Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor who resigned nine days ago over plagiarism allegations, was found dead in his London home.
Authorities said in a statement that an ambulance was called to his residence after Arday had been found &#8220;unresponsive.&#8221; He was pronounced dead at the scene. Police added that the death was being treated as “unexpected” but is not believed to be suspicious, <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/14/jason-arday-found-dead/">according</a> to The Telegraph. 
Just nine days ago, Cambridge launched an investigation into Arday. “The University of Cambridge has begun an investigation following new information about Professor Arday’s academic qualifications and honorary appointments,” the statement from the university said. “In order to ensure a fair process, we will not comment further until this has concluded.&#8221;
Cambridge was not initially keen on opening an investigation. Cambridge said Arday was “the victim of a vile campaign to undermine his credibility, which must stop.” The school began to change its tune when reports emerged that Arday had filed a harassment claim against a journalist who was investigating his work. The day that Cambridge announced its investigation, Arday resigned. 
“I no longer wish to feel as though I am living under a constant spotlight, where every aspect of my life is subject to public examination and judgement,” Arday <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/05/books/review/cambridge-jason-arday-resignation-investigation.html">said</a>. 
The scandal broke just days before his memoir was supposed to be published. His book, &#8220;Great and Unfortunate Things,&#8221; was still published on Tuesday, but now faces questions of its own. The book centered on his life with autism and other disabilities. 
Arday said he learned to read and write at eighteen, went on to earn his Ph.D., and joined the faculty at Cambridge. Journalists and academics are questioning some of Arday&#8217;s claims, including whether he really ran thirty marathons in thirty-five days, and if he raised 5.5 million British pounds for charity, as he states in his memoir. 
Arday did not respond to the attacks on his book, but attributed mistakes in his early work to his autism and lack of supervision from professors. “While criticism is an inevitable part of academic life, what I have experienced has gone far beyond scholarly disagreement,” he wrote. “The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me and on those I love,” he said. 
The day before his book came out, he <a href="https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/jason-arday-cancels-book-tour-plagiarism-claims-5HjdfpJ_2/">canceled</a> his book tour events. He would be found dead just four days later. 
The Guardian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/aug/01/playbooks-plagiarism-pigs-head-new-claims-surrounding-cambridge-professor-jason-arday">reported</a> that academics became critical of Arday. “I think it’s plagiarism and it’s obvious,” said an academic who spoke on condition of anonymity. Another said Arday’s fallout “could send shockwaves through academia and set the study of race in Britain back twenty years.”

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Professor Recently Outed For Fraudulent Biography Found Dead

Cambridge University

Jason Arday

Race

The largest teachers’ unions and associations in the country are now using their massive reach to pressure tech companies to integrate Left-wing political ideologies into AI tools before K-12 schools adopt them.
In a new groundbreaking <a href="https://protect.checkpoint.com/v2/r01/___https://defendinged.org/investigations/dei-in-ai-unions-and-associations/___.YXAzOmNyY2E6YzpvZmZpY2UzNjVfZW1haWxzX2F0dGFjaG1lbnQ6Y2IyNDU4YTIzNzJlOWZjNjBhMDc0ZGQ2NDhmZDYzNjA6NzowNWM2Ojg0OGU4YWMzNmI4NzgyNjE5ZTNmNDA1ZjY4YzY2Y2IwNmEyZjYwMmNhMjZiOTgyODhhOGM4Zjg5ODMwNjE0YjQ6cDpUOkY">report</a>, Defending Education found that the National Education Association (NEA), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), and several other associations are actively promoting the idea that AI tools are created predominantly by white and Asian men, and as a result, provide students and educators with biased answers and solutions from this specific worldview. The teachers’ organizations often refer to this idea as “algorithmic bias.”
The integration of AI into America’s K-12 schools is not a matter of if but when. These organizations understand that whoever shapes AI today will influence what the nation’s students learn in the future. Schools will soon use AI to assist teachers in creating their lesson plans and even grading tests and essays. This is the next battleground in education, and these groups understand that.
The NEA has a sample school board policy that districts can adopt, mandating that tech companies integrate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives into their AI programs before schools can even consider using them. This is a direct warning to tech vendors that they will not receive a school district’s business unless they embed DEI in their products.
When considering the business a tech company can lose from being blackballed by the largest school districts, such as those in Los Angeles or Chicago, most of these AI vendors will likely cave without a second thought, and the NEA is very well aware.
The AFT’s National Academy for AI Instruction is potentially even more dangerous in this regard. This so-called academy prioritizes the idea that AI can “perpetuate bias” and “undermine educational equity” unless“proper guardrails” are in place to prevent those perceived issues. The goal of this academy is to “provide training and support” to educators in AI usage.
The National Academy for AI Instruction is backed by $23 million in funding and is supported by partnering companies Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic. These are three of the largest corporations building AI on a global scale, and their systems are already used by many school districts.
The troubling reality is that these giant corporations are involved in this endeavor knowing that the end goal is to politicize their AI tools before schools fully adopt them, and they appear to be complicit partners in this initiative. Unfortunately, that is the sway these teachers’ unions, with millions of members, have over corporations.
Most classrooms will adopt AI, in one form or another, within the next few years. These groups intend to shape this new technology before that happens. They intend to make DEI a core pillar before AI inevitably becomes institutionalized in our nation’s schools.
These organizations have spent years attempting to embed left-wing ideology into classrooms, and they see AI as the latest Trojan horse to accomplish that goal. This problem will be much harder to fix if we do not stop it now, while modern AI is still in its infancy.
For better or worse, artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way our schools educate children in approaches that we have not even considered yet. It will become one of the most influential educational tools ever created.
Concerned parents and families must pay attention as their schools begin to adopt AI into their children’s classrooms and school infrastructure. They must follow these issues and speak up before schools agree to integrate AI into their classrooms. Parents still have the power to influence AI during this watershed moment. It is imperative that they provide input now and help shape AI while there is still time.
***
Casey Ryan is a writer and investigative reporter at Defending Education.

