The ambition of the critical race theorists and their confederates in “diversity, equity, and inclusion” is not simply to achieve cultural hegemony over the bureaucracy, but to use this power to reshape the structures of American society. But in the miasma of mystical reasoning and therapeutic language, it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the critical question: What specifically do they want?

The answer is to be found in the original literature of critical race theory which, before its transformation in the euphemisms of “diversity, equity, and inclusion,” was remarkably candid about the discipline’s political objectives. They had abandoned the Marxist-Leninist vocabulary of their precursors, such as Angela Davis and the Black Panther Party, but the critical race theorists imagined a revolution that struck just as deeply. They cobbled together a strategy of revolt against the Constitution, using the mechanisms of institutional power to change the words, meanings, and interpretations that provide the foundation of the existing order.