is the life-long struggle of this nation and at the heart of society, civics, and politics. What are the parameters of acceptable human variation, is it OK to believe and treat some people better than others on the basis of their social identity, and who gets to determine these fundamental human outcomes? Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. Why would we want to refer to it as anything else? How can we know what’s happening in the field if everyone calls it something different? If everyone renames the work, no one can track the work. And that suits those who want to see us in competition with one another instead in coalition against tyranny. Why would we want to appease the malicious wishes a fascist regime by bowing to its demands to adopt its divisive Orwellian lexicon?

In her article, Green notes that,

“Allen has advocated for an alternative intellectual framework that she describes as pluralism. The model aims to help students live and learn together—making everyone feel welcome, and also helping students navigate the conflicts that inevitably arise in a community where people have different world views. Pluralism demands that conservative evangelicals who don’t believe in same-sex marriage be welcomed to campus alongside gay students, and that political conservatives who oppose affirmative action have fruitful discussions with people of color.”

If you do not see this as simply spray painting “Pluralism” over “DEI,” please look again. “The model aims to help students live and learn together—making everyone feel welcome, and also helping students navigate the conflicts that inevitably arise in a community where people have different world views.” That is what DEI-Expansivism is about. Does every DEI-Expansivist practice amount to best practice? Would every “Pluralism” practice amount to best practice?

C’mon, please, get a grip. Stop flinching, stop cowering, stop genuflecting, and please, please don’t exploit this moment as one in which you might find fortune and fame by rolling out a “new model” that appeases the tyrants. That some are directing energy at what to call DEI is an indication of how successful the super bigots have been at misdirection and division. Please turn your attention to creating best DEI practices instead.