Presentation of the AI chatbot “Telli” at a school in Bremen

Teachers’ Unions Push For AI Tools To Integrate DEI In Schools

American Federation of Teachers

DW Opinion

National Academy for AI Instruction

National Education Association

Teachers Unions

It was 30 years ago this month that a couple of college students in Kennewick, Wash., stumbled upon a rare archaeological discovery — one that would help trigger a war between science and racial identity politics, or what we now call “DEI.” Three decades later, it’s clear that if we don’t act quickly, it’s a fight science will probably lose.
What the students found was a 9,000-year-old skeleton that was soon nicknamed Kennewick Man. It was certainly one of the most precious anthropological finds ever. At the time, it was the oldest human skeleton ever found in North America, and it had signs of an injury from an arrow or a spear. More intriguingly, it seemed to have less in common with the skeletons of Native Americans than with those of ancient Japanese peoples, thus potentially changing our understanding of how humans first arrived in the New World.
But that’s when the federal government stepped in. Under a law called the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act, or NAGPRA, skeletons found on federally owned land (as Kennewick Man was) must be turned over, or “repatriated,” to the Native American tribes they’re related to. NAGPRA was written in response to the actions of 19th- and early 20th-century archaeologists who sometimes engaged in practices that would be unacceptable today to acquire specimens, and it requires not only the “repatriation” of human remains, but also of “funerary objects” — that is, things buried alongside bodies.
Kennewick Man was far older than any existing tribe and not related to any of them. Nevertheless, tribal officials insisted that the bones be kept away from scientific study and turned over for reburial, which would destroy their usefulness for scientific research. In compliance with those demands, federal officials confiscated the skeleton and buried the Kennewick Man site under 600 tons of rock and fill to prevent any further discoveries.
Scientists sued, arguing that NAGPRA simply doesn’t apply to objects that old. After years of litigation, federal courts ruled in their favor. Indeed, the courts found that government officials had acted in bad faith and awarded the scientists $2 million in attorney fees. A year later, even though DNA research revealed that Kennewick Man was closest to South American indigenous peoples, an executive order by then-President Barack Obama forced the scientists to turn Kennewick Man over to a group of Northwest Coast Native American tribes who destroyed the bones forever.
That was bad enough, but in the years since, tribal activists and sympathetic politicians have taken increasingly aggressive positions in demanding the “repatriation” of specimens — many of which have no true connection to tribes, and others that aren’t even particularly old. Some museums have even “repatriated” artworks made in the 1980s and purchased from gift shops — as if these were sacred remnants of someone’s ancestors.
Today, in museums across the country, it has become common to see empty display cases, featuring signs like the one spotted recently at the San Diego Museum of Us: “As part of our decolonization process, these items have been moved to a sanctuary space.”
Equally absurd are cases in which scientists are forced to relinquish animal bones — literally the trash our ancestors threw away — on the theory that they’re somehow “funerary objects” that should be off-limits out of racial or religious sensitivities.
What’s more, some museums have adopted rules based on tribal practices to govern how scientists handle objects in their collections. These sometimes bar female scientists from handling specimens, since that’s sometimes prohibited by Native religious taboos. Museums are also required by federal regulation to have “advisory” committees that include practitioners of tribal religions. Christians, Jews, and Hindus aren’t given the same preferential treatment.
It’s hard to imagine a starker example of the collision between racial identity politics and the scientific rationality that our social and technological progress depends on. Out of deference to politically correct race politics and irrationally romanticized conceptions about “stolen land,” the institutions where science should reign supreme are being suborned into erasing the accumulated knowledge of centuries. In effect, an entire field of scientific inquiry has been placed at risk by an overzealous activist movement using the regulatory power of the state.
The study of human remains and artifacts isn’t just some antiquarian hobby. It provides critical insights about present-day issues like climate change and provides insights that can help police officers solve crimes. But entire areas of anthropological research may now be shutting down, thanks to the aggressive use and misuse of NAGPRA.
The science of anthropology can still be saved if we act now. Museum officials and state governments can push back. For one thing, many “repatriation” efforts aren’t actually required by NAGPRA. Museum leaders should refuse to be cowed by activist demands that fall outside the law. And states should adopt legislation prohibiting the return of specimens that are too old to be associated with a tribe or too young to be a “funerary object.” They should also forbid any museum from following rules that discriminate on the basis of sex or religion.
Science is too precious to be sacrificed to the political demands of DEI and the wishful thinking of angry activists who prioritize race over research, discovery, and progress.
***
Timothy Sandefur is the vice president for legal affairs at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation.
Elizabeth Weiss is a professor emeritus of anthropology at San José State University and author of the Goldwater Institute report, “<a href="https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-reburial-of-the-southwest/">The Reburial of the Southwest: Closing Off Native History and Archaeology</a>”

