Fixing DEI's Damage to Academic Science Could Take a Generation

According to the Buckley Institute, Republican professors at Yale are an endangered species. We’ve come to expect such a political monoculture in the humanities and social sciences departments, but even in Yale’s science faculties, Republican professors have become rare finds. Why should this be? Here’s a hint: “Diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) ideology has thoroughly penetrated and politicized Yale’s academic sciences.  

Yale is not alone. The National Association of Scholars (NAS) just spent several years examining how deeply embedded DEI ideology has become in undergraduate and graduate science education and research. As part of this effort, we conducted forensic case studies of the growth of DEI ideology in three of America’s top institutions of science and technology: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech), and the California Institute of Technology (CalTech). These case studies show in detail how identity politics took over institutions that had built stellar reputations on competence, ingenuity, and intellectual merit. The message is clear: DEI has had a profoundly corrosive effect on academic science. Keep this in mind the next time someone tells you to “follow the science.” 

Because the sciences are so tightly aligned to national prosperity and security, it’s particularly urgent that DEI ideology be purged from the academic sciences. Science can’t work under a regime of DEI, because it replaces merit and intellectual freedom with identity politics and intellectual conformity. While there is growing agreement that DEI ideology ought to be removed from our colleges and universities, purging it is likely to be a generational project. This is because DEI ideology has become deeply entrenched in our colleges and universities. Government research and education policy has been the instrument for digging it in. Policy reform will be essential tools for shoveling it out. These reforms must be enacted swiftly, before the damage DEI has inflicted on American science becomes irreparable. 

One solution is to change conditions for awarding federal government grants. Federal science grants provide an enormous portion of the funding for science departments. Presently, conforming to DEI ideology is a de facto condition for funding, Yet, DEI ideology is a de facto violation of federal civi rights law. A policy to deny funding to any university that engages in such actionable racial and sexual discrimination would provide a great incentive for universities to cease their DEI misconduct.