DEI

Since the National Institutes of Health was founded as a one room laboratory in 1887 its mission was simple; perform biomedical research to enhance health, lengthen life and reduce illness and disability for Americans. Scientists for more than one hundred years have taken this scientific approach to turn discoveries into better health. This mission unites all Americans of every race, color and creed. Everyone wants science that benefits their health. Over the last decade and a half this mission has been corrupted by a new mission and ideology: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). This political ideology was reflected in all aspects of the NIH, including hiring practices, promotion and tenure, employee training, performance reviews, communications, management and, yes, even science.

My 11-year-old son joined the elementary school band, and so I went to the parents’ orientation night held at a local high-school. As the night went on it became obvious why young men rage against the larger social system and why they might find a character like Nick Fuentes attractive. The classrooms were inundated with DEI messages and trans pride flags. On the walls there were posters, stickers and decorations that all invoked the various totems of diversity. Black Lives Matter messaging, decolonization messaging, LGBTQ+ messaging and basically every sort of race and gender social justice messaging you can imagine was present.

Police in Paris have arrested two men after the "heist of the century" at the Louvre museum. According to the French press, the pair were arrested separately as they prepared to leave the country on Saturday evening; both are in their 30s and from Seine-Saint-Denis, the sprawling suburb north of Paris. As yet there is no indication that police have recovered any of the crown jewels that were stolen from the museum in seven sensational minutes last Sunday. The search for them and the two other gang members goes on. The 88 million euros ($102m) heist has been deeply embarrassing for France, and the fact that those responsible appear to be local villains as opposed to the international criminal masterminds that some had suggested will only further redden the Republic's face.

One of the most striking things about Trump 2: The Trumpening is how few characters are still on board from the Donald’s first term. Other than the President himself, it’s almost a completely different cast. Even the First Lady only rarely appears, as though she’s contractually obliged as a guest star for the occasional episode. But there’s one very important exception: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller. And while Trump Derangement Syndrome afflicts millions of Americans, Miller Derangement Syndrome is, as they used to say during Covid, a comorbidity. MDS may have reached its peak earlier this month when Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez referred to Miller as a “clown.

Many conservatives will have long suspected that “woke” language – the cocktail of victimhood narratives and group identity – alienates most Americans. It is simply too grating, and it is simply too divisive. And no matter what your politics, it is almost impossible to imagine a healthy society that is built on an aggressive competition over who is the most historically aggrieved.  Up until now this has been mostly an intuition. But a new study by the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) finally puts evidence on the table: that this “woke” language actively provokes real anger, defensiveness and bile in respondents.

Stacey Abrams resurfaced last week – not to deny another election she lost – but to declare that “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) is in the DNA of the United States.” This is the bizarre and ahistorical premise on which her new non-profit, American Pride Rises, is founded. Its website claims that DEI is “a centuries-old movement dedicated to upholding American values,” complete with a timeline that casts everything from America’s Founding in 1776 to the 19th-century abolition movement to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as part of the “History of DEI” in America. That is complete and utter nonsense – it would be comical if it weren’t an insidious lie that attempts to rewrite American history.

From college campuses to the media, socialism is increasingly getting repackaged as a solution to every problem: homelessness, housing, policing and education. For a generation grappling with high rent, student debt and political distrust, the collectivist utopia may sound like the moral, modern choice. But it isn't – and this year’s Socialism 2025 conference in Chicago proved just why it is doomed to failure. The conference brought together scholars, activists and self-styled revolutionaries to sketch out what a “just” society might look like. The vision was as radical as it was impractical.

When Zohran Mamdani applied to Columbia University in 2009, he checked both the “Asian” and “Black or African American” boxes on his admissions form. He wasn’t lying – technically. Born in Uganda to Indian parents, Mamdani said he was trying to express his complex heritage. But in a recent interview with The New York Times, he admitted something telling: he doesn’t consider himself black.That admission, buried beneath the usual progressive buzzwords about “nuance” and “complexity,” should be a wake-up call for anyone still defending race-based admissions in elite education. Mamdani didn’t cheat the system. He played by its rules. And that’s exactly the problem.

Congratulations David Hogg: the youngest ever DNC vice chair has earned the honor of serving the shortest term in the committee's history. Though his tenure was brief, Hogg managed to rattle many cages. After his election, the 25-year-old announced a $20 million plan to primary older Democratic incumbents in safe seats running for reelection. This plan quickly generated backlash within the party: veteran Democratic strategist James Carville called it "the most insane thing" he's ever heard. Hogg stood his ground and suddenly the DNC deployed its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion requirements. That included one more woman and one fewer Hogg. Cue various facile jokes about his name: https://twitter.com/rachelmillman/status/1933214625442787772?

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in Ames v. Ohio Department of Youth Services didn’t dominate the headlines – but it should have. In a unanimous ruling, the Court quietly dismantled a legal fiction that has distorted civil rights law for decades. And in a twist no one saw coming, the opinion was authored by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the progressive icon of the bench. At the heart of Ames was a question few Americans knew they needed to ask: can equality before the law coexist with unequal legal standards? “In 2019, Ames – a straight, white woman – interviewed and was passed over for a newly created management role, which was instead awarded to a lesbian.

If one were looking for dismal assessments of the Trump administration’s contributions to the vitality of American intellectual inquiry, the editorial eructations of Holden Thorp would likely be at the top of the list.   Thorp is the editor-in-chief of Science, the weekly journal of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). This makes him one of the most influential figures in the academy and in American science as a whole. Few weeks go by without an editorial from Thorp denouncing the havoc wrought by Trump. The May 8 issue is mildly titled, “The New Reality for American Academe,” but the mildness ends there.

Americans are not a naturally gloomy people. We don’t necessarily expect things to go our way, but when they don’t, we can laugh it off. In my part of Vermont there’s a place called Hateful Hill, for example, so-named by stagecoach drivers who had a tough time with the steep road. But Hateful Hill is also a beautiful elevation. Today, even those who don’t “get” Donald Trump need to start seeing the upside. He doesn’t always get his way, which is probably a good thing, but he is leading a long-overdue revival of the American spirit and allowing for the return of optimism and the pursuit of excellence.