The Supreme Court on Wednesday made a decision that has largely flown under the radar, but has big implications for employers who have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs.
The Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-193_q86b.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ruled</a> 9-0 in favor of St. Louis Police Sergeant Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow, who sued the St. Louis Police Department (SLPD) after she was transferred from one department to another against her wishes. Muldrow worked for nearly 10 years in the SLPD’s specialized Intelligence Division, but in 2017, the new Intelligence Division commander requested she be transferred from the unit so she could be replaced with a man.
The request was approved and Muldrow was transferred to a position where she was now “supervising the day-to-day activities of neighborhood patrol officers,” instead of working in the Intelligence Division. While her rank and pay remained the same, her job changed and she lost the use of an unmarked take-home vehicle, as well as a more regular schedule where she had weekends off.
Muldrow sued, claiming she was discriminated against because she was a woman, a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. A lower court found she had not been discriminated against because she did not show that she had been “significantly” harmed by the transfer, so Muldrow appealed, eventually getting her case before the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court determined that there was no threshold for harm, and that someone alleging discrimination “does not have to show … that the harm incurred was significant. Or serious, or substantial, or any similar adjective.”
Typically, Title VII prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin” when it comes to “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges.”
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With the Supreme Court decision stating that an employee doesn’t have to show “significant” harm, many have taken the new ruling to mean it will be easier for women and minorities to sue based on alleged discrimination.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), for example, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/supreme-court-delivers-big-win-for-workplace-equality-in-muldrow-v-city-of-st-louis-ruling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">touted</a> the ruling as “a huge victory for workers and workplace equality.”
But some conservatives have noted that this ruling could make it easier to sue employers who have DEI programs that favor women and minorities.
The Daily Signal <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/04/17/supreme-court-just-made-easier-sue-employers-dei-policies/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that it’s “fashionable for corporate employers to create race- and sex-based employment conditions and privileges as part of their DEI initiatives.” The outlet pointed to LinkedIn’s “employee resource groups,” which provide mentoring and training programs for “systemically marginalized” groups. The outlet suggests that these programs would fall under the “privileges of employment,” mentioned under Title VII, and that the additional pay given to leaders of these groups would count as “compensation” under the law.
The ACLU pushed back on this notion, with Ming-Qi Chu, the deputy director of the organization’s Women’s Rights Project, dismissing the idea as “fearmongering.”
“The fearmongering of DEI opponents has no basis in law and fundamentally misunderstands how most DEI programs work. The purpose of DEI and other remedial workplace programs is to improve the process by which employment decisions are made and close the gap in opportunities among workers. They do not disadvantage any particular worker. This is why they have long been held lawful. These scare-tactics are trying to chill employers’ commitment and investment in expanding workplace opportunity. We won’t let them,” she said in the ACLU’s statement regarding the Supreme Court decision.

Diversity Equity And Inclusion

Supreme Court Makes It Easier To Sue Employers Over DEI Claims

Civil Rights

Discrimination

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Supreme Court

U.S.

NPR&#8217;s president and CEO said she abandoned the idea of a &#8220;free and open&#8221; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, which she used to lead, because it is a &#8220;white, male, Westernized construct.&#8221;
In a newly resurfaced video clip, Katherine Maher, who took over as NPR&#8217;s chief executive in January says she found Wikpedia&#8217;s &#8220;free and open&#8221; ethos &#8220;inherently limited.&#8221; The clip was posted to X by Christopher Rufo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.
Maher served as chief executive at the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that operates Wikipedia, from 2019 to 2021.
&#8220;I have come to the opinion and the perspective that &#8216;free and open&#8217; was a way of looking at the world that was inherently limited relative to what we were trying to achieve,&#8221; Maher says in the clip.
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says that she abandoned a &quot;free and open&quot; internet as the mission of Wikipedia, because those principles recapitulated a &quot;white male Westernized construct&quot; and &quot;did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/Ved9mgGvJH">pic.twitter.com/Ved9mgGvJH</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780929268949614848?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher doesn&#39;t just want to &quot;stamp out bad information&quot; on the internet. She wants to replace it with &quot;good information&quot;—i.e., left-wing narratives—and force the public to &quot;sit within that good information&quot; as &quot;a collective.&quot;
Big Sister has arrived. <a href="https://t.co/7kfq8VYHfj">pic.twitter.com/7kfq8VYHfj</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1781009614584381486?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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EXCLUSIVE: Katherine Maher says the &quot;the number one challenge&quot; in her fight against disinformation is &quot;the First Amendment in the United States,&quot; which makes it &quot;a little bit tricky&quot; to censor &quot;bad information&quot; and &quot;the influence peddlers&quot; who spread it.
NPR&#39;s censor-in-chief. <a href="https://t.co/0vY6hIpbmO">pic.twitter.com/0vY6hIpbmO</a>
&mdash; Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) <a href="https://twitter.com/realchrisrufo/status/1780597079439446250?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 17, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;&#8216;Free and open&#8217; has the best of intentionality, but in the end what &#8216;free and open&#8217; often ended up doing, and particularly in the case of Wikipedia, was recapitulating many of the same power structures and dynamics that exist offline, prior to the advent of the internet,&#8221; Maher said.
One of the problems with Wikipedia is the way it relies on a &#8220;written tradition&#8221; and &#8220;reliable sources,&#8221; Maher said.
&#8220;You see the exclusion of communities, of languages because of the ways in which Wikipedia is based on reliable sources. The idea of a written tradition, which is particular to some cultures and not to others,&#8221; the former Wikimedia CEO said.
&#8220;The ways in which we ascribe notability often really comes from sort of this white, male, Westernized construct around who matters in societies and who is elevated and whose voices. And so some of these ideas of sort of this radical openness really did not end up living into the intentionality of what openness can be,&#8221; she said.
X owner Elon Musk responded to the clip, <a href="https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1780962477011796287" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posting</a>, &#8220;That’s literally the point of Wikipedia.&#8221;
Maher has recently come under fire from conservatives after a former NPR editor blew the whistle on the outlet&#8217;s liberal bias. Former editor Uri Berliner resigned Wednesday after NPR suspended him.
In the wake of the NPR editor&#8217;s accusations, a slew of since-deleted tweets and previous statements from Maher have surfaced, adding fuel to the outrage.
In another clip posted by Rufo, Maher says she is interested in how we can &#8220;immerse ourself in good information,&#8221; not just &#8220;stamp out bad information.&#8221;
In yet another clip, Maher says the &#8220;number one challenge&#8221; for her in fighting disinformation is the First Amendment, which she calls a &#8220;fairly robust protection of rights.&#8221;
&#8220;It also means that it is a little bit tricky to really address some of the real challenges of where does bad information come from,&#8221; she said.
She has been accused of expressing explicitly biased views in her previous tweets.
In 2018, Maher <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/13/us-news/nprs-new-ceo-katherine-mahers-woke-tweets-arise-as-editor-claims-bias/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">posted</a>, “Donald Trump is a racist.”
In 2020 she wrote, &#8220;I mean, sure, looting is counterproductive. But it’s hard to be mad about protests not prioritizing the private property of a system of oppression founded on treating people’s ancestors as private property.&#8221;

