Less than 250 years ago, our young country fought against the tyranny of a powerful, small minority. Today, Americans are doing the same once again, and the fight is equally important in defining the very character and values of the nation. This time around, Americans are rejecting the madness of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) movement.
The DEI worldview has captured and Balkanized education, the media, the tech and financial world, and government by foolishly dividing the world between oppressors and oppressed and defining individuals based on immutable characteristics such as race and sex.
The DEI machine is deeply entrenched and still churning. However, Americans have woken up to the dangers of the diversity and equity agenda, and they have had enough. The tech world has begun the “Great Rollback” by cutting many diversity programs as have financial institutions. In at least 22 states, diversity, equity, and inclusion measures at state university systems have been banned or rolled back. Crucially, majorities of Americans of all partisan leanings regularly report that they do not approve of their company “relying on race, gender identity, and sexuality-based hiring and promotion practices.”
This year, our nation is taking a stand against a minority that wants to reward race and sex over hard work and merit.
As a professor, I have seen how my students have been subject to the heavy-handed DEI apparatus on campus. DEI administrators have tried to control how students think and engage with each other and punish dissent. I am particularly optimistic about how some students are taking a stand against the DEI machine. Whenever I visit a high school or college campus, I continue to hear the same stories from students—they want to think and learn independently, recognize nuance and complexity, and see the real problems of making simplistic, overarching statements about the world. Many students want the DEI indoctrination to stop on their campuses.
A clear example of Gen Z students pushing back comes from the storied Collegiate School in New York. A group of students at Collegiate have had enough of the administrative indoctrination and want to make intellectual decisions for themselves.
In a recent letter to the school’s administrators and board of trustees, Collegiate’s Class of ’25 said it is “not their place to prescribe specific political opinions to the student body.” Wisely, the students noted that, in these divisive times, they wanted to “emphasize that the moral leadership best for [their] community is one that does not prescribe what [they] should believe, but how [they] should engage with others in rational, open-minded and empathetic discourse.”
Signed by the entire class and written in response to how the administration handled anti-Semitism after the October 7th massacre in Israel by Hamas, and a very public lawsuit, the rising seniors asserted that “it is of great importance… that the school refuse to impose upon its students or faculty specific moral or political opinions about complex issues.” The Class of 2025 rightly declared that “while it is the administration’s responsibility to encourage universal empathy, education and discussion, it is not their place to prescribe specific political opinions to the student body.”
Collegiate is small. The students are well-acquainted with one another, which is not the norm across the country. However, to see an entire class of young people organize to ask to be allowed to “engage productively with each other in discourse about complex and global issues” is hugely powerful.
Another example reveals that students are far less radicalized than the activist administrators who dominate the discourse on campus. Looking at the Israel-Hamas war, the Mill Institute at the University of Austin Texas found that almost a fifth (18 percent) of students state that they are deeply knowledgeable about the Israel-Palestinian conflict, 70 percent believe the current conflict is complicated, with 23 percent unsure, and only six percent believing that it is a straightforward issue. About 92 percent of students in their case study also assert that one can be pro-Israel and still care about suffering in Gaza. Contrary to loud and dominant narratives shared on social media that Israel is genocidal, students largely know better and are far less dogmatic.
The nation is righting itself and sound values are returning as the new normal. Younger Americans are leading and speaking up about ending initiatives that have promoted the exclusion and intolerance of others. These efforts are worth celebrating this July 4th. While social media amplifies extremes, and there are cases where so many feel they have to take public positions to conform to social pressures, Americans are pushing back and helping the nation refocus on its foundational principles: opportunity for all and a genuine pluralistic culture.
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