Inclusion Delusion: The Antisemitism of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Staff at Universities

Universities ostensibly employ diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) staff to create more tolerant and welcoming environments for students from all backgrounds. A previous Heritage Backgrounder documented that the number of people devoted to DEI efforts has grown to about 45 people at the average university.  This Backgrounder examines whether these large DEI staff are, in fact, creating a tolerant and welcoming environment on college campuses. In particular, this Backgrounder examines the extent to which DEI staff at universities express anti-Israel attitudes that are so out of proportion and imbalanced as to constitute antisemitism.

To measure antisemitism among university DEI staff, we searched the Twitter feeds of 741 DEI personnel at 65 universities to find their public communications regarding Israel and, for comparison purposes, China. Those DEI staff tweeted, retweeted, or liked almost three times as many tweets about Israel as tweets about China. Of the tweets about Israel, 96 percent were critical of the Jewish state, while 62 percent of the tweets about China were favorable. There were more tweets narrowly referencing “apartheid” in Israel than tweets indicating anything favorable about Israel whatsoever. The overwhelming pattern is that DEI staff at universities pay a disproportionately high amount of attention to Israel and nearly always attack Israel.

The evidence presented in this Backgrounder demonstrates that university DEI staff are better understood as political activists with a narrow and often radical political agenda rather than promoters of welcoming and inclusive environments. Many DEI staff are particularly unwelcoming toward Jewish students who, like the vast majority of Jews worldwide, feel a strong connection to the state of Israel. The political activism of DEI staff may help explain the rising frequency of antisemitic incidents on college campuses as well as the association between college and graduate education and higher levels of antisemitic attitudes.

I’m shocked, shocked!  Okay, not that shocked.

Diversity, equity, and inclusion has become a holy mantra of the Left, in their Progressives Jihad against traditional Conservative Western principles.

Leftists are antisemitic.

Ergo, it makes sense that the people in positions to enforce diversity, equity, and inclusion are Progressive activists who hate Jews and use their positions to increase antisemitism in their jurisdiction.

The canary in the coal mine of evil are the Jews.  DEI staffing targeting the Jews is a sure sign of the evil that they are.

The next Republican President should make absolutely sure no federal funds go to DEI administration or initiatives at universities.

Preferably, we use them as quality control samples in the production of pedochippers.