Web Summit Lisbon 2023

‘White, Male, Westernized’: NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia’s ‘Free And Open’ Mission

'White, Male, Westernized': NPR President Said She Opposed Wikipedia's 'Free And Open' Mission

First Amendment

Free Speech

National Public Radio (NPR)

Wikipedia

Woke Culture

Wokeness

MSNBC host <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joy-reid" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joy Reid</a> suggested that the criminal trials against former President Donald Trump amounted to a racial reckoning of sorts, claiming that the &#8220;DEIs&#8221; were &#8220;bringing it home.&#8221;
Reid made the comments on Monday as the New York hush-money trial was just beginning, saying that she thought it was &#8220;wonderfully poetic&#8221; to see black public officials like Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis leading the cases against Trump.
WATCH:
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Joy Reid suggests that the criminal cases brought against Trump is racially-based vengeance by black officials:
&quot;Go DEI. My DEIs are bringing it home.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/r9THOyWMGn">pic.twitter.com/r9THOyWMGn</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1780345671163273582?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2024</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;But for me, there is something wonderfully poetic about the fact … the first person to actually criminally prosecute Donald Trump is a black Harvard grad,&#8221; Reid said. &#8220;The very kind of person that his former staff, the people who worked for him, Steven Miller, etc., want to never be at Harvard Law School. But he was. And he came out and graduated, and he’s prosecuting you, Donald.&#8221;
Reid went on to reference Willis in Georgia and New York Attorney General Letitia James, noting their roles in other cases against the former president.
&#8220;And a black woman is doing that same exact thing in Georgia and a black woman forced you to pay a $175 million fine,&#8221; Reid said, calling into question the status of the bond that was posted on Trump&#8217;s behalf. &#8220;The people who put it up, that might not be legit.&#8221;
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&#8220;Donald Trump is being held to account by the very multicultural, multiracial democracy that he’s trying to dismantle. … It says something good about our country that we’re still capable of having that happen. Go, DEI. My DEIs are bringing it home,&#8221; she crowed.
Trump, like many Republicans, has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/03/03/trump-plans-crush-dei-affirmative-action/72774345007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">railed against</a> the focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) practices, telling voters in New Hampshire earlier this year, &#8220;We will terminate every diversity, equity, and inclusion program across the entire federal government.&#8221;
Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has also taken steps to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/oklahoma-governor-joins-desantis-bans-using-funds-for-dei-at-all-state-agencies-universities" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ban DEI programs</a> in Florida colleges and state offices.