FRANCE-SCIENCE-ANTHROPOLOGY-MUSEUM-PREHISTORY-RESEARCH

Identity Politics Is Burying Science

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Kennewick Man

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Woke Culture

This piece is part of MI x DW, a collaboration that brings Daily Wire readers exclusive commentary and research from the Manhattan Institute’s world-class team of scholars. 
***
I first learned of Ro Khanna in 2017. I was in college, and Khanna had just been elected to Congress. I initially took note of him due to the eerie resemblance between his life and mine. In addition to sharing a cultural background and first name, a rarity on its own, we both grew up outside Philadelphia, graduated as high school valedictorians, studied economics, and, as it would later turn out, attended the same law school. I never subscribed to narratives about “seeing people who look like you,” but I’d be lying if I said I felt no excitement at seeing someone whose story tracked mine reach such heights.
Since then, Khanna has become a leading voice in the Democratic Party and arguably the most visible Indian American elected official. But his ascent has depended, in part, on his embrace of an ideology that cannot make sense of his own life. Examining that embrace reveals not only a politician’s contradictions but also the fraught position of Indian Americans who align themselves with the contemporary Left.
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Reflecting on his life, Khanna has consistently sounded notes of optimism about the promise of America. “I remember Little League coaches who believed in me,” he has <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/08/26/ro-khanna-midwest-policy-democrat-00052660">said</a>. “I remember the local paper, the Bucks County Courier Times, that published my letters to the editor in a community that was 95 percent white. I grew up believing I could do anything in this country.” He has fondly <a href="https://youtu.be/UvZlSa2_kRA?si=O-zTALQYJqfDEJNw&amp;t=1119">recalled</a> his family celebrating Christmas and his street celebrating Diwali “because the neighbors were curious.”
He has <a href="https://youtu.be/WTs77VREMy0?si=bnwosk7nsDoo-WSX&amp;t=1969">recounted</a> lessons from his parents that would warm a conservative’s heart: “My parents rarely talked about my rights. They talked a lot about my responsibilities,” he said in 2024. “They said, ‘You were born in America. You won the lottery. Go make good grades.’” And perhaps most strikingly, when asked about his experience growing up Indian American, he <a href="https://youtu.be/5DKZ6qIJQ04?si=hOHyqmepwoEFqAq_&amp;t=176">replied</a>, “It was remarkably easy. . . . I’m not saying race isn’t an issue for other people. For me, it really was not a big issue.” Listening to Khanna’s recollections, one can hear the outlines of a story about America as a country where people can transcend differences of race and religion and flourish through hard work and personal responsibility.
Yet Khanna’s politics often seem strangely detached from his biography. If his life tells a story of integration, his rhetoric traffics in the language of permanent racial consciousness. For example, Khanna <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8s4oTA6WfAs&amp;t=401s">frequently</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUPZnDmgOg0&amp;t=307s">expresses</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFqXg_g-CEs&amp;t=189s">alarm</a> about the white-black racial wealth gap, which he claims is “ten-to-one” and “increasing.” After the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, he rushed to defend affirmative action, <a href="https://youtu.be/VzXBxjQ93uk?si=HxITAqEkC-CRWVv9&amp;t=176">explaining</a>, “The reality is race matters. Race is consequential to people’s lives.” And more recently, Khanna criticized the Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais, which raised the legal threshold for race-conscious redistricting, <a href="https://youtu.be/1jXKjhS70kg?si=zrlOL7AlRc-xUim4&amp;t=1918">saying</a> that those who deny that racism still exists “have blinders on.”
Khanna’s statements are striking, not simply because they are misguided but because they are incoherent and vacuous in ways that his own life lays bare. Khanna oscillates between two extremes, seemingly feeling no need to reconcile them. When he reminisces on his past, America is a colorblind society, teeming with opportunity for people of all backgrounds. When he turns to the issues of the day, America is a racist prison, forever holding racial minorities down.
To avoid stumbling on the tension between these positions, Khanna deals in generalities capacious enough to accommodate both. For example, when he says “race matters” in defense of affirmative action, he appears to make a banal claim that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2025/05/20/views-of-how-much-discrimination-racial-and-ethnic-groups-in-the-u-s-face">most voters in both parties would accept</a> while smuggling in a more controversial view: that race constitutes a significant barrier to opportunity in America.
My own views on race lie between Khanna’s narratives. Given the way <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w35140">race shapes social ties</a>, the notion that “race matters” seems indisputable. I myself have experienced feelings of isolation and alienation due to my race, and I believe race can meaningfully shape a person’s experiences and perspective. But it does not follow that race remains a pervasive barrier to opportunity, beyond what it may signal about one’s socioeconomic background. On the contrary, it is precisely in the spheres of opportunity that race should matter the least, insofar as they are governed by meritocratic norms that supersede personal affinities.
If I could speak with Khanna, I’d ask what he makes of Raj Chetty’s <a href="https://academic.oup.com/qje/article/135/2/711/5687353">findings</a> that “the black-white income gap is due almost entirely to differences in rates of intergenerational mobility rather than transitory or historical factors” and that “neighborhood differences explain relatively little of the black-white intergenerational gap.” I’d ask what he makes of the <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/59873/chapter/511595142">research</a> showing that “once social security wealth is accounted for, the racial wealth gap has narrowed over the last 30 years” and, as of 2019, stood below two-to-one. I’d ask why, if he believes “race is consequential to people’s lives” but <a href="https://youtu.be/E2tEyrBu6kc?si=XWgnR5gwStZJ741z&amp;t=3108">opposes quotas</a>, he disagrees with the decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which allows universities to consider “an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life.” And I’d ask why, given <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-55119-0">evidence</a> that South Asian Americans face an even steeper penalty in college admissions than other Asian Americans, he doesn’t devote even a fraction of the time that he spends advocating preferences for other racial groups to highlighting discrimination against his own.
Khanna is the most salient example of the way Indian Americans must strain themselves to fit in with the Left today.
Indian Americans occupy a peculiar position in America’s racial landscape. They possess nearly every quality that progressives associate with racial disadvantage: brown skin, immigrant origins, ethnic names, a foreign religion, and they constitute a minuscule share of the population. Yet, by virtually every measure—whether <a href="https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-indian-american-dream-by-putting-family-and-education-first-indian-americans-rise">family stability</a>, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/fact-sheet/asian-americans-indians-in-the-u-s">household income</a>, or <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/research/charts/immigrant-sons-upward-mobility">upward mobility</a>—they enjoy extraordinary success. They confound left-wing narratives about race but, due to their small numbers, are poorly positioned to challenge them. Falling outside the white majority, excluded from the coalition of diversity, and lacking a larger constituency, Indian Americans often face a choice: they can pursue a life of assimilation and advancement within establishment institutions by accommodating themselves to the sensibilities of liberal elites, or they can preserve their own sensibilities at the expense of their success and sense of belonging.
Given the price of the second option, many Indian Americans feel compelled to choose the first, accepting the self-abnegation it demands. They learn to mute those aspects of their identity that sit uneasily with progressive orthodoxy: their accounts of upward mobility, the values their parents instilled in them, the discrimination they suffer at the hands of affirmative action. They nod along dutifully during discussions of systemic racism that their own success undermines. They internalize the shibboleths of their milieu, making <a href="https://youtu.be/K44hT-p6a3M?si=si4lfrQev18UqC5C&amp;t=476">clinical</a> <a href="https://youtu.be/Me8IwAIRJew?si=ZzREfAzJMdvPssfW&amp;t=209">assertions</a> about “black and brown people” without betraying any hesitation at the way the phrase describes them chromatically yet excludes them politically. Over time, they become estranged from themselves, conversant in a language that can articulate everyone’s stories but their own.
The notion that aligning with progressivism requires self-abnegation from Indian Americans is not merely my interpretation. Khanna himself has counseled this approach. Recounting conversations with Asian American constituents opposed to affirmative action, Khanna has <a href="https://youtu.be/VzXBxjQ93uk?si=QBAcH_VVXRyJt2Ri&amp;t=98">explained</a>, “What I say to people in my district is, many people in the Asian American community wouldn’t have been in America if it weren’t for the Civil Rights Movement . . . so we owe an enormous debt to the Civil Rights Movement.”
In other words, Khanna knows that progressive racial ideology imposes costs on Indian Americans and that no defense can be offered for this phenomenon. But rather than challenge it, he resorts to a non sequitur: Indian Americans, he implies, should feel such gratitude toward the Civil Rights Movement that they accept the violation of their own civil rights. They should regard themselves not as full and equal members of the political community, entitled to the same rights as everyone else, but as outsiders living here on sufferance, expected to keep their heads down and subordinate their rights to the interests of others.
As <a href="https://x.com/cspan/status/2041978227988615479">Khanna eyes a 2028 presidential bid</a>, his party appears united around a two-pronged strategy of foregrounding material concerns and elevating anti-incumbent sentiment. That approach may well succeed in the short term. But if Democrats want to build a durable working-class coalition, they will likely have to moderate their posture on race. (A <a href="https://osf.io/preprints/socarxiv/bvjtd_v1">recent paper</a> finds that Democratic presidential candidates could gain more support by moderating on affirmative action than on any other issue.)
The last Democrat to attempt this maneuver was Barack Obama, whose biography afforded him the latitude to voice <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2008/08/obama-shifts-affirmative-action-rhetoric-012421">conservative</a>-sounding <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6qzX_HpLOg">views</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7jepUNPBog">on</a> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/politics/15cnd-obama.html">race</a> (notwithstanding <a href="https://andrewsullivan.substack.com/p/obama-the-disappointer">his post-presidency shift</a>). Khanna’s biography gives him the perspective to craft an Obama-esque message but not the latitude to do so. Unlike Obama, Khanna doesn’t enjoy a reservoir of credibility with any sizable constituency that he can draw on to stray from left-wing dogma; instead, he must establish his credibility by parroting that dogma. In the end, the compromises that allow Indian Americans to find a home in the Democratic Party leave them ill-equipped to reform it.
***
This is republished with permission from the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal. The original can be found <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/ro-khanna-progressive-politics">here</a>.
<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/person/rohit-goyal">Rohit Goyal</a> is a Law School Associate at the Manhattan Institute and a student at Yale Law School.

