California Universities are striving to have more and more diversity. Most California university jobs are asking for diversity statements and candidates could lose the potential of getting the job if their diversity statement doesn’t match what the admission is looking for. But is this the best way to achieve more diversity? My guest today is Daniel Ortner, a lawyer with Pacific Legal Foundation. He has been involved with multiple lawsuits surrounding diversity of thought on college campuses in California. Will the push for more diversity, equity, and inclusion make us more diverse or will it create more division?
There was a cartoon in Wall Street Journal where they had a classroom that had the teacher
was a turtle, everybody was a turtle, and they're all scared.
They're in their shell.
And then there's one person that wants to speak up, and then there's this knife from
DEI that's about to cut the head of this turtle off.
Is this how people feel?
What are your thoughts on this?
I think that's definitely how people feel.
Talking to professors, they're really scared to speak out right now.
I think with good reason.
There are examples of professors who have had their careers ruined and their lives ruined
because they've dared to say anything contrary to this DEI mandate.
So anyone who speaks out is going to be targeted.
I think that's going to be, you know, the students feel that way too.
Surveys that have been taken of students show that overwhelming numbers, 60-70% of students,
I think is the last I saw, don't feel like they can express themselves in class or on
campus.
So that's really frightening.
You have people not able to express themselves.
These ideas are not being debated.
No one's willing to challenge the orthodoxy because they know they're going to get their
heads chopped off like that in the cartoon shows.
