Good morning:
American universities are supposed to be the home of intellectual excellence, scientific rigor, and viewpoint diversity, with the mission of pursuing knowledge and passing it down to subsequent generations. By those standards, most institutions of higher education are clearly failing. This week, Manhattan Institute scholars weighed in on some of the longstanding problems plaguing American higher education, including the ideologies of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and antisemitism.
In a new issue brief, Nathan Honeycutt of FIRE conducts the first empirical analysis of the impact of faculty DEI statements on university hiring committees and opportunities for promotion. Honeycutt finds that these statements, which supporters claim are an essential part of considering applicants for university positions holistically, actually have the opposite effect. Applicants are penalized when they do not explicitly discuss race or gender in their DEI statements and are screened out from advancing to the next stage, regardless of their academic and research achievements. Those findings should encourage the Trump administration not to give up its efforts to root out DEI ideology.
The University of California System has been under the administration’s close scrutiny for its history of DEI statements, writes Paulson policy analyst Neetu Arnold in UnHerd. Although the system’s recent decision to end mandatory diversity statements in its hiring practices is excellent news and strengthens the anti-DEI movement, some institutions may try to conceal a policy of racial preferences by other means.
In City Journal, Christopher F. Rufo explains how the administration’s recent victories against DEI at UC and antisemitism at Columbia University, for example, should be expanded. The Trump administration has a historic opportunity, Rufo writes, “to advance the principle of colorblind equality” across the board and abolish policies that are predicated on racial distinctions of all kinds, including the Left’s essential white-black political distinction.
In the meantime, Americans will be watching. In a personal essay for The Dispatch, legal fellow Tal Fortgang writes about the experience of religiously observant Modern Orthodox Jews on elite college campuses and what those colleges and the largely secular student bodies may lose if these students begin to pursue their educations elsewhere. Some collegiate recruiting offices may think of an exodus as a boon to their campus life, but Modern Orthodox students are one of the last remaining bridges in elite communities between the religious and secular worlds.
Another bridge that needs sustaining is the one between Jews and Christians. In City Journal, Cicero Institute chairman Joe Lonsdale writes about how antisemitic conspiracies that scapegoat Jewish Americans against Christians are seeping into the mainstream. But the links between the two religious communities are longstanding and strong. In fact, much of the great strength of Western civilization emerges from their partnership.
Two other items of note: First, this newsletter highlights a recent television appearance by MI’s director of Constitutional Studies, Ilya Shapiro, on the arrest of former Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil. Second, it includes a new issue brief by senior fellow Randall Lutter on how the U.S. Food and Drug Administration can use real-world evidence and real-world data to increase the speed and lower the cost of regulatory decisions and drug approvals without compromising safety.
Continue reading for all these insights and more.
Kelsey Bloom
Editorial Director