Los Angeles Red Carpet Premiere Event For Hulu’s “The 1619 Project” – Arrivals

Joy Reid Suggests Trump Trials Are A ‘Poetic’ Racial Reckoning

Joy Reid Suggests Trump Trials Are A 'Poetic' Racial Reckoning

Donald Trump

Joy Reid

Media

MSNBC

Politics

The Biden campaign recently announced that it is hiring a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) director who will be responsible for the campaign’s DEI strategy and receive a salary of up to $120,000.
The role, recently <a href="https://www.daybook.com/jobs/pZ6LgARxLuHKrkAAN">advertised online</a>, will pay between $95,000 and $120,000, with the director being responsible for DEI strategy and programming on the Biden campaign, educating staff on the topic and even influencing hiring practices.
“The DEI Director will focus on creating and executing a comprehensive strategy to attract and support diverse talent to further the campaign’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion,” the job listing reads. “They will also be responsible for upskilling and further educating campaign staff around DEI.”
The Biden campaign’s DEI director will also be responsible for implementing “DEI-focused workshops for management and other staffers in service of educating and upskilling campaign staff on the DEI space and specific initiatives,” as well as managing and reporting “on the campaign’s diversity efforts, leveraging best in class tools including developing an internal dashboard to support data analysis and reporting.”
The position will also have direct influence on the campaign’s hiring decisions, with the DEI director being tasked with reviewing “hiring practices and outcomes to ensure diverse talent is represented and successful in candidacy at all levels of the campaign.”
The Biden campaign’s decision to hire a DEI director comes as the Democratic incumbent has ordered the federal bureaucracy to embrace the leftwing agenda and institutionalize it throughout the federal workforce’s policies. Biden signed an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/">executive order</a> in 2021, called the “Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility in the Federal Workforce,” that formalized the presence of the ideology within the administrative state.
Former President Donald Trump has since pledged to gut the administrative state by re-issuing an executive order called Schedule F, which would remove civil service protections from bureaucrats who occupy a position that impacts policymaking. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/03/trump-threatening-return-and-expansion-schedule-f/363145/">touting</a> the plan. “The deep state must be brought to heel.”

Biden speech

Biden Campaign To Hire DEI Director With Up To $120k Salary

Biden

Biden Admin

Biden Campaign

Diversity

O.J. Simpson died on Thursday at the age of 76, and the media didn&#8217;t quite know what to do.
They didn&#8217;t know what to do because O.J. Simpson was a murderer, and everyone knows he was a murderer. But he spent the last half of his life being treated by some in the media as though he was a sort of controversial figure.
A headline from the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/podcasts/post-reports/how-will-oj-simpson-be-remembered/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Washington Post</a> summed this up: “How will O.J. Simpson be remembered?”
The answer for everyone who remembers the O.J. Simpson murder trial is that he will be remembered as a person who very obviously murdered his ex-wife and a person named Ron Goldman, and then proceeded to be alleviated of the criminal responsibility for that double murder by a jury of people who were politically motivated, to the celebration of a wide swath of the American population.
He&#8217;ll be remembered as a person who dramatically widened the gap between the races in the United States, which, in some ways, has never truly closed. It seemed as though that between the trial of O.J. Simpson and the election of Barack Obama, America was becoming more racially reconciliatory. 
But Barack Obama opened those gaps wide again in 2010, 2011, and 2012.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1946-oj-simpson-killed-by-cancer-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
The O.J. Simpson trial was the moment when Americans realized that the attempts of the 1960s and 1970s to move beyond America&#8217;s terrible history of racism had some pretty impactful consequences, and that there were two sides to the racial conflict in the United States because up until the Civil Rights movement, there really was only one side.
That side had been American white supremacists treating black people as chattel and as trash. After the Civil Rights movement, the idea was that we would put all of that behind us. We were going to move forward in a country that tries to actually meet the guarantees of the Declaration of Independence that all men are created equal.
But then, in the O.J. Simpson trial, it became very clear to a lot of Americans that the standard of equal justice for all was not only a matter of if that could be reached, but it was also a matter of if everyone wanted that standard to be reached.
That&#8217;s what the O.J. Simpson trial meant for a lot of people. And that&#8217;s why he will be remembered as a double murderer who got away with it for racial political reasons.
Simpson left the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown in his wake. Not just that; he still owed more than $100 million to their families because they won civil trials against him after losing the criminal trial in favor of convicting him.
The evidence against O.J. was overwhelming. Everyone knew he was guilty. No one legitimately believed he was innocent. It was just a question of whether you wanted to see him acquitted because of racial reasons.
Those racial reasons were explained at the time and are being explained even now by people who believe that somehow, some sort of revenge was deserved for America&#8217;s terrible racial history.
After he killed two white people, suddenly his cause became a “racial cause.” And that racial logic has kept up even until today.
Marc Lamont Hill, a true believer in the perverse ideology of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), and critical race theory, <a href="https://twitter.com/marclamonthill/status/1778461905268412472" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tweeted</a> yesterday, 
<blockquote>O.J. Simpson was an abusive liar who abandoned his community long before he killed two people in cold blood. His acquittal for murder was the correct and necessary result of a racist criminal legal system. But he&#8217;s still a monster, not a martyr.</blockquote>
So he acknowledges O.J. Simpson murdered two people in cold blood and was a monster, but he still deserved to be acquitted.
No country obviously can survive for very long on the basis that, as long as you are a member of a particular race, you deserve to be acquitted for murdering somebody else of another race in that sort of pure, unbridled hatred and racism. It wrecks societies.
The more faith you show in the political narrative, the more you&#8217;re willing to pick a bad example and say even it applies to your narrative. And O.J. is the worst example of all.
At the time of the trial, some black people and white people responded incredibly differently to the verdict.
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Even today, there are people who are trying to make excuses for why O.J. was acquitted because the real question is not really why O.J. did what he did. He was a sociopathic murderer who murdered two people in cold blood. The real question is why the legal system did what it did and why Americans reacted the way they did.
O.J. Simpson died a free man. The idea that there is some underlying question of justice with regard to O.J. Simpson that would have allowed for the moral imprimatur to be placed upon his acquittal is morally unrighteous foolishness.
O.J. Simpson was a double murderer. He should have gone to jail. And if you believe that questions of race should take precedence over questions of actual blood guilt, that makes you a bad person. That is not how justice works.
When social justice, which is what this is, trumps individual justice, when the idea is that a racial narrative — a true racial narrative about black victimhood in America —  is supposed to trump the fact that a black man killed two white people, you have lost the thread of decency and morality.
Justice cannot work under these circumstances.

