Americans have long sensed that university campuses, once considered to be bastions of free inquiry, have become increasingly enthralled with an ideological orthodoxy that views spirited debate and diversity of opinion as unacceptable threats to “social justice.” These radical teachings go by different names, but recently its detractors as well as its champions have accepted the terms “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (DEI).
Speech First is dedicated to preserving and promoting free speech on college campuses. To properly address the problem of DEI in higher education, we must first properly describe it. Parts of this problem are well known: e.g., college professors skew overwhelmingly to the political left, if not far-left, which can restrict the range of ideas students are exposed to as well as pressure and coerce students into espousing support for fringe ideas they disagree with. Other parts of this problem are just now coming into focus: e.g., the explosion in hiring DEI campus bureaucrats whose primary function is to police speech and thought on issues related to race, sex, gender identity, etc. But as we talk to students across the country, we have found substantial threats to free speech and open intellectual inquiry that have become facts of campus life without significant public recognition.
In our last report, published in 2022, “Freshman Disorientation: How Colleges and Universities Lay the Groundwork for Student Indoctrination,” we documented how colleges bombard students with mandatory DEI seminars the moment they step on campus. When students begin college, they often encounter a focus on DEI concepts that emphasize racial and sexual differences through critical theory exercises, all while being shielded from fundamental American principles like free speech and viewpoint diversity.