The University Of Michigan Is In A DEI Mess. Frederick Douglass Could Help Them Out Of It.
You’ll find the same theme in many of America’s most influential writers on race and legal equality: Policies that divide Americans or increase their perceptions of racial difference, or create tribalism, separation and hatred.
Frederick Douglass Beware that policies that foster racial identity rather than shared American values can lead to racial discrimination. “dangerous seeds of discontent and hatred.” Justice Thomas Cooley I wrote that race-based distinctions would not work. “assail the very foundations of [our] government.” Justice John Marshall Harlan Nothing could be said. “more certainly arouse race hate” “a feeling of distrust between these races” Instead of segregationist polices. And Justice Antonin Scalia, quoting Professor Alexander BickelThese policies are known as racially discriminatory policies “destructive of a democratic society.”
Shelby Steele, Justice Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell have all said the same.
The University of Michigan ignored them, and now it is trying to learn its lesson.
According to The Michigan Review, a student-run publication, the school started a major Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). Initiative In 2016, racial identity was a major focus. All the programs offered by the school Its size was greatly increased. Bureaucracy of the DEI. The school also conducted Campus Climate Surveys Students. Those surveys can be compared with those taken in 2021 to see some of its negative consequences.
Students are becoming more segregated. While black and Hispanic students saw a slight increase in enrollment, they are now more likely to avoid students from other races, ethnicities and political views. According to The Michigan Review:
The percentage of students who interacted and learned from people of other political beliefs, religions, and nationalities decreased by more then 11 percent. It also dropped by over 9 per cent.
Students are also more unhappy.
Nearly every metric of the survey shows that students are less happy since DEI 1.0. Students are less likely believe that U-M has an institution commitment to DEI. They also feel less valued and more at home on campus. Over 3 percent fewer students felt they were treated fairly and fairly at Michigan. Lastly, almost 11 percent of students are dissatisfied with the overall campus climate.
The University’s DEI administrators are not happy with the fact that students have their feelings about campus’ racial environment.
The school is set to launch a new DEI initiative. It should pay attention to the outstanding minds mentioned above.
In a speech he gave in 1867, Frederick Douglass offered his advice.The Composite Nation.” Many of his insights are directly applicable to modern universities. Let’s pray they do.
Douglass spoke of the Americans in 1867. “def[ied] all the ethnological and logical classifications. In races we range all the way from black to white, with intermediate shades which, as in the apocalyptic vision, no man can remember.” It was the same country as it was then. “of all extremes, ends and opposites.”
He asked what policy should the country adopt for its increasing number of ethnic groups.
He said that the answer could not be racial seperation. “Those races of men which have maintained the most separate and distinct existence … are a standing confirmation of the folly of isolation.” America had done it before. It had already chosen to be governed. “by race pride, rather than by wisdom.” That policy is also a good one. “filled the country with agitation and ill-feeling and brought the nation to the verge of ruin.”
This was easy to predict. After all, prejudice “is an ancient feeling among men … peculiar to no particular race or nation.” Douglass said that there is no reason not to accept it.
Instead, he exhorted Americans to embrace America’s founding principle. “that is the principle of absolute equality.” This principle transcends all base and arbitrary classifications such as skin color. “Man is man, the world over,” There is so much we share.
Instead of dividing us along racial lines we should accept all others “as friends and give them a reason for loving our country and our institutions.” Douglass actually argued that we Must This policy should be adopted.
One nation such as ours, which is world-renowned for its unique diversity of colour and creeds, has only two options. One, it can tolerate tribalism. In that case, it allows “the very soil of the national mind [to become] barren,” Or, on the contrary, it can put aside tribes and unify disparate populations under a greater principle.
It is important to remember that these were the words and thoughts of an ex-slave who believed that America’s founding principle was false. He didn’t. He believed that the root of all his suffering was in fact him. “was never our system or form of Government, or the principles underlying it; but the peculiar composition of our people, the relations existing between them and the compromising spirit which controlled the ruling power of the country.”
The principles were noble but the people weren’t. If the people lived upto their principles, they could be.
He said that our nation was his. “will be great, or it will be small, according to its own essential qualities.” Therefore, we should strive for essential qualities that transcend tribal loyalty and divisiveness.
The University of Michigan DEI administrators have chosen smaller tribes to over more uniting principles. It is no wonder that its students are dissatisfied and segregated. Nothing at the University of Michigan inspires students to anything greater than the human nature’s petty tribe instinct.
There is no need for a new DEI plan or anti-racism programs, segregated dormitories, and graduation ceremonies. The solution is “the principle of absolute equality,” That is the only way to escape from the human tendency towards petty prejudice.
GianCarlo canaparo is a senior legal fellow at Heritage Foundation’s Edwin Meese II Center for Legal and Judicial Studies.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and not necessarily those of The Daily Wire.
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