Talent Laundering

Bureaucracy is extraordinarily difficult to knock out, especially when it preys on rich, failing institutions.

Bureaucracy is nothing if not persistent.

The Trump Administration is leaning on universities, big and small, private and public. One of the key demands is to eliminate DEI programs. Here’s NPR:

‘The U.S. Department of Education has launched investigations into 52 universities in 41 states, accusing the schools of using "racial preferences and stereotypes in education programs and activities."

‘On Friday, the department's Office of Civil Rights said that 45 schools, particularly their graduate programs, violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act by partnering with The PhD Project, a nonprofit that helps students from underrepresented groups earn doctoral degrees in business. The program focuses on supporting Black, Latino and Native American students.

‘The Education Department alleges that The PhD Project limits eligibility based on the race of participants, and therefore, universities involved with the organization are engaging in "race-exclusionary practices."

‘"Students must be assessed according to merit and accomplishment, not prejudged by the color of their skin. We will not yield on this commitment," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement.’

On the face of it, who could disagree with “diversity” or “inclusion” or “fairness.”

What? Are you promoting exclusion instead? Are you opposed to diversity? You want to have a culture made up of people who look exactly the same? Opposed to fairness? What do you propose instead? Hiring a bunch of nepo babies? What do you think this is? Hollywood?

That’s the beauty of things like DEI. They are the ultimate ideological Trojan Horse. DEI appears to be one thing when, in fact, it is something unrelated and different. Quoth the Raven has strong opinions about what it is in practice.

‘Among its many disguises, socialism cloaks itself in the mantle of ideals that many people value such as the ideals of justice and equality before the law. Speaking of the anthropomorphism that ascribes “justice” to the distribution of wealth that results from market interactions, Hayek in his essay “Social or Distributive Justice,” warns:

‘”I believe that ‘social justice’ will ultimately be recognized as a will-‘o-the-wisp which has lured men to abandon many of the values which in the past have inspired the development of civilization.”’

I looked up “will-o’-the-wisp” in OneLook: “(idiomatic) A delusionary or otherwise unachievable goal that one feels compelled to pursue.”

In practice, debating critical race theory is impossible. The other side sets the table in such a way that any rational discourse is deemed invalid by the assumptions Team DEI makes. They demand the unilateral disarmament of any opposition.

In other words, when faced with logical rebuttal, their response is as intellectually sophisticated as, bounces off of me and sticks to you!

‘Equality policies often substitute the notion of racial conflict for Marxist notions of class conflict and disguise their Marxist roots by adopting words like “diversity, equity, and inclusiveness” or the new terminology of “community, opportunity, and belonging.” To illustrate the influence of Marxist thought on racial equality debates, a good example is one of the doctrines of Marxism described by Mises:

‘”[Marxism] denied that Logic is universally valid for all mankind and for all ages … Thought, it stated, was determined by the class of the thinkers; was in fact an “ideological superstructure” of their class interests. The type of reasoning which had refused the socialist idea was “revealed” as “bourgeois” reasoning, an apology for Capitalism.”

‘Following the same reasoning, critical race theories deny that logic is universally valid for all races. They substitute “race” for “class” directly mapping racial concerns onto Marxist class concerns. They declare that anything written by white people is about “white interests,” is based on “white reasoning,” and is, in fact, an apology for colonialism.

‘Just as Marxism claims “class conditions thought,” so they argue that race conditions thought. They say economics is “white,” having been “created” by white economists, therefore, black economists such as Thomas Sowell or Walter E. Williams are merely reflecting “white” economics and ought, therefore, to be disregarded by black readers. Their argument is that economics is based on “racist” reasoning which does not apply when racial minorities or their antiracist “allies” are in charge. Any counter arguments can, conveniently, be dismissed as “whiteness.” It follows that, just as – according to Marxism – the interests of the working class can never be unified with the interests of the bourgeoisie, so the interests of the white and black can never be unified.’

Is it any wonder that we have replaced discrimination based on economic class as the attack vector for this dominance-seeking movement with discrimination based on race? Marxism was never motivated by either bane; it was always about control.

In other words, if you can’t seize power by rallying the envy of the lower classes (many of whom voted for the sitting capitalist President), then you might as well go with Plan B, exploiting people’s natural antipathy to the scourge of racial discrimination. Et voila!

