Proud to support DEI


Our university president has spoken on the anti-DEI pronouncements coming from the president and his racist minions.

Dear students, faculty and staff,

As the federal government continues to propose new policy changes on issues ranging from diversity, equity and inclusion to immigration, I fully recognize that these developments have exacerbated uncertainty, concern and fear among some members of our University of Minnesota community. That is understandable given the rapid and regularly evolving changes emanating from Washington, D.C.

As President, I am writing to address any confusion and reaffirm my—and the University’s—longstanding commitment to fostering a diverse, equitable and inclusive environment that best supports the needs of each and every individual across our five campuses, regardless of their citizenship status.

Public research universities like ours play an essential role in supporting and advancing a society that is humane and just. Here at the University of Minnesota, diversity, equity and inclusion is ingrained in our values, and it advances and elevates our mission.

I want to assure all students, faculty and staff that my leadership team and I truly value the activities that support diversity of thought and inclusion, which enhance our teaching and strengthen our research.

To further clarify, we have not rolled back diversity, equity and inclusion at the University of Minnesota, and we are not making any preemptive changes to our existing programs.

Instead, we are focusing on our commitment to current employees and programs that contribute to this important work. My leadership team and I felt it was the responsible decision to pause expanding our current activities and hiring new personnel until federal policies are further clarified.

I also want to clarify the University’s position when it comes to international students and scholars.

First and foremost, I care deeply about our international community. We are a global university, and our international students, faculty and staff are a core component of our identity and our excellence.

International students and scholars have been—and always will be—an essential part of our University community. They, along with other employees and students who may be affected by newly proposed immigration policies, will continue to play a vital role in the success of Minnesota and our University well into the future. I am fully committed to their ongoing safety and success.

Personnel and resources are in place to support international students, faculty and staff who may be affected by these federal policy changes. I understand some members of our community have questions that are specific to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This webpage is a great resource for answers to frequently asked questions on this topic. Because this situation is rapidly evolving, our teams will continue to update the webpage to provide updated information and guidance.

I want to reinforce that campus departments of public safety, including UMPD on the Twin Cities campus, do not have a role in enforcing federal civil immigration laws. Accordingly, our officers do not view it as their role to inquire about an individual’s immigration status. Their focus remains on public safety, fostering trust and maintaining strong relationships across the University community.

All of us recognize that colleges and universities nationwide are under heightened pressure and greater scrutiny. That said, the University of Minnesota will not waver in its commitment to fostering a welcoming environment for students, faculty and staff from all over the world. We will stay true to our strong public service mission to ensure we remain one of America’s leading public research universities.

I have tasked a group of University leaders to monitor ongoing developments in Washington, D.C., and they are assessing how these decisions affect our community and operations. As has been our longstanding pledge, the University is fully committed to keeping all members of our community well informed so they can navigate this evolving, complex landscape.

Thank you for your support, your leadership and your collaboration as we move forward together as one University community.

Sincerely,

Rebecca Cunningham
President

That’s a lot of words. It would be more effective and clear if she just wrote, “Fuck you, Donald Trump.”

There are none of these mythical “DEI hires” employed on our campus — just the term “DEI hire” is a dog-whistle for racists, like “welfare queen” and a dozen other slurs. Every employee was hired for their job because they demonstrated an ability to do the work, whether they’re groundskeepers or electricians or professors. There have not and never have been “quotas”. DEI is part of a process to make sure we don’t overlook good people because of thoughtless bias, and to make sure that any employment opportunity is announced to every community, and to assure that we don’t create obstacles to participation. It is a universally good thing. If there’s a flaw in our current policy, it’s that it doesn’t go far enough — there sure are a lot of white people in the loftier levels of the faculty and administration, so DEI hasn’t done much leveling.

The kinds of people who complain about DEI tend to be closet racists who don’t understand DEI and imagine that it’s all about promoting people they don’t like to work alongside them. They’re partially right, but only because there are a lot of people they don’t like on arbitrary grounds. It’s impressive how often, when they complain about DEI, their eyes flick to any brown people or women or gay or trans people, who they’ll then blame for bringing down the quality of the work being done. They avoid specifics to simply blow their dogwhistle as loud as they can.

I think Henry Farrell gets it right.

The main glue that holds the anti-democratic right and libertarians together is a shared detestation for DEI. There is a stark choice ahead for those who value actual diversity of identities, cultures and beliefs, but who believe that DEI is being imposed on them. Do they think that the kind of culture that the Trump administration wants to impose – through far more sweeping and totalizing uses of state power – is going to be better or worse? If they have principled objections to the imposition of ideology by power, they cannot, actually, celebrate the likes of Chris Rufo, who have made it emphatically clear that government imposition of ideology, and the treading down into the dust of those who disagree with them is what they are all about.

Read the rest. There’s also more about the rise of the new Silicon Valley cults and the growth of libertarianism.