O.J. Simpson shows the jury a new pair of Aris ext

O.J. Simpson Killed By Cancer

Blacks

Critical Race Theory

Los Angeles

Murder

O.J. Simpson

Opinion

Race

Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) introduced the EDUCATE Act, a bill that would eliminate federal funding to medical schools that embed the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda into their admission or instruction policies, on Thursday.
Called the Embracing anti-Discrimination, Unbiased Curricula, and Advancing Truth in Education <a href="https://www.kennedy.senate.gov/public/_cache/files/f/c/fc004939-9acc-4b5b-ac2a-33f6a400d77c/EB87810799D9902262DC1CD4353F7165.educate-act-bill-text.pdf">(EDUCATE) Act</a>, the Senate bill corresponds with legislation that was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-bill-would-eliminate-federal-funding-to-any-med-school-that-incorporates-dei">recently introduced</a> in the House of Representatives by Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC).
“Woke universities are forcing America’s future doctors to care more about race and gender than saving lives,” Kennedy <a href="https://www.kennedy.senate.gov/public/press-releases?id=3AACCF99-2BEC-40B7-8432-2D6D58596EDB#:~:text=John%20Kennedy%20(R%2DLa.,affirm%20ideological%20beliefs%20and%20prioritize">asserted</a>. “The EDUCATE Act would make sure taxpayer dollars don’t fund medical schools that discriminate against talented students or peddle progressive nonsense at the expense of science.”
Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) is co-leading the legislation alongside Kennedy.
“The medical field has traditionally been one driven by core tenants of merit, academic excellence, and superb scientific achievement, but that has not stopped the left from their malpractice of injecting DEI into every aspect of education in America,” Schmitt noted. “To cheapen medical schools with woke politics and DEI would be to put the lives of countless Americans in danger as students of extraordinary achievement and meticulous discipline in the field will be cast aside in the name of social justice and equity.”
Medical schools would not be eligible to receive federal funding under the bill if they direct, compel, or incentivize students to adopt or affirm various beliefs associated with DEI and Critical Race Theory (CRT), including that the United States is structurally racist or that people can be lumped into “oppressed” and “oppressor” categories by virtue of their race, ethnicity, or sex.
The bill would also eliminate federal funding for medical schools that deprive students of educational opportunities on the basis of their background by giving preferential treatment to students on the basis of race or by holding classes specifically for those of one racial background. Medical schools would also be ineligible for federal funding if they established or maintained DEI offices.
The introduction of the bill in the Senate was praised by Rep. Murphy, who introduced corresponding legislation in the House of Representatives in March. “Discriminatory DEI practices have rapidly permeated medical schools across the country at great harm to the field of medicine,” Murphy <a href="https://murphy.house.gov/media/press-releases/murphys-legislation-ban-dei-medicine-introduced-senate#:~:text=%E2%80%9CDiscriminatory%20DEI%20practices%20have%20rapidly,lives%20are%20on%20the%20line.">asserted</a>. “Political ideology has no place in the classroom, especially when lives are on the line.”
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“I appreciate Senators Kennedy and Schmitt for recognizing the detrimental impact these initiatives will have on the future of American healthcare,” Murphy went on to add. 
The legislation comes in the wake of a bombshell investigation into Duke Medical School by Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro, who found that the institution appeared to be <a href="https://x.com/benshapiro/status/1762196005234024632">discriminating</a> against white men.
Discrimination in medical schools has recently become a national conversation, with Elon Musk warning that lowered standards in the medical field in pursuit of equity would put people’s lives at risk.
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Elon Musk tries to explain how lowering the standards for doctors could result in more deaths. 
Don Lemon is unable to grasp the concept.
This entire exchange is incredible. <a href="https://t.co/QJ3efuvVAb">pic.twitter.com/QJ3efuvVAb</a>
&mdash; End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1769727932161728681?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 18, 2024</a></blockquote>
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Data <a href="https://www.aamc.org/media/6066/download">from</a> the Association of American Medical Colleges reveals that the average grades and test scores vary significantly by race, with whites and Asians needing to receive higher scores to be competitive in admissions than black or Hispanic applicants.

