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- Feb 16, 2016
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Where’s the DEI at the HBCUs?
The lack of diversity policies at Historically Black Colleges and Universities makes clear that the concept means something other than its public definition.

Where’s the DEI at the HBCUs? | City Journal
The lack of diversity policies at Historically Black Colleges and Universities makes clear that the concept means something other than its public definition.

It’s a curious feature of America’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that they rarely have any diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) administrators or policies on their campuses, beyond what federal law requires.
Howard University, for instance, the alma mater of Vice President Kamala Harris, has no central administrator dedicated to DEI, and its student affairs programming aims to help the disabled and LGBTQ students. Neither Jackson State nor Grambling State, two famous HBCUs, have DEI plans or central administrators. North Carolina’s four public HBCUs also have very little DEI presence on campus. Much the same is true of Texas’s HBCUs, none of which has DEI deans at the college level and almost none of which has DEI in its college strategic plans. Tennessee State has less DEI than any four-year university in the Volunteer State. One could go on.
The lack of DEI at HBCUs may seem surprising in light of what we are commonly told about the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Diversity, we are told, means “the presence of differences in a different setting.” Differences of race, gender, religion, and so on “enrich our workplace” and make for a great national strength—in fact, our greatest strength, per President Biden. Equity, we are informed, is about providing all people with opportunities to grow, as is demonstrated when an institution “looks like America” by mirroring its demographics. Inclusion, it is said, involves “welcoming all people regardless of race, ethnicity, sex” and so on, by showing that “everyone is valued, respected and able to reach their full potential.”
~Snip~
HBCUs are not expected to have a DEI apparatus because these institutions already embody the true spirit of DEI. Concern for equity, always a ruse, is simply ignored. HBCUs achieve real diversity by packing campuses with minorities, training them to approach American society with an attitude of grievance, and excluding white males and wrong-thinkers from campus. They are “inclusive” because blacks run them and attend them in great numbers. They could only be more inclusive if fewer whites, Asians, and Hispanics attended.
DEI advocates have infused old words with new meanings. DEI opponents get cowed into silence and confusion in the face of intrepid and dishonest rebranding. Perhaps it’s time to abandon these words so that we can see and think clearly about our future as Americans.
Commentary:
“Equity is said to mean equality of outcome. But concerns about equity flow in one direction only. University activists demand equity only when they want more blacks in the student body or on the faculty, or more female students or faculty members.“