Former Prison Guard Tova Noel Testifies In Closed Interview With House Oversight Committee On Epstein Death

Ro Khanna Contradicts Himself On Race

admissions

Barack Obama

Indian Americans

MI x DW

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Ro Khanna

Barker Coogler

Hollywood’s Gatekeepers Lost Their Grip. Young White Directors Are Back.

Backrooms

Curry Barker

Film

Hollywood

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Obsession

Ryan Coogler

Conservative activist Robby Starbuck, an American producer and director, is raising new concerns about Harley-Davidson&#8217;s commitment to abandoning diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, arguing that the iconic motorcycle maker&#8217;s new CEO has a long history of supporting such programs.
Starbuck published <a href="https://x.com/robbystarbuck/status/2062167155882303663">research</a> on Wednesday examining Harley-Davidson CEO Artie Starrs, who <a href="https://investor.harley-davidson.com/news/news-details/2025/Harley-Davidson-Appoints-Artie-Starrs-as-President-and-Chief-Executive-Officer/default.aspx">took over the company in October 2025, </a>roughly a year after Harley-Davidson backed away from DEI policies following significant consumer backlash.
According to Starbuck, Starrs promoted DEI initiatives during previous leadership roles at Topgolf and Pizza Hut and later hired a chief brand officer with a similar background.
Harley-Davidson announced in 2024 that it would <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harley-davidson-becomes-latest-company-to-back-away-from-dei-policies">scale back</a> several DEI-related initiatives after facing criticism from customers and activists. The company said at the time that it would focus on its core business and customer base.
Starbuck argues that Starrs&#8217; record raises questions about whether the company is truly moving away from those policies.
While Starrs was CEO at Topgolf from 2021 to 2025, the company maintained employee resource groups and public initiatives supporting LGBT causes. Starbuck also highlighted social media posts from Starrs&#8217; time at Pizza Hut that promoted diversity and inclusion efforts. 
Starbuck further pointed to a 2020 educational initiative launched by Pizza Hut and First Book during Starrs&#8217; leadership which<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pizza-hut-partners-with-nonprofit-to-develop-anti-racist-pedagogy-to-empower-educators?author=Jeffrey+Cawood&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=undefined&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Pizza+Hut+Partners+With+Nonprofit+To+Develop+%E2%80%98Anti-Racist+Pedagogy%E2%80%99+To+%E2%80%98Empower+Educators%E2%80%99"> The Daily Wire covered</a> at the time. The program included materials on race, racism, privilege, and equity in classrooms.
More recently, Starbuck criticized Starrs&#8217; decision to hire Marcus Fischer as Harley-Davidson&#8217;s chief brand officer.
Before joining Harley-Davidson, Fischer served as CEO of advertising agency Carmichael Lynch. Starbuck argued that the agency actively promoted DEI initiatives, LGBT advocacy efforts, and diversity-focused employee programs.
Starbuck reviews several of Fischer’s social media posts, revealing his support for the LGBTQ community, celebrating a diversity achievement for Hilary Clinton, and anticipating DEI conferences such as the National Diversity &amp; Leadership Conference. Fischer responded to an Instagram post asking what Carmichael Lynch was doing to “ally” with the LGBTQ community. He said the company hosted an in-office drag event, raising $12K for the Family Tree Clinic, which “specializes in LGBTQIA+ healthcare access.”
Harley-Davidson disputed suggestions that it is reviving DEI programs.
In a <a href="https://investor.harley-davidson.com/news/news-details/2026/A-Message-from-Harley-Davidson-2026-XCFq9dvqFM/default.aspx">statement</a> responding to Starbuck&#8217;s review, the company said its focus remains &#8220;getting back to the basics: building great motorcycles, strengthening our network of 500+ U.S. dealers, and supporting a workforce that is proud of the product they put on the road.&#8221;
The company also pointed to one of Starrs&#8217; first actions as CEO: restoring Harley-Davidson&#8217;s legacy Bar &amp; Shield logo.
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Robby Starbuck