Sen. John Kennedy

U.S. Senate Picks Up House Proposal To Cut Funding To All Medical Schools That Push DEI

Congress

John Kennedy

The National Science Foundation (NSF), the government agency tasked with promoting scientific progress, will allocate over a million taxpayer dollars to diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts to study Latina resistance and “intraminority solidarity.”
The <a href="https://new.nsf.gov/about">NSF</a>, which controls $9.9 billion of federal money and exists to “promote the progress of science,” “advance the national health,” and “secure the national defense,” <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_2247636_4900">pledged $498,271</a> to a three-year study at Loyola University Maryland focused on “Latinas resistance behaviors in engineering programs at predominantly white institutions” as part of its broader diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) agenda.
It <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_2314179_4900">granted another $618,465</a> to support a study at the University of Washington centered around “promoting intraminority solidarity,” particularly looking into “how different framings of racism influence Asian Americans’ intraminority solidarity with Black Americans.”
An agency spokesman defended the studies to The Daily Wire, saying the projects are both &#8220;worthy of support.&#8221;
&#8220;Each proposal submitted to the U.S. National Science Foundation is reviewed by science and engineering experts well-versed in their discipline or field of expertise,&#8221; the spokesman said. “All proposals submitted to NSF are reviewed according to two merit review criteria: Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts. These awards reflect NSF&#8217;s statutory mission and have been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation&#8217;s intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.”
The stated goal of the Latina resistance study is centered around &#8220;oppressive&#8221; structures in society.
“The disparities in [Latinas’] engineering access and attainment are the result of historically oppressive racist and sexist structures embedded in STEM space that perpetuate sexism and racism,” the <a href="https://ecrhub.org/ecr-projects?id=2247636">description</a> of the federally-funded study claims. “Guided by a combination of LatCrit theory of resistance, intersectionality, and cultural wealth model (CWM), the goal of this project is to investigate how Latinas choose to engage in various resistance behaviors.&#8221;
“This project aims to investigate how Latinas choose to engage in various resistance behaviors in different engineering cultures and campus climates and how these different cultures and campus climates influence their resistance,” the description goes on to add. The funding will specifically be <a href="https://www.loyola.edu/news/2023/0605-nsf-grant.html">granted</a> to Qi Shi, the Director of the university&#8217;s Center for Equity, Leadership, and Social Justice in Education. Shi did not respond to a request for comment.
The other study, on &#8220;intraminority solidarity,&#8221; is aimed at analyzing &#8220;allyship&#8221; between minority groups.
“It explores whether framing racism against Black Americans as the result of anti-Blackness increases Asian Americans’ sense of solidarity with Black Americans, compared to framing racism as the result of White supremacy,” a <a href="https://psych.uw.edu/news/3202">description</a> of the <a href="https://www.usaspending.gov/award/ASST_NON_2314179_4900">project</a> explains. “Understanding how different framings for intergroup conflict affect allyship from members of other minority groups is important for building a more comprehensive understanding of intergroup relations.”
The grant went to Sapna Cheryan, a <a href="https://psych.uw.edu/people/2373">professor</a> at the University of Washington&#8217;s Department of Psychology. Cheryan did not respond to a request for comment.
The two studies are just a small sampling of the DEI efforts that’ve been funded by the federal government. The Biden administration’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is set to spend nearly $800,000 to study the effect of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-admin-to-spend-nearly-800k-to-study-effects-of-structural-racism-on-kidney-health">“structural racism” on kidney health</a>, utilizing “critical health praxis” to apply an “anti-racism lens” to the field of health. The HHS has also <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/federal-government-to-spend-700k-on-trans-inclusive-sex-ed-for-14-year-olds">funded</a> “an inclusive teen pregnancy program for transgender boys” to the tune of nearly $700,000 taxpayer dollars. The program intends to “reduce internalized transphobia” and affirm the gender identity of children as young as 14 years old.
Millions of taxpayer dollars have been allocated to highly ideological DEI efforts as the Biden administration has worked to embed leftwing ideology throughout the government through <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/">executive orders</a>.
Former President Donald Trump has pledged that he will gut the federal bureaucracy through executive orders of his own which aim to remove civil service protections from bureaucrats who occupy a position that impacts policymaking. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/03/trump-threatening-return-and-expansion-schedule-f/363145/">touting</a> the plan. “The deep state must be brought to heel.”
Biden hopes to preempt this move and recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/biden-moves-to-strengthen-bureaucrat-protections-as-trump-pledges-to-gut-administrative-state">implemented a policy</a> intended to strengthen the civil service protections enjoyed by federal bureaucrats. Trump and his allies are still preparing to gut the bureaucracy, however, with the Heritage Foundation’s <a href="https://www.project2025.org/">Project 2025</a> assembling a personnel database to take the place of outgoing bureaucrats.

