Why the movement’s decline was all but inevitable
Intersectionality is in crisis. It is reeling from the Republican-led assault on left-wing radicalism, retreating to its campus redoubt. If it passes from our public discourse, its epitaph should read: “Often wrong, never in doubt.”
Evidence of intersectionality’s ongoing if incomplete demise accumulates by the day. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin canceled a $50 million grant to the Climate Justice Alliance, which insisted that “the path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” On mass media wildly popular with young Americans—podcasts by “free thinkers” like Joe Rogan—intersectionality is a punch line. Mentions of intersectionality began to taper off in 2022, according to Google Books Ngram Viewer. Viral essays feature former social-justice warriors questioning, as one did, environmentalism that has “become less about conservation…and more about freeing Palestine.” Corporations are rolling back DEI programs and retiring ad campaigns designed as catnip for intersectional sensibilities. Ibram X. Kendi’s Center for Antiracist Research at Boston University—which “sought to examine bigotry in the United States from multidimensional, intersectional, and interdisciplinary perspectives”—fired most of its staff in late 2023 due to “public support having shifted and contributions waning.” It closed for good in January of this year.
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Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow.
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