Robby Starbuck Targets Harley-Davidson’s New CEO Over DEI Record

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Halo Studios, the developer of the beloved classic shooter game, celebrated &#8220;Pride Month&#8221; with an update to Halo on June 1. 
“Wear your #Pride all month long with the Unity armor coating, visor and emblem, available in the Halo Infinite Exchange,” Halo Studios wrote on social media, showing how gamers can change their armor skin and player icon to be adorned with rainbow colors.
Halo blocked comments on the post, silencing the reactions of their fanbase. However, quote retweets are allowed on X, and gamers didn&#8217;t hold back in roasting the company.
Many users called out Halo for being too weak to keep replies open. 
Some argued that the game&#8217;s protagonist Master Chief would disapprove of gay &#8220;Pride&#8221; and complained about woke activists seemingly infiltrating the beloved franchise to turn it into a propaganda machine.
&#8220;Dear Halo, It&#8217;s time to just start firing people who push for this to happen yearly, and then fire the artists because these suck,&#8221; one person wrote.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Wear your <a href="https://x.com/hashtag/Pride?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Pride</a> all month long with the Unity armor coating, visor and emblem, available in the Halo Infinite Exchange. <a href="https://t.co/Qu0z79tUMD">pic.twitter.com/Qu0z79tUMD</a>
— Halo (@Halo) <a href="https://x.com/Halo/status/2061510595455697006?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 1, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" async="" charset="utf-8"></script>
Some users dubbed the game &#8220;Gaylo,&#8221; using AI to <a href="https://x.com/Captain_toke/status/2061562882048086096?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2061562882048086096%7Ctwgr%5E0f97ea7298e16ffe5bbb4278e425f7c790ad83b7%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnotthebee.com%2Farticle%2Fhalo-locked-the-replies-to-its-gay-pride-post-but-it-forgot-about-the-quote-tweets">reimagine</a> the game with safe diversity, equity, and inclusion objectives, such as safe spaces and pronoun affirmation. Other social media users posted a GIF of the scene from &#8220;The Godfather,&#8221; where Vito Corleone laments, “Look how they massacred my boy.” 
Former Blizzard Entertainment executive Mark Kern, known by his hundreds of thousands of social media followers as &#8220;Grummz,&#8221; has been a vocal advocate against DEI in video games. 
In a recent <a href="https://x.com/Grummz/status/2061885611473342959">post</a> on X, Kern pointed out that many major gaming companies have decided to avoid celebrating Pride Month, calling 2026 a “massive June month win for gamers.&#8221; 
&#8220;A year ago [these gaming companies] would have been all skittles,&#8221; he wrote. 
Kern reminded gamers that even though Halo might still be woke, many other gaming companies are not anymore.

Experience: HALO by Xbox 360

Gamers React After Popular Shooter Game’s ‘Pride’ Update

Entertainment

Gaming

Pride

Twitter

Video Games

As a clinical psychologist in the progressive business environment of New York City, I’ve spent years listening to high-functioning professionals who feel trapped by unspoken rules about what they’re “allowed” to say — or even feel — about unfair treatment at work. One story from my practice has stayed with me because it mirrors what so many men (and others) are experiencing right now, while also revealing a deeper, often-overlooked cost of these policies. The vignette below is adapted from my book, “Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly” (Skyhorse, 2025).
Mark came to therapy because he was struggling with intimacy and commitment issues in his relationships with women. During our sessions, as we explored his patterns and past disappointments, he casually mentioned — with a sardonic laugh — that he’d been passed over for promotion at his hedge fund. A human resources colleague had confidentially explained that the company’s diversity mandate meant they needed to hire people who “don’t look like you” — a straight white man. Mark had initially repressed his disappointment, shrugged it off, and convinced himself it was “fine.” He didn’t immediately see any connection between that experience and his difficulties with women until we gently revisited the story. Only when he finally narrated the full experience aloud, journaled about it, and reconnected with the anger and anxiety he had buried did the link become clear. That honest expression not only helped him explore legal options and reclaim his sense of self-efficacy at work, but it also freed him to show up more authentically in his personal life — dropping the guarded persona that had kept him from forming deeper connections with women.
Mark’s story was never abstract to me. And today, it feels prophetic.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently filed a federal lawsuit against The New York Times, alleging that the paper discriminated against a longtime white male editor with extensive experience in real estate journalism. Despite meeting every qualification for the Deputy Real Estate Editor role — including the very expertise listed in the job posting — he was excluded from final interviews. The position went instead to an external multiracial female candidate with little to no real estate experience, the lawsuit alleges. According to the EEOC, the Times’ own race- and sex-based diversity goals directly influenced the decision.
This is exactly the kind of institutional pressure I describe in my book as one of the hidden dangers of self-censorship. When talented professionals like Mark (or this New York Times editor) are told, implicitly or explicitly, that their demographic profile disqualifies them from advancement, they face eroded self-efficacy, increased vulnerability to anxiety and depression, and the intellectual deprivation that comes from not being able to speak openly about what’s happening.
The New York Times case is far from isolated. Under EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, the agency has actively encouraged white men experiencing race or sex discrimination to come forward, emphasizing that Title VII protects everyone, including supposedly privileged demographic groups. We’re seeing a wave of complaints and actions — investigations into companies like Nike, a $500,000 settlement with a Planned Parenthood affiliate over alleged discrimination against white employees, and more men finding the courage to document and challenge what they’ve quietly endured.
What these forced diversity programs often fail to acknowledge is the relational damage they inflict. By institutionalizing favoritism based on race, sex, or other demographics, they don’t just create individual distress and unfairness — they actively weaken relationships between the very groups they claim to want to place on equal footing. When high performers sense that advancement is no longer tied primarily to merit, suspicion and resentment naturally follow. Colleagues begin to wonder, “Was that promotion earned, or engineered?” Women and minorities may face quiet, valid doubts about whether their success is viewed as legitimate, while men like Mark carry unspoken grievances that erode trust and authenticity in both professional and personal interactions. The result is division, mistrust, and a subtle fracturing of the very social bonds these initiatives purport to strengthen.
In my practice and in the book, I explain why this matters far beyond politics or any single hiring decision. When we stifle honest conversation about fairness in promotions, hiring, and culture, we lose the cognitive gifts of language that help us organize chaotic thoughts, enhance problem-solving through open dialogue, build insight, and reduce anxiety by naming what’s real. Self-censorship doesn’t protect anyone — it breeds resentment, isolation, and the very groupthink that undermines healthy workplaces and relationships. It also weakens the authentic connections that are essential for emotional resilience across all lines of difference.
Mark’s breakthrough came when he stopped performing acceptance and started using the practical tools in Part Two of the book: narrating his experience, journaling, taking ownership of past self-censorship, and eventually speaking up. The healthy response to a sense of injustice is action. Taking appropriate legal steps — like filing an EEOC complaint — is not only justified but emotionally satisfying, helping restore self-efficacy and release buried resentment.
I wrote <a href="https://amzn.to/4eAOyb9">Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly</a>, because free speech isn’t just a constitutional principle; it’s a mental health imperative. Suppressing legitimate grievances about merit-based fairness doesn’t create equity — it creates exactly the psychological and cultural stagnation I see in my clients. Words are not violence — but pretending these dynamics don’t exist does cause real harm: to individuals, to organizations, and to the authentic connections that make work and life worthwhile.
If you’re a man (or anyone) who has been quietly passed over, I encourage you to do what I helped Mark do: name it, document it, and consider your options — whether that’s internal advocacy, legal consultation through the EEOC, or simply reclaiming your voice with the people you trust. The tools are in the book for a reason.
We deserve workplaces where competence speaks louder than checkboxes, and where we can talk honestly about how to get there — without sowing the very division these programs were meant to heal. That starts with being willing to say what’s true — even when it’s uncomfortable.
***
Dr. Chloe Carmichael is an IWF fellow emeritus, clinical psychologist, and author of “Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly” (Skyhorse, 2025).