Mexican Flag, Protest

Biden Admin To Drop $1 Million To Study Latina Resistance And ‘Intra Minority Solidarity’

The newly-appointed DEI chief at the State Department claimed that America&#8217;s institutions are &#8220;riddled with racism&#8221; and based on a “failed historical model&#8221; in a now-deleted article.
Zakiya Carr Johnson was appointed as the department’s Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer last week by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, who boasted that she brings “expertise and a fresh perspective on how we build a workforce that reflects America.&#8221;
Johnson, who previously served as senior adviser and director of the first Race, Ethnicity, and Social Inclusion Unit in the department under former President Barack Obama, made scathing criticisms of the United States in a now-deleted article published in October 2019 on the website of Fair Share of Women Leaders, a feminist organization.
“In every position I have held, from junior associate to Senior Advisor, there have been opportunities to challenge the forces that seek to silence women and those most vulnerable in society,” she <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20200808200921/http://fairsharewl.org/it-will-start-with-movements-like-these/">wrote</a>, Fox News <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-state-department-diversity-chief-believes-us-failed-historical-model-colonizing-past">reported</a>. “There are mechanisms and cultures which dispute the humanity and ability of people like me to be trusted to lead,” she added before saying that America’s institutions are “often riddled with racism, patriarchy and exclusion.”
“These are chinks in the armor of traditional leadership that refuse to reconcile with a colonizing past, or recognize that time has run out for experimentation and tweaking of a failed historic model,” Johnson wrote, also affirming the tenets of Critical Race Theory and stating that “we cannot have equity without dismantling structural racism, patriarchy and heterosexism.”
She also <a href="https://fairsharewl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/FairShare_Action_Paper_en.pdf">co-authored a guide</a> called “Feminist Leaders for Feminist Goals” for the same organization, providing a how-to playbook for feminists to usurp &#8220;a culture of male and/ or white dominance&#8221; in organizations.
&#8220;Feminist leadership must change power structures. In order to achieve transformative change, we must analyze and question existing power structures and how they affect decision-making,” the guide reads. “How can we redefine, value, use, share and distribute power differently?&#8221;
Johnson claimed again in a 2020 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tG1PmqQX4Ow">webinar</a> with the Feminist Leadership Project that America’s institutions are racist and sexist. &#8220;Because we live and work within systems… so deeply rooted in patriarchy and colonialism and racism and otherism, we tend to be very resistant to shifts and changes,” Johnson said. “A culture of misogyny has allowed men to act without consequence and it becomes part of what we believe is normal, right?”
Johnson was previously a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) activist and owned two organizations: a DEI consulting firm called Odara Solutions and Black Women Disrupt, an effort to support black women entrepreneurs.
The State Department has spent at least $77 million taxpayer dollars on DEI efforts in just two years, The Daily Wire <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-state-department-forced-to-disclose-multi-million-dollar-cost-of-bidens-diversity-agenda">exclusively reported</a>.
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The department has also pushed transgenderism across the globe, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/exclusive-state-department-forced-to-disclose-multi-million-dollar-cost-of-bidens-diversity-agenda">employing former activist</a> Jessica Stern as its &#8220;Special Envoy to Advance the Human Rights of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, and Intersex Persons.&#8221; Stern has visited at least 22 countries across all six habitable continents, even attending a “transgender visibility” march in Brazil.
The Biden administration has leveraged the more expansive federal bureaucracy to push DEI, with the president even issuing <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/06/25/executive-order-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-and-accessibility-in-the-federal-workforce/">executive orders</a> to embed leftist policies throughout the government.
Former President Donald Trump has said he would gut the federal bureaucracy through his own executive orders if elected. “We will pass critical reforms making every executive branch employee fireable by the President of the United States,” Trump said at a rally, <a href="https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/03/trump-threatening-return-and-expansion-schedule-f/363145/">touting</a> the plan. “The deep state must be brought to heel.&#8221;

Sec. of State Anthony Blinken

State Dept’s New DEI Official Said America’s Institutions Are ‘Riddled With Racism,’ Based On A ‘Failed Historical Model’

Antony Blinken

General

Racism

State Department

Systemic Racism

One of the world&#8217;s most popular board games is being altered to be less competitive and more &#8220;inclusive&#8221; to appeal to young people.
Scrabble&#8217;s parent company Mattel announced the move Tuesday, the first major change in 75 years.
The new version will involve “a second side to the board that is collaborative and faster-paced to make gameplay more accessible for anyone who finds word games intimidating,” Mattel said in a press release, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/business/scrabble-together-game-scli-intl-gbr/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according</a> to CNN.
The classic word game will debut a new way to play the game called &#8220;Scrabble Together&#8221; on the flip side of the game board. The other side will have the original game.
Scrabble Together was designed to appeal to a younger generation of players who are less interested in competition. Mattel <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/09/business/scrabble-together-game-scli-intl-gbr/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> it conducted research that showed Gen Z board gamers in Britain were less competitive than older generations.
“The game speaks to a trend in younger people who want to avoid competitive games, instead favouring teamwork and collaboration working towards a fun goal together,” said Brett Smitheram, who is the current number one Scrabble player in the UK and the 2016 World Scrabble Champion, as part of the statement.
The new version <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/lifestyle/scrabble-makes-historic-change-for-first-time-in-75-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">will have</a> goal cards rather than scoring. It will also have helper cards with prompts and clues as well as an option to play on teams. It will also be a shorter game overall.
“The way we use words is constantly evolving and so is Scrabble, which is why the iconic game has created a second side to the board that is collaborative and faster-paced to make gameplay more accessible,” Mattel <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/lifestyle/scrabble-makes-historic-change-for-first-time-in-75-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>.
In the new version, goal cards have different challenge levels and offer challenges like, “Play a horizontal word,” “play a three-letter word,” or “play a word that touches the edge of the board.”
The winner is the player who completes 20 challenges. The loser is the player who uses all their helper cards without completing a challenge.
Scrabble was invented in 1938 and has become one of the most popular board games in the world over the better part of a century.
“Scrabble has truly stood the test of time as one of the most popular board games in history, and we want to ensure the game continues to be inclusive for all players,” Ray Adler, vice president and global head of games for Mattel <a href="https://nypost.com/2024/04/09/lifestyle/scrabble-makes-historic-change-for-first-time-in-75-years/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">told</a> the New York Post.
“For anyone who’s ever thought ‘word games aren’t for me’, or felt a little intimidated by the classic game, Scrabble Together mode is an ideal option,” Adler said. “Scrabble Together Mode continues to celebrate the wonder of words just as the Classic version does, but thanks to its exciting new co-operative and dynamic gameplay, it’s more accessible and brings people together.”
The new version of the game will be available in Europe but not in the U.S. since Mattel does not hold the license there.

