ASU Leaders Make Social Justice Top Priority

Group Identity Politics

I recently noted that ASU informed its faculty that federal grant money can no longer be used for DEI initiatives. The very fact that this announcement sends shockwaves through the university tells you everything you need to know: DEI isn’t just a pet project of the humanities—it has metastasized across all disciplines, including the sciences. One might have assumed that engineering and chemistry were still in the business of building bridges and analyzing compounds rather than deconstructing privilege, but apparently, that assumption was naive.

In the video linked here, I will demonstrate how the ideas encapsulated by “DEI” are not mere side projects at ASU—they are central to the university’s leadership goals. As a quick refresher, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (with ASU occasionally adding a “B” for Belonging, because why stop at three?).

At its core, DEI advocacy rests on a few key claims:

• The entire system is structurally racist and must be dismantled.

• The evidence for this is disparate outcomes in education and employment.

• Discrimination based on skin color is not only permissible but necessary.

• Resources should be allocated according to race.

These tenets, once dismissed as fringe radicalism, have become institutional doctrine—so much so that ASU’s reliance on DEI-driven funding has now triggered an administrative panic in response to federal restrictions. It has caused despondent emails talking about how depressing life has become since 1/20. The question is no longer whether DEI is influential but how deeply it has reshaped the very definition of higher education.

The supposed proof for claim #1 is claim #2, but if you know even a modicum of logic, you can see that #1 does not follow from #2. Correlation is not causation, and disparities in outcomes do not automatically prove systemic racism—unless, of course, you start with that assumption and work backward. There are numerous alternative explanations for outcome disparities, but those are ignored because they fail to serve the ideological ends of DEI.

Not only that, but every institutional effort to “correct” #1 based on #2 has not only failed but has succeeded in only one thing: fostering deeper racial resentment. Instead of resolving disparities, these policies have made race the primary lens through which all social interactions must be filtered, ensuring that division, not justice, is the lasting legacy.

Then there’s #3—the demand for race-based decision-making—which, in any other context, would simply be called racism. These institutions insist we must judge individuals based on skin color, often stating it outright but even more often embedding it in policy and practice. When “racial consciousness” becomes the highest virtue, merit and fairness become secondary concerns, if they are considered at all.

Finally, #4 is not just ethically questionable—it’s illegal. Long before Trump issued his executive orders on DEI funding, existing state and federal anti-discrimination laws explicitly prohibited the kind of racial favoritism these policies endorse. That universities continue these practices so brazenly suggests they either assume immunity from legal consequences or, more likely, that they believe they can redefine the law to suit their ideology.

ASU’s panic over federal funding restrictions on DEI reveals just how deeply entrenched these ideologies are in the university’s structure. What was once framed as a noble effort to promote fairness has become an institutional dogma that demands racial discrimination, enforces ideological conformity, and ignores both logic and legality in its pursuit of power.

The irony, of course, is that these policies—supposedly designed to eliminate racial division—have instead reinforced it. And despite the repeated failures of DEI-driven reforms, the solution is always more of the same. If an idea collapses under scrutiny, change the definition. If a policy violates the law, redefine justice. If reality contradicts the ideology, dismiss reality.

In the video below, I break down exactly how ASU’s leadership has embedded DEI into its goals at the highest levels, how these policies function in practice, and what this means for the future of higher education. Watch and decide for yourself: Is this really about equity, or is it about something else entirely?