Stress, migraine and motion blur with a business man in a meeting feeling frustrated, tired or overworked. Mental health, anxiety and headache with an exhausted male employee suffering from fatigue

DEI’s Hidden Cost: The Quiet Consequences Of A Flawed Policy

Mental Health

Workplace culture

Movie fans are calling out what they see as inconsistencies in Christopher Nolan&#8217;s approach to his upcoming summer blockbuster “The Odyssey.” 
Several creative decisions have raised eyebrows, including the casting of Lupita Nyong&#8217;o as Helen of Troy, the inclusion of a transgender-identifying actress Elliot Page, and the addition of rapper Travis Scott to the cast.
And yet, the Academy Award-winning director drew the line at using orchestral music, saying he felt it would be historically inauthentic.
In a recent <a href="https://time.com/article/2026/05/12/christopher-nolan-odyssey-interview/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">interview</a> with Time, composer Ludwig Göransson explained that Nolan told him to avoid orchestral music.
“It’s not like the orchestra existed back then,” Göransson said. “It was a challenge and also an opening to try to make something unique.” The composer instead used “35 bronze gongs of varying sizes” to create the sounds.
Nolan defended his decision to cast Scott during the same conversation, framing it as a thematic choice.
“I cast him because I wanted to nod towards the idea that this story has been handed down as oral poetry, which is analogous to rap,” Nolan told Time.  
The “Oppenheimer” director did not address the controversy surrounding Page&#8217;s casting in an as-yet-unknown role, though rumor has it she will play Achilles. 
Nolan did confirm that Nyong&#8217;o will play two roles — Helen of Troy and her sister, Clytemnestra. This has led to backlash online, as fans point out that the actress looks nothing like Helen of Troy as described in Greek mythology. “The Iliad” describes her as &#8220;white-armed&#8221; or &#8220;pale-armed,&#8221; while in “Doctor Faustus,” her face is said to be so beautiful that it “launched a thousand ships.&#8221;
Some critics are speculating that Nolan may have chosen a “diverse” cast because he’s hoping for Academy Award nominations. 
The Academy’s current “Representation and Inclusion Standards” <a href="https://www.oscars.org/awards/representation-and-inclusion-standards">state</a> that in order to comply, a film must feature a lead or significant supporting actors from “underrepresented racial or ethnic groups,” include at least 30% of all actors from at least two underrepresented groups, or have the narrative focus on an underrepresented group. 
Since “The Odyssey” is about men, the film would only qualify for Best Picture if it met one of the first two criteria. 
Nolan brushed off the criticism, saying he took liberties with films in the past, too.
“For ‘Interstellar,’ you’re looking at, ‘What is the best speculation of the future?’ When you’re looking at the ancient past, it’s actually the same thing. ‘What is the best speculation and how can I use that to create a world?’”
He went on, “Hopefully they’ll enjoy the film, even if they don’t agree with everything. We had a lot of scientists complain about ‘Interstellar.’ But you just don’t want people to think that you took it on frivolously.”
“The Odyssey” is scheduled to hit theaters July 17.
Matt Damon stars as Odysseus alongside an ensemble cast of A-list stars, including Tom Holland as Telemachus, Anne Hathaway as Penelope, Robert Pattinson as Antinous, and Zendaya as Athena.

Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan Bends The Knee To DEI In ‘The Odyssey’