Family playing scrabble at dining table

Classic Board Game Dumbed Down To Be More ‘Inclusive,’ Less ‘Intimidating’ To Young People

Classic Board Game Dumbed Down To Be More 'Inclusive,' Less 'Intimidating' To Young People

Education

Gen Z

Generation Z

The Wisconsin State Bar Association will amend its language for first-year law student clerk internship requirements after it was <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/lawsuit-filed-against-wisconsin-state-bar-over-discriminatory-diversity-internship" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued last year</a> by a conservative group that said the bar was discriminating against students based on race and sexual identity. 
The state bar association reached a partial settlement on Thursday with the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, a conservative legal group, that had sued the bar in December over its internship programs and definition of diversity which included race as a factor.
“Defeating unconstitutional DEI programs has become WILL’s area of expertise, and we are not stopping here,” WILL Associate Counsel Skylar Croy said in a <a href="https://wislawjournal.com/2024/04/04/state-bar-of-wisconsin-reaches-settlement-in-diversity-lawsuit/">statement</a>. “While we are pleased with this victory, we know the fight is far from over. In fact, this is only the beginning of a movement, and our lawsuit will provide a roadmap for future victories in all 50 states.&#8221;
According to the <a href="https://will-law.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/PARTIAL-SETTLEMENT-AGREEMENT-AND-RELEASE-FINAL-fully-executed.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">settlement</a>, the bar will make clear that its “diversity clerkship program” is open to all first-year law students at either Marquette University Law School or the University of Wisconsin Law School. The bar will also no longer include a requirement for that clerkship to go to students with “backgrounds that have been historically excluded from the legal field​​ who are in good standing.” 
WILL sued the bar on behalf of attorney Daniel Suhr, who celebrated the settlement. “Premier internship opportunities should be available to students based on merit — not race,” he <a href="https://wislawjournal.com/2024/04/04/state-bar-of-wisconsin-reaches-settlement-in-diversity-lawsuit/">said</a>. “I am proud to partner with WILL to set a strong precedent for the next generation of law students.”
Additionally, the bar will adopt a new definition of “diversity&#8221; saying: “‘Diversity’ means including people with differing characteristics, beliefs, experiences, interests, and viewpoints. Diversity promotes an environment in which all individuals are treated with dignity and respect, regardless of their differences and without regard to stereotypes, and helps to ensure a better understanding and consideration of the needs and viewpoints of others with whom we interact.”
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The bar&#8217;s previous definition of diversity included race, ethnicity, and sexual identity among other factors. The settlement agreement adds that &#8220;Defendants expressly deny all Allegations relating to the Diversity Clerkship Program in the Lawsuit.”
“The settlement clarifies the definition of ‘diversity’ but makes no changes to the program,” <a href="https://spectrumnews1.com/wi/milwaukee/news/2024/04/05/wisconsin-diversity-lawsuit" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> Larry J. Martin, the bar association executive director. “The Diversity Clerkship Program, which has been creating opportunities for Wisconsin-based law students for three decades, will continue to exist and to operate in its current form.&#8221;
Despite the settlement, WILL is still challenging the dues collection process for the Wisconsin State Bar Association.

Flag of the US State of Wisconsin

Wisconsin State Bar Must Keep ‘Diversity’ Internship Open To All After Lawsuit From Conservative Group