The old – sometimes uneasy but often productive – detente between libertarianism and left-liberalism has broken. Instead, people who used to be libertarians or classical liberals are more and more enmeshed with the illiberal right. Democracy is out. Founder-worship and admiration for Donald Trump are in. Elon Musk seems to be copying Shockley’s degeneration at speed-run mode, but he is also in an extraordinarily powerful position. Hundreds of people (I am pretty sure they are mostly in the previously mentioned category of young men looking for attention and advancement) have volunteered to work for Elon Musk’s DOGE, where they are about to start trying to rip the guts out of the U.S. state.

Comments

  1. birgerjohansson says

    In the old days the glue was fear of the irish and the nggrs. And the white working class.
    The Red Scare was very useful (before that, it was bomb-throwing anarchists).

    Today, media empires owned by reactionary old billionaires, and social media like that by Alex Jones churn out many and varied boogeymen on vesrly a weekly basis to keep the peons (“white trash” as they used to be called) distracted and scared.

  2. raven says

    The old – sometimes uneasy but often productive – detente between libertarianism and left-liberalism has broken.

    There is nothing libertarian abut the Trump and GOP regime.
    There is nothing about the free markets either.

    Instead, Trump is picking winners and losers based on politics and arbitrary ideas that come out of whatever passes for his mind.

    Trump wants to kill Green energy meaning solar and wind power and bring back coal fired power plants.
    Which ignores that utilities like solar and wind power because they are cheaper than coal power plants and less polluting.
    Renewable power skips the step of mining and transporting the fuel for the power plants. Wind and the sun are free.

    Same with electrical vehicles.

    Same with his tariff delusions.
    Especially the tariffs. They will have all sorts of exemptions for stuff we really need to import. And a lot of those needs will just happen to be industries and businesses that are supporters of the GOP.
    Already, in the one day version of Canadian tariffs, everything was 25% but oil got a break with 10%.
    Tariffs are a great way to reward supporters and punish enemies.

    The Silicon Valley oligarchies don’t want free markets. They want monopolies and government aid and contracts.
    Musk’s SpaceX is largely the creation of NASA and the US government. They got $15 billion in US government contracts and grants.
    “NASA was also SpaceX’s first customer for the Falcon 9 after its initial flight in 2010 and has continued to be one of SpaceX’s largest sources of funding throughout the company’s life.”
    The US government and military are still one of SpaceX’s largest customers.

  3. larpar says

    “My leadership team and I felt it was the responsible decision to pause expanding our current activities and hiring new personnel until federal policies are further clarified.”
    We’re going to capitulate just a little…for now.

  4. cgm3 says

    I have a dream… that half-a-dozen positions open up in a high-profile organization, and every one is filled a black lesbian… and when the outrage flares, HR responds, “They were the best qualified.”

  5. says

    Well, good to see SOMEONE standing up to the Trumpkins. Does UMN have a police department? Maybe they could send some cops to DC to lock up #QElon’s little thug-wannabees who are currently trespassing on US Government property and stealing both data and money? I figure they’d be good for the job, since they have some experience dealing with college-age troublemakers, right?

  6. says

    The old – sometimes uneasy but often productive – detente between libertarianism and left-liberalism has broken.

    What fucking “detente?” Libertarians have been demonizing liberals and literally comparing us to Stalinists and Nazis since at least 1978. The Libertarian Party was created by Southern segregationists to provide ideological cover for their bitter, hateful, brain-dead opposition to the Voting Rights and Civil Rights Acts, Brown vs Board of Education of Topeka, and all other meaningful Federal efforts to enforce the US Constitution on US soil. And they have a long, and CONSISTENT, track-record of being blatantly stupid and blatantly dishonest about damn near everything they talk about. And they have ALWAYS been explicitly on the side of irresponsible rich pond-scum like #QElon and the Koch Brothers.

    Seriously, what has either $Trump or #QElon done that any libertarians have ever objected to?

  7. says

    Oh, and that phrase “classical liberals?” That’s just libertarian-speak for ANTI-FEDERALISTS who have always opposed any strengthening of our national government beyond what we had under the Articles of Confederation. People who call themselves “classical liberals” are really just backward-looking reactionaries pretending to be a “pure,” “authentic” or “classical” kind of liberals, untainted by newfangled 19th-century notions of state regulation or active enforcement of equal legal rights. Sort of like a doctrine of “originalism” applied to the writings of John Locke.

  8. Bekenstein Bound says

    Trump is picking winners and losers based on politics and arbitrary ideas that come out of whatever passes for his mind.

    That’s not “whatever passes for his mind”. It’s a part of his anatomy that things come out of, to be sure, but decent people evacuate those things into the nearest convenient toilet, flush it, and wash their hands, rather than doing what Trump does.

  9. John Morales says

    “That’s not “whatever passes for his mind”. It’s a part of his anatomy that things come out of [blaj]”

    Such wit!

    (Still, your agreement that “Trump is picking winners and losers” is not unnoticed by me. So, he’s the boss. in your estimation)

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