Elon took to X to post about the revulsion he feels toward Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion practices, as he sees them as just another form of discrimination, and, as a result, are morally wrong and cannot be countenanced in a society meant to be built around meritocracy and the content of people’s characters rather than their biological characteristics.
Musk, in siding against DEI policies, has joined the growing ranks of conservatives who are frustrated with how far many hiring practices and university admissions criteria have drifted away from meritocracy and towards discrimination in favor of certain ethnic groups.
In any case, posting on X about his DEI stance, Musk said, “DEI must DIE. The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination.” Continuing, he then added, “‘Diversity, Equity and Inclusion’ are propaganda words for racism, sexism and other -isms. This is just as morally wrong as any other racism and sexism. Changing the target class doesn’t make it right!”
Joining Musk and conservatives in their crusade against DEI practices is a collection of wealthy donors, the most prominent of whom is Pershing Square CEO Bill Ackman, who are outraged over what has happened at universities, particularly the Ivy League, in the wake of the Hamas attacks on Israel, and blame DEI policies as inculcating and environment of hatred that has been directed at university students.
Posting on X about Harvard President Claudine Gay, for example, Ackman said, “I learned from someone with first person knowledge of the @Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office’s criteria. The same was likely true for other elite universities doing searches at the same time, creating an even more limited universe of DEI-eligible presidential candidates. Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to identifying the best leaders for our most prestigious universities.”
He continued, “And it is also not good for those awarded the office of president who find themselves in a role that they would likely not have obtained were it not for a fat finger on the scale. I have been called brave for my tweets over the last few weeks. The same could be said for those called out Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare. I don’t think it will be long before we look back on the last few years of free speech suppression and the repeated career-ending accusations of racist for those who questioned the DEI movement. We are all shortly going to realize that the DEI era is the McCarthy era Part II. History rhymes, but it does not repeat.”
Similarly, Vivek Ramaswamy, who Ackman described as being “spot on” in reference to the diversity issue, said that diversity should be the byproduct of selecting the best people for the job and that “If we restore true meritocracy in this country and embrace true diversity of thought, chances are we are actually going to have a bunch of different elements and a range of genders in different positions.”
Vivek also noted the stultifying effects of the DEI policies, saying, “In the name of equity, we have perpetuated a lot of inequity and inequality of opportunity.” He added, “in the name of inclusion, we have created a new culture of exclusion where certain view points are welcome.”
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