Identity Politics

Racial Discrimination

Wisconsin

A Harvard law professor is calling on the country&#8217;s most prestigious school to &#8220;abandon&#8221; forcing academics to make <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion</a> (DEI) statements.
Randall Kennedy, who <a href="https://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/randall-l-kennedy/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">teaches</a> criminal law and contracts at Harvard Law School, <a href="https://www.thecrimson.com/column/council-on-academic-freedom-at-harvard/article/2024/4/2/kennedy-abandon-dei-statements/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">penned</a> a scathing column Tuesday in The Harvard Crimson, the school&#8217;s newspaper.
Kennedy, who is black and also teaches courses on the regulation of race relations, skewered the Ive League&#8217;s commitment to requiring DEI statements as part of the school&#8217;s hiring process.
&#8220;Candidates for academic positions at Harvard should not be asked to support ideological commitments,&#8221; Kennedy wrote.
He noted the &#8220;howl of protest&#8221; that would erupt if Harvard were to ask academic candidates for statements about their positions on capitalism, patriotism, or Making America Great Again &#8220;with a clear expectation of allegiance.&#8221;
&#8220;By requiring academics to profess — and flaunt — faith in DEI, the proliferation of diversity statements poses a profound challenge to academic freedom,&#8221; Kennedy wrote.
He criticized the &#8220;expectation that DEI statements will essentially constitute pledges of allegiance that enlist academics into the DEI movement by dint of soft-spoken but real coercion: If you want the job or the promotion, play ball — or else.&#8221;
The DEI statement requirement discourages conservative candidates, Kennedy said.
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&#8220;It does not take much discernment to see, moreover, that the diversity statement regime leans heavily and tendentiously towards varieties of academic leftism and implicitly discourages candidates who harbor ideologically conservative dispositions,&#8221; he wrote.
Kennedy also called out the &#8220;cottage industry&#8221; of diversity statement counselors that has sprung up in the last few years.
&#8220;By overreaching, by resorting to compulsion, by forcing people to toe a political line, by imposing ideological litmus tests, by incentivizing insincerity, and by creating a circular mode of discourse that is seemingly impervious to self-questioning, the current DEI regime is discrediting itself,&#8221; Kennedy wrote.
Academics at Harvard and beyond already feel &#8220;intense and growing resentment&#8221; toward the DEI movement, he said.
&#8220;I am a scholar on the left committed to struggles for social justice. The realities surrounding mandatory DEI statements, however, make me wince,&#8221; Kennedy said.
&#8220;The practice of demanding them ought to be abandoned, both at Harvard and beyond,&#8221; he wrote.
Kennedy&#8217;s column comes in the wake of a slew of woes for Harvard over the last few months.
Harvard faced <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/harvards-chief-diversity-officer-plagiarized-work-too-complaint-claims" target="_blank" rel="noopener">backlash</a> in recent months for its former president Claudine Gay&#8217;s highly criticized congressional testimony on Harvard’s response to anti-Semitism on campus.
The Ivy League school is currently facing a congressional probe on how it handled anti-Semitism on campus, as well as the school’s response to the plagiarism allegations against Gay.

Harvard University

Harvard Law Professor Says School Should ‘Abandon’ Mandatory DEI Statements: ‘Ideological Pledges Of Allegiance’

Harvard Law Professor Says School Should 'Abandon' Mandatory DEI Statements: 'Ideological Pledges Of Allegiance'

Equity

The University of Texas at Austin reportedly laid off at least 60 employees in positions related to diversity, equity, and inclusion after a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/texas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas</a> law banning <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/diversity-equity-and-inclusion-dei" target="_blank" rel="noopener">DEI</a> programs and offices at public universities took effect. 
UT Austin announced this week major organizational changes to comply with the state&#8217;s DEI law, <a href="https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/88R/billtext/pdf/SB00017F.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Senate Bill 17</a>, which went into effect in January. The law, signed by Republican Governor Greg Abbott in June 2023, prohibits public colleges in the state from establishing DEI offices and hiring DEI officers. 
In a Tuesday <a href="https://president.utexas.edu/organizational-changes" target="_blank" rel="noopener">letter</a> to staff and students, UT Austin President Jay Hartzell said that the school&#8217;s Division of Campus and Community Engagement, once known as the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, would close.
“Soon after the passage last year of Senate Bill 17 — which prohibits many activities around diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) — the University embarked on a multiphase process to review campus portfolios and end or redesign the policies, programs, trainings, and roles affected by the new law,” Hartzell said. 
“Additionally, funding used to support DEI across campus prior to SB 17’s effective date will be redeployed to support teaching and research,” he added. “As part of this reallocation, associate or assistant deans who were formerly focused on DEI will return to their full-time faculty positions. The positions that provided support for those associate and assistant deans and a small number of staff roles across campus that were formerly focused on DEI will no longer be funded.”
The Austin American Statesman <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2024/04/02/texas-senate-bill-17-anti-dei-ut-fires-four-staff-related-positions-two-sources-confirm/73179902007/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> that &#8220;at least 60 staff members&#8221; have already been laid off due to the new law. According to Hartzell, employees whose DEI positions are being eliminated would be given the opportunity to apply for other open positions at UT-Austin. 
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The layoffs come after state Senator Brandon Creighton <a href="https://archive.ph/n9dSp" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a> a letter last week informing Texas university leadership that the state Senate would be conducting oversight to ensure that they were complying with the law. 
“When Texas taxpayer dollars are used to fund offices, departments, or employee positions dedicated to promoting DEI initiatives, rather than basing decisions on merit, that is not only inappropriate, it is inconsistent with state law,” said Creighton. “Now that SB 17 is law, I’m confident that Texas public colleges and universities can return to their core mission of innovation and education— and if they do not, the Texas Senate will be resolute in enforcement of this legislation.”
Republican-led states across the country, from Florida to Alabama, have enacted bans on DEI in higher education amid criticism of schools prioritizing identity over education and merit.

Views Of The Texas State Capital During The South By Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival

At Least 60 Staffers Laid Off At University Of Texas As DEI Ban Takes Effect

Greg Abbott

Texas

University of Texas

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