Academy Awards

This article is part of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/introducing-upstream-a-lifestyle-and-culture-section-of-the-daily-wire" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Upstream,</a> The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.
***
One day before the Trump administration ceased negotiations with the Iranian regime in Tehran, Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth offered an <a href="https://x.com/EricLDaugh/status/2027380303249932745">ultimatum</a> to another entity, Scouting America, in hopes of avoiding a conflict. Hegseth announced that the Pentagon was prepared to use its leverage to force what was formerly the Boy Scouts of America to remove DEI from its programming, ensure biological sex as the basis for participation in its boy and girl tracks, and institute some pro-military reforms including a new merit badge and waving fees for service members’ children. Scouting America <a href="https://x.com/StephenKentX/status/2027757646741147651/photo/1">opted</a> for peace. 
I’m an Eagle Scout and currently serve as an assistant scoutmaster and chaplain for a troop in Virginia, and I see every week where Scouts BSA has gone astray since I was a teenager. But I’m also the proud dad of a teenage girl working on her own Eagle. 
Amid all that contradiction, I couldn’t be happier about Hegseth’s strong-arm tactics.
In addition to my history with Scouts, I’m a Christian and a conservative. I get a lot of flak for being involved in Scouts BSA at all, to say nothing of having a daughter in the program. Let’s start there and then address the DEI insanity that Hegseth just helped wipe out.
“Trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.” This is what Scouting has always been about. I was raised on those virtues as a Scout. When I became a “girl dad” — father to what we used to call a “tomboy” — she wanted to be in Boy Scouts from the first moment she found my BSA uniform in the bedroom closet.
Of course, that wasn’t an option until 2017 when the Boy Scouts <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/11/07/opinions/girls-boy-scouts-surbaugh-opinion/index.html">announced</a> their intent to rebrand as Scouts BSA and allow for girl-only troops. Joining back up was a no-brainer for me, and enrolling my daughter was exciting. 
I preferred that she adopt the ethics of BSA <a href="https://www.theamericanconservative.com/amy-coney-barrett-never-buy-girl-scout-cookies-again/">rather</a> than those of the Girl Scouts. It&#8217;s nothing against the Girl Scouts, but raising a tomboy in the 2010s demanded extra caution from any parent. The tidal wave of gender ideology that drowned America during the Biden years was just beginning to swell in 2018 when we were checking out Scout troops to join. We found one that had a large, well-established program just for girls — with boys in their own part of the building doing separate activities. 
Fully co-ed troops are rare. In all of my travels scouting, I have yet to see a troop that mixes boys and girls. Critics of girls in BSA tend to have an overblown conviction that they’re camping and tenting together; they are not. 
Part of this stems from a frustration over the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiGWr59P6HY">war on boyhood</a> happening across the world. I understand why <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/girling-the-boy-scouts">critics</a> of Scouting see girls&#8217; presence as crowding out space for boys to mature in peace. 
But it has to be said that girls coming aboard didn’t put BSA on life support; the decades-long sexual abuse <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/tv-movies/tv-movie-news/scouts-honor-netflix-trailer-debut-boy-scouts-child-sexual-abuse-cover-up-1234806388/">cover-up</a> did. Trust between Scouting and its constituency is irrevocably broken. Girls didn’t make Boy Scouts membership <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cghTbuldJM">drop</a> from 6.5 million boys in 1972 to 1 million in 2024.
BSA lacks the power to make modern boys want to play outside and forsake their screen time for weekend campouts. Two generations of Fortnite-addled boys is the larger problem. 
The girls I see in BSA are some of the best scouts that I&#8217;ve ever seen in action. They&#8217;re serious, smart, interested in its virtues, and quick to pick up the skills. This is something we’re seeing everywhere from academia to the workplace — girls mature faster and are <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/news-and-insights/girls-outperform-boys">outperforming</a> boys. 
We need to help young men, but we can’t make them want to be Scouts. BSA is downstream of boys’ interests, not the other way around. 
Many wonder how the Pentagon has leverage over Scouts, and it’s as simple as access to secure military sites and personnel for activities such as weekend lock-ins, merit-badge retreats, and jamborees. Hegseth gave Scouting America six months to comply with <a href="https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/01/31/2025-02097/ending-illegal-discrimination-and-restoring-merit-based-opportunity">Executive Order 14173</a>. That means protecting intimate spaces such as tenting, showers, and overnight accommodations. The wildcard has always been if a scout claimed to be trans. 
Before Hegseth’s move, it’s unclear how a troop would have been required to respond. Now, it’s unambiguous. All kids are welcome in Scouts BSA, but biology comes first if Scouts want to have a relationship with the U.S. military. 
Another Hegseth target was the Citizenship in Society merit badge, something that did not exist when I went through Boy Scouts in the early 2000s. Citizenship in Society is often called the “DEI merit badge” — because it is.
Citizenship in the World and the Nation already exist and together promote a patriotic duty to country and an understanding of globalist institutions (WHO, UNICEF, and the U.N.) and other models of government.
Rolled out in 2021 at the peak of cultural insanity following the death of George Floyd, Citizenship in Society was <a href="https://www.scouting.org/merit-badges/citizenship-in-society/">instituted</a> as a mandatory merit badge for acquiring the rank of Eagle. The program was as flowery and ostensibly non-threatening as DEI itself. Diversity, equity, and inclusion all sound nice until you interrogate what they require of organizations. 
On more than one occasion, I sat through struggle sessions of teenagers, 90% white, ranking their privilege and their experiences being discriminated against based on elements of their identity — however real or contrived. Conversation between the teens broached sexual topics, class, gender, and racial identity, and included education on fringe religious practices, including Wicca. 
The merit badge was a victimhood-mentality machine. That&#8217;s what went on in those merit badge sessions, and adults were told not to participate in the conversations or help guide them — only listen. When it came time for my daughter to take the class with an outside merit badge instructor, I was actively discouraged from attending the sessions, as it could “make the kids uncomfortable.”  
It&#8217;s a sad summary of what has gone wrong with Scouts in the last decade, which is that adults are not expected to shape and mold the youth who go through the program. Your Scoutmasters are meant to be mentors, teachers, and guides, and they are supposed to impose upon you a way of seeing the world. Because Scouting has become afraid of its own shadow as a result of the abuse <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/12/politics/boy-scouts-supreme-court-settlement">settlement</a>, there has been a retreat from adult responsibility in shaping young people to be virtuous American citizens.
If I had a magic wand and could turn back the clock for Boy Scouts, it wouldn’t be to 2021 when DEI came around, or 2017 when girls joined up. I’d go back to the 1980s when abuse cases were <a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/09/24/161689499/report-boy-scouts-concealed-abuse">starting</a> to bubble up and plead with the people in charge to make it right. It’s the wound that affected everything that has happened with BSA.
Absent the power of time travel, Scouting can endure and serve all American youth by teaching them to be responsible, courageous, discerning, and honest. Scouts BSA changed my daughter’s life for the better, same as it did for me. Secretary Hegseth brought some much-needed reinforcements to all of us working within BSA every day to try and save it for future generations. 

***
Stephen Kent is an author and the creator of <a href="https://www.geekystoics.com/">Geeky Stoics</a> on YouTube. Follow him on X <a href="https://x.com/StephenKentX">@stephenkentx</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Set of Scout badge with compass, camping mug, pine cone, kayak boat with paddle, knives. Vector. Merit patch, sticker for camping outdoor and academic activities

I’m An Eagle Scout — And For The First Time In Years, I’m Hopeful Thanks To Hegseth

Pete Hegseth

Upstream

In the last year of the Biden administration, the Department of Veterans Affairs inaugurated an effort to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles that would outlast their time in power.
In January 2024, the VA&#8217;s Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access Council met to discuss the results of a survey, wherein employees were asked to identify &#8220;pain points&#8221; connected to their individual identities — based on race, gender identity, and a number of other factors — in order to further embed Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in the agency.
The discussion centered on &#8220;identity insights&#8221; and was designed to &#8220;improve employee experience,&#8221; records obtained by the Center to Advance Security in America reveal.
Just under 300 participants identified some 5,710 &#8220;pain points&#8221; that ranged from complaints about a colleague making an &#8220;inappropriate comment&#8221; to concerns that office holiday decorations excluded certain religious preferences. Other &#8220;pain points&#8221; were centered on general workplace environment and feeling that other employees did not understand certain sensitivities connected to those identity characteristics.
The 2024 meeting, which was planned three years earlier, began as a partnership between the Veterans Experience Office&#8217;s Employee Experience Organizational Management Directorate and the Office of Resolution Management, Diversity and Inclusion to improve employee experience by addressing the &#8220;pain points&#8221; they experienced in the workplace based on their identities.
Those identities — in addition to race, sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity — divided participants along religious lines and listed separate categories for Baby Boomers, Generation X-ers, Millennials, and Generation Z employees as well.
Of the 281 who were interviewed, only 3% answered based on only one identifier. Nearly one-fourth (24%) selected two identities, and 39% selected three. Of the remaining participants, 21% chose four identities, 11% chose five, and 2% chose six.
Following the late January meeting, the Council recommended a series of steps designed to make the VA a more receptive place for employees to express their &#8220;whole, authentic identity.&#8221;
&#8220;The three most pressing data fields that would benefit from a redesign as having emerged from the Identity Insights project include &#8216;gender,&#8217; &#8216;sexual orientation,&#8217; and &#8216;race,&#8217; as these categories either do not exist or do not exhaustively provide inclusive options for employees to holistically and accurately self-identify,&#8221; the study advised.
Another recommendation was for a &#8220;streamlined escalation pathway&#8221; for employees to resolve identity-based complaints — particularly &#8220;in the event of mistreatment, including reporting I*DEA issues, harassment, and general concerns with conduct in the workplace.&#8221;
Those complaints, the study indicated, could stem from interactions between employees, between employees and supervisors, and even between employees and the veterans they serve — with emphasis placed on the potential for veterans to create &#8220;pain points&#8221; that impact employees.
The study also suggested there should be an avenue for dealing with &#8220;the impacts of negative customer experiences on employees such as health practitioners providing additional coverage when LGBTQ+ Veterans are denied care by a colleague&#8221; — but did not provide evidence that such denial of care was happening within the VA system.
Almost one year to the day after that meeting — on January 27, 2025 — the VA under President Donald Trump had already begun to <a href="https://news.va.gov/press-room/va-ends-dei-stops-millions-in-spending-on-dei/">root out the DEI initiatives</a> within the department.
&#8220;Under President Trump, VA is laser-focused on providing the best possible care and benefits to Veterans, their families, caregivers, and survivors,&#8221; VA Director of Media Affairs Morgan Ackley explained. &#8220;We are proud to have abandoned the divisive DEI policies of the past and pivot back to VA’s core mission.&#8221;
In the year since, under Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, the agency has <a href="https://department.va.gov/2025accomplishments/">cut $14 million</a> in spending that went solely to DEI-focused initiatives and training. It is unclear whether the recommendations made during that meeting were ever implemented, and if so, what the new administration may have in place to put a stop to the process.

