On the Irony of the Trump Administration Demanding "Viewpoint Diversity"

 

There is something so terribly ironic about the Trump administration attacking universities for a supposed lack of "viewpoint diversity," at the same time it attacks them for pursuing DEI--diversity, equity, and inclusion.
 
Tell me again--is diversity supposed to be required, or banned?

In any case, the reality is that universities are packed with viewpoint diversity! The hallways are full of discussion and debate, and competing theories are studied day in and day out. What do they mean there's no viewpoint diversity?

Oh, they mean that 98.5% of the professors at medical schools advocate for routine childhood vaccination, and 97% of the professors in climatology say that global warming is happening, humans are causing that change, and we must do something about that. Meanwhile, only 12% of MAGA voters believe the government should be acting to counter global warming, and only 36% of Republicans today believe that children should be required to get routine childhood vaccinations before attending school.

Here's the thing. The way we determine if something is true in the sciences is to conduct scientific studies! It is not to conduct political polls of people's opinions. A quarter of Americans surveyed believe the sun goes around the earth. Does that mean universities should be required to have a quarter of the astrophysicists they hire believe the same? No! The whole point of empiricism--using experiments to determine facts--is to let us move beyond determining what is true via the opinions of the uninformed or the proclamations of whoever is most politically powerful.

Back in the 1960s and 1970s, Republicans were actually more respectful of experts, scientists, and government agencies than were Democrats. But now the reverse is true. MAGA adherents want to replace the authority of experts, scientists, and agencies with the authority of Trump. You see it in the executive orders Project 2025 wrote for him to sign, like the one that declares that there are only two sexes, immutably set at conception. Virtually every professor of biology recognizes that intersex statuses exist--yet the Trump administration has canceled the NIH programs that studied intersex people and their health, as banned "gender ideology." Physical sex variance at birth is an empirical fact, not an "ideology," but the Trump administration asserts it has the power to determine what biological facts are, and what will be declared improper beliefs that should be suppressed, not studied.

Basically, what Team Trump is asserting is that instead of hiring professors based on their merits as excellent scientists, universities should be required to give affirmative action preferences to people who are terrible at their job. A person who says that they are a scientist, but that they are happy to ignore what reputable scientific studies find, and instead declare, "I, Professor Smith of Harvard University, say the sun goes around the earth!" if that's what Trump wants. . . that is someone who has betrayed scientific ethics.

The Trump administration says it is seeking to punish universities because they have set up Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs that Trump says defy the principle of merit, and promote unqualified people based on their race or LGBTQ+ status or gender or disability. Then in the next breath it says that actually, diversity is vital, that universities lack viewpoint diversity, and that a different set of people must be hired and promoted. The standard tactic of projection is being deployed yet again: accuse your opponents of doing the thing that they are not doing, but you are. Call actual news fake and fake news real. "Universities censor and discriminate!" says the group engaging in censorship and empowering discrimination as we speak. Your base will love it, low-information voters will shrug and say "both sides do and say the same thing," and those you want to stomp will howl. Joy!

Sadly, thus far, few university leaders have been willing to stand up and say that they oppose this, given that millions of dollars in grants are being held hostage at most universities. It's understandable, I suppose. This is an unprecedented situation, and university leaders are agonizing over who they'll have to fire, what valuable programs to sacrifice, and what will happen to their students. Instead of joining ranks and presenting a united front to stand up for their principles, their collective instinct has been to freeze--both literally, as in freezing spending--and figuratively, like some prey animal trying to pretend to be a rock so it won't draw the eyes of a predator. It's been terribly frustrating to watch this, as someone who has dealt with bullying before. I keep trying to point out that if you give a bully your lunch money so they will go away, they just come back the next day and demand more.

Listening to what MAGA insiders and influencers have been saying about universities makes this very clear. For example, Christopher Rufo has been crowing about how Trump is vanquishing the "insane [anti-white] hatred written into the operating manual of our universities," about enjoying the universities feeling "existential terror," and looking forward to them being "set back for generations." That kind of animus is not going to be placated and reversed by university presidents just freezing silently like a deer in the headlights.

This week Harvard University actually stood up and said no, they won't agree to a laundry list of Trump administrative demands, including to beg forgiveness for their supposedly being anti-Semitic imposers of purportedly evil DEI and enemies of viewpoint diversity, and to lay out how they will reverse all these claimed offenses and ban masks, in order to get their frozen grant funding released. Harvard said, "No", and the Trump administration immediately cancelled $2.2 billion in Harvard researchers' grants. That's an immense funding cut--many times the total budget of my own public university--but Harvard is wealthier than a small nation, with a $50 billion endowment. Harvard can find a way to eat that massive grant cut, which makes it easier for them to stand up in the face of extortion.

I do hope that Harvard's actions prompt more universities to find their spines and stand up as well. It's true that most can't just absorb the loss of their grants like Harvard can. But money is not the only value. Being forced to terminate and censor whole areas of research because they mention race or climate change or LGBTQ+ people, while being forced to hire and lend credence to antivaxxers and other conspiracists in the name of "viewpoint diversity"--that is an attack on the entire mission of the university--the pursuit of knowledge and truth. To sign a piece of paper saying you confess to enacting anti-white-bigotry, promoting anti-Semitism, and endangering cis women by treating trans students respectfully, in hopes of limiting financial cuts, is to relinquish your honor. Is being permitted to limp along only having to cope with painful budget cuts instead of mortal ones, but with the threat of mortal ones persisting, worth it if you sacrifice your principles? 

Personally, I'd say no. But a lot of university administrators have been thus far quietly saying yes. And you know what that illustrates? That there is wide viewpoint diversity on college campuses.

Just not about whether the sun goes around the earth.