Elon Musk, the billionaire and owner of SpaceX, Tesla, and X, has joined a group of university donors and lawmakers calling for a halt to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives on campus, reigniting a long-standing conflict in the Republican culture wars as university officials face criticism over their handling of antisemitism.
Main Information
DEI programs, which aim to increase the representation of historically underrepresented students and faculty in colleges, businesses, and government agencies, were significantly implemented after the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, although these efforts have faced opposition from right-wing lawmakers and university donors, who have since claimed that many of these programs favor some groups over others.
Musk and Ackman’s Statements
Musk joined a group of donors and lawmakers in criticizing DEI programs in a post on X on Friday morning, stating: “DEI must die.” In that post, Musk claimed that “the goal is to end discrimination, not to replace it with different discrimination,” although Musk did not specify the type of discrimination he was referring to (Musk previously called for the resignations of Harvard, MIT, and Pennsylvania university presidents over their parliamentary testimony regarding antisemitism on campus).
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, a Harvard alumnus, also targeted the DEI program at the university, claiming in a post last month that faculty members in the Harvard DEI program do not respond to complaints from Jewish students, Asian students, and non-transgender white students (Harvard expanded its DEI program to combat antisemitism one week later).
Major Criticisms
Derrick Johnson, President and CEO of the NAACP, defended Harvard University President Claudine Gay in a post on X as a “distinguished scholar and professor” and argued that the recent attacks on her leadership at Harvard “are merely political theater that fuels a white racist agenda.” Ackman responded to Johnson’s argument in a post on X, sarcastically stating: “Now I’m apparently a white racist,” adding, “Why should a person be considered racist or a white racist when raising legitimate criticisms about a leader belonging to a minority community?”
Counter Criticisms
Stacey Burdett, Vice President of the Anti-Defamation League, told Axios this week that she believes “traditional DEI has not been inclusive enough regarding antisemitism,” adding that it is essential to address the gaps, although she argued that the solution to combating antisemitism is not cutting DEI but expanding it. She told Axios: “The cultural war against diversity and the efforts to turn DEI into a monster do not make Jews safer. This is just exploiting Jewish fears for political gain.”
Leave a Reply