From DEI to DIE

Project 2025, the intelligent part of the policy platform that Trump's supporters want his administration to implement from Day One, has targeted Diversity, Equity and Inclusion-

"Conservatives behind Project 2025 say the private sector has been corrupted by doctrines such as critical race theory which argues that historical patterns of racism are embedded in law and other American institutions, harming Black people and other people of color. They want to reverse “the DEI revolution in labor policy” in favor of more "race neutral" policies.“Getting rid of critical race theory from federal agencies, diversity, equity and inclusion policies, unconscious bias — we are certainly going to have ideas and proposals ready for a possible new administration,” former Trump administration official Russ Vought, who is advising Project 2025, told USA TODAY in an interview."
Trump tried to crush the 'DEI revolution.' Here's how he might finish the job. (yahoo.com)

I don't know how people here feel about DEI or if they have ever encountered it. From a general perspective, it seems to me to be part of what I would call 'the Culture of Management Culture', a mini industry that has grown through Human Resources in Govt and large Corporations, informed by Anthropology, Sociology and Psychology. At root, the question to be answered is/was 'How can we run an efficient organisation?', on top of which DEI adds a concept of Fairness, so that when hiring people and promoting then -or firing them- the criteria used are not shaped by conscious or unconscious bias.

What thus began as an exercise in HR has morphed into a political problem, characterised as the kind of 'Box Ticking' which some claim enabled Claudine Gay to ascend to the top of Harvard without having the academic or the business record to merit it.

I don't know what happens on a DEI course, so I don't know if white people are taught to hate themselves and America for its past historical sins, just as I don't know the facts about whether or not Affirmative Action or DEI has created both a fairer set of opportunities for minorities in employment and university acceptance, and led to better outcomes for all.

But if we go from Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, to Discrimination, Inequity and Exclusion, has the problem been solved or made worse, or is it a dismissal of any scientific approach to the problem, just as responding to reject the claim Project 2025 seeks to revive 'White Privilege', Russell Vought's argument is

"It gets to the very nature of what it means to be American, which is that we are all human beings made in the image of God and we should be equal in the eyes of the law,” Vought said. “And our law cannot be treating us differently based on our skin color.”

One alternative is to change the paradigm, so that while DEI may deserve to die, as currently practised, it should not bury the intentions it has tried to address. Roland Fryer thus argues the key to understanding the problem is to know what it is, through the data that shows 'who, what, when and why' which suggests that doing well in High School is the path to success regardless of 'Race' -what Fryer calls 'Pre-market skills'-

"In 2010, using nationally representative data on thousands of individuals in their 40s, I estimated that Black men earn 39.4% less than white men and Black women earn 13.1% less than white women. Yet, accounting for one variable–educational achievement in their teenage years––reduced that difference to 10.9% (a 72% reduction) for men and revealed that Black women earn 12.7 percent more than white women, on average."
It’s time for data-first diversity, equity, and inclusion | Fortune

So, on the one hand, the 'radical' solution of Project 2025: get rid of it all of it, everywhere -with no replacement. On the other hand, a data-based approach to a diversity of opportunity -and outcome- for all citizens, with a focus on 'Pre-Market Skills'.

Sounds to me like a massive investment in Education....is that part of Project 2025?

Fryer is an interesting case, as demonstrated in this YouTube -but I don't know a lot about him.

How Claudine Gay Canceled Harvard's Best Black Professor. (mini-doc) (youtube.com)