Department of Veterans Affairs

How The Biden Admin Tried To Keep The VA Woke After It Left Town

How The Biden Admin Tried To Embed DEI In Dept Of Veterans Affairs On The way Out The Door

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Donald Trump

Doug Collins

Joe Biden

Veterans

The following is an edited transcript from &#8220;<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">The Michael Knowles Show</a>.&#8221;
* * *
Michelle Obama went viral yesterday — on Martin Luther King Day of all days — for comments about shopping habits and race.
The viral description making the rounds, however, reads, &#8220;Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands&#8230;&#8221;
The question is whether what she actually said matches that description.
Let&#8217;s find out. Watch:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands and others also should be <a href="https://t.co/5MqY5gaxUv">pic.twitter.com/5MqY5gaxUv</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/2013356579802767412?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 19, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @EndWokeness/X.com
At a superficial glance, just hearing her words verbatim, you’d probably have to say the viral description isn’t entirely fair. Nowhere does she explicitly say “don’t shop at white-owned brands.” Nowhere does she say “shop at black-owned brands and not white-owned brands.”
And in defense of Michelle Obama — and I don’t generally defend her — that’s not literally what she said.
She said that if she sees a black-owned brand and she likes their stuff, she’ll choose that brand. But she stops herself. She doesn’t say, “and I won’t buy from anyone else.” She doesn’t say, “I only do it because it’s black-owned.”
But here’s the problem: she injects race into the decision. She’s saying, “If I like their stuff, and if it’s black-owned, then I especially want to buy it.” And when she says, “If you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody,” she very carefully stops short of finishing the sentence. She doesn’t say “black-owned brands.” She says “everybody.”
What she’s doing is trying to privilege the black-owned brand while avoiding the explicit consequence of that choice. She wants to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the positive act of buying — of supporting a business — but she doesn’t want to be a racial identitarian when it comes to the negative act of not shopping somewhere else.
She never says, “Don’t shop at white brands.” Instead, she says you need to shop at black brands, and everybody needs to shop at black brands — but maybe not less at white brands.
It’s a kind of gobbledygook. And that’s why, ultimately, I think the viral description is basically fair, even if it’s not perfectly precise.
It’s like the IQ bell curve meme. At one end, people say she told people not to shop at white stores. In the middle, it’s “she said to shop at black stores but also shop at white stores.” And at the other end, what she’s really saying is: shop less at white stores. Her minor premise is wrong. She says if you have the money to buy Chanel, you have the money to buy everybody.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1894-not-playing-games-trump-launches-investigation-into-minnesota-libs?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=Recent+Episodes&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Michael Knowles Show</a></h3>
That’s simply not true. Money is a finite resource. Just because you can afford one expensive brand doesn’t mean you have infinite money. And even if you did have infinite money, you have finite closet space. You have a finite number of dresses you’ll wear. A finite number of days in the week. Where are you going to wear all these clothes?
This is the core problem with diversity ideology. If you privilege one thing, you necessarily disadvantage another. 
This is exactly the problem with affirmative action. Everyone says, “Oh, it’s great, we should help out black people.” And yes, for the vast majority of Americans, that sounds good. Who doesn’t want to help?
But affirmative action in practice means something very concrete. There are a finite number of spots at a university. A finite number of jobs. When you give an advantage to black people simply for being black, you are necessarily disadvantageous to someone else — often white people, or Asian people in the case of college admissions. There is discrimination happening. There is an injustice that comes with that, too.
The same logic applies here. When you say, “I’m going to shop at the black brand,” you are necessarily saying that, at the margin — the last dress that fits in your closet — you are not going to shop at the white brand. You are choosing not to go into that shop, not because you dislike the dress, but because of the race of the person who owns it.
That is discrimination on the basis of race. That’s what Michelle Obama is saying — without saying it. She doesn’t want to go all the way, but there is no other conclusion you can reach from her premises.
This ties directly into why people don’t really talk about Martin Luther King Jr. the same way anymore. Part of it is that the modern Left rejects him because he was too conciliatory and too egalitarian. But the other reason is that the practical politics don’t match the rhetoric.
Dr. King famously said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 
And yet his successors say that in order to achieve that dream, we need affirmative action, DEI, and diversity ideology. Which, in practice, means judging people — especially white people — by the color of their skin.
Taken to its extreme, it means not shopping at white-owned businesses. And even if you agree with MLK’s premise, you are completely undermining it with these practical consequences.
So no, I don’t begrudge Michelle Obama for shopping at black-owned businesses. That’s fine. But if you’re going to say it, say it with your whole heart. Finish the sentence.
Tell people explicitly: shop at black businesses. Don’t shop at white businesses. Define what counts as ownership — 50% plus one ownership? Board seats? Stakeholders? I don’t know. But say it clearly.
And if you’re not willing to say that, then just buy the dress you like.

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