From one perspective, this development seems encouraging. Maybe the lesson of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” is finally starting to take down the destructive DEI delusion.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced that it will end the use of diversity statements in the faculty hiring process. These statements, typically a page-long, were required of all faculty candidates so they could persuade the institution that they could be relied upon to support and enhance the university’s commitment to “diversity.” The statements are now routine in faculty hiring at many public and private universities, as well in corporations and other organizations. I confess that I had not focused on this development sufficiently; it is scary, and the mainstream media and its pundits apparently felt it was not something “the public has a right to know.” [The only previous Ethics Alarms essay on diversity statements is here. I helped sound the alarm, and then did nothing for two years.]

As she announced the reform, MIT’s president Sally Kornbluth, the lone survivor of the fateful Congressional hearing that led to the dismissal of two other female presidents of elite universities, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard, condemned the statements as compelled speech. “My goals are to tap into the full scope of human talent, to bring the very best to M.I.T. and to make sure they thrive once here,” Dr. Kornbluth said . “We can build an inclusive environment in many ways, but compelled statements impinge on freedom of expression, and they don’t work.”

Interesting phrasing. If they “worked,” whatever sinister meaning that has, would she be eliminating them? The diversity statements are not just compelled speech, they represent compelled ideological conformity. That’s fascist stuff. Explain to me again: who are the “threats to democracy”? It also points to the other perspective besides the one I alluded to at the beginning. The fact that diversity statements has infested academia at all is ominous.

“Diversity statements have long been opposed by conservatives and many academics as enforcing a kind of ideological conformity,” writes the Times in another self-indictment. Wait: why are only conservatives opposing measures that attempt to guarantee only woke academics and scholars teach at our colleges? Why aren’t progressives and liberals opposing them as well, since they represent a direct assault to freedom of speech and thought?

It’s a rhetorical question. They don’t oppose them because the increasingly totalitarian Left of the 21st century think the practice does work, in the sense that it advances a Marxist, anti-American agenda, implants anti-democratic constructs in the minds of the young, and moves the nation toward abandoning its foundational values and ideals. Such statements “require faculty to endorse or apply specific positions on race, gender and related issues as if they are beyond question, and as if a professor who disputes them is ipso facto incompetent,” the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression says on its website. Bingo. And may I add, obviously. So why did it take the geniuses at MIT so long to figure out what is as clear and simple as 1+1 =2 and “What goes up must come down”? And again, obviously: they knew exactly what they were doing. They just thought they could get away with it.

Conclusion: we cannot trust the people in charge of our educational institutions.

Dr. Kornbluth said that her decision was supported by the MIT provost, chancellor, all six academic deans and the vice president for equity and inclusion. This was presumably because they all concluded that it was prudent to cool it for a while, not because they didn’t support making faculty swear fealty to the DEI god. The proof: MIT also says it Institute Community and Equity Office isn’t going anywhere. In fact, it supports the change.

By purest coincidence, I received a note from the Chronicle of Higher Education this morning advising readers of more efficient ways to advance the DEI agenda. “Incorporate it into long-term planning. One-and-done programs are unlikely to have much of an impact,” was one of the main points. Another: “Consider alternative strategies to attain the results you seek.”

These people may be crazy and dangerous, but they aren’t stupid.