DEI delivers the opposite of what it promises. It delivers not diversity but a narrow ideology. It delivers not equity but different advantages and disadvantages based on pre-judged hierarchical group identities. It delivers not inclusion but the systemic coercion and exclusion of those who dare question its methods.

On March 1, the University of Florida made a shockingly countercultural announcement. “The University of Florida” says the administrative memo, “has closed the Office of the Chief Diversity Officer, eliminated DEI positions and administrative appointments, and halted DEI-focused contracts with outside vendors.”

The announcement brings the University into compliance with Florida Board of Governors rule 9.016, which prohibits expenditures of taxpayer dollars on “’Diversity, Equity or Inclusion’ or ‘DEI’ [which] is any program, campus activity or policy that classifies individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity, or sexual orientation and promotes differential or preferential treatment of individuals on the basis of such classification.”

Over the last decade far more universities and industries have followed the trajectory of University of California at Berkeley, whose DEI staff ballooned from 118 in 2014 to 190 in 2023, with a price tag north of $25 million per year. Under the Biden administration American taxpayers funded $16.3 million for diversity training for federal agencies.

Why should more organizations, academic or otherwise, follow the lead of the University of Florida rather than Berkeley?

Harvard professor Roland Fryer offers a straightforward reason: “Our intuition for how to decrease race and gender disparities in the workplace has failed us for decades. …”

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