DEI in higher education (or any education, for that matter) is an important channel in this regard. You’ve got to get ‘em while they’re young. It certainly doesn’t hurt that universities sit on a ton of their own money. More importantly, universities have built-in access to government funding.

Revolutions are expensive, after all.

Here’s an example of how this works in practice. The Stanford Law School Federalist Society chapter invited Judge Kyle Duncan from the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals to address them. He ran into a buzzsaw. That’s to be expected in this day and age. They’re children. When one protester screamed, as he entered the classroom, “We hope your daughters get raped!”, well, that’s the kind of nihilist claptrap that kills on the Stanford Law School application, one presumes.

But it gets better. Duncan’s oped piece in the Wall Street Journal is striking for its incredulous tone.

‘Enter Tirien Steinbach, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion. Ms. Steinbach and (I later learned) other administrators were watching from the periphery. She hadn’t introduced herself to me. She asked to address the students.

‘Something felt off. I asked her to tell the students their infantile behavior was inappropriate. She insisted she wanted to talk to all of us. Students began screaming, and I reluctantly gave way. Whereupon Ms. Steinbach opened a folio, took out a printed sheaf of papers, and delivered a six-minute speech addressing the question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

‘What could that mean? While the students rhythmically snapped, Ms. Steinbach attempted to explain. My “work,” she said, “has caused harm.” It “feels abhorrent” and “literally denies the humanity of people.” My presence put Ms. Steinbach in a tough spot, she said, because her job “is to create a space of belonging for all people” at Stanford. She assured me I was “absolutely welcome in this space” because “me and many people in this administration do absolutely believe in free speech.” I didn’t feel welcome—who would? And she repeated the cryptic question: “Is the juice worth the squeeze?”

‘I asked again what she meant, and she finally put the question plainly: Was my talk “worth the pain that this causes and the division that this causes?” Again she asserted her belief in free speech before equivocating: “I understand why people feel like the harm is so great that we might need to reconsider those policies, and luckily, they’re in a school where they can learn the advocacy skills to advocate for those changes.” Then she turned the floor back over to me, while hoping I could “learn too” and “listen through your partisan lens, the hyperpolitical lens.” In closing, she said: “I look out and I don’t ask, ‘What’s going on here?’ I look out and I say, ‘I’m glad this is going on here.’ ” This is on video, and the entire event is on audio, in case you’re wondering.’

This was an ambush, of course. He didn’t get more than a minute into his speech before she concluded that it was time for, as he calls it, the struggle session to begin.

How is reconsidering freedom of speech in what is purportedly one of the great law schools of the land consistent with US government policy? No wonder the Administration is cracking down on DEI.

Here’s the thing. DEI isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s just changing its name. Harvard is changing the name of the “Office for Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging” to “Community and Campus Life.” The Harvard Gazette has an interview with Sherri Charleston, Chief Community and Campus Life Officer:

‘Over the past five years, we have evolved to direct a variety of services on campus. I started in 2020 as the chief diversity and inclusion officer, leading the Office for Diversity, Inclusion, & Belonging. Given the high-level outcomes of the last Pulse Survey, President Garber decided to rename the portfolio to Community and Campus Life to align with its current focus — building community and increasing belonging. As we administered the Pulse Survey again last fall and considered the best way to communicate all the services we offer, it seemed like the right time to adjust my title to better reflect what the offices under my direction do for our campus community.‘

It's not just Harvard. Here’s Michigan in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

‘Despite the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s decision on Thursday to close its diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, one dean told his colleagues over the weekend that he has no intention of ending DEI.

‘“Diversity, equity, and inclusion will continue at the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design because our academic program and DEI initiatives are legally compliant, in alignment with our university values, and an extension of the mission of our school,” Carlos F. Jackson, who is also a tenured professor in the school, wrote.’

There’s official policy and then there’s what actually happens.

Bureaucracy is persistent. Knocking it out is a game of administrative whack-a-mole requiring continuous vigilance for flare-ups after leadership thinks they have put out the fire. Don’t count DEI out anytime soon. The money and the influence are too good to give up without a fight.

The DEI mafias at our leading universities love the money and the influence. More importantly, it is a prime location for embedding what Rob K. Henderson calls “luxury beliefs:”

“I came to Yale to major in psychology, but my curiosity soon overflowed the boundaries of my degree. In my attempt to understand class distinctions, I spent a lot of time thinking and reading about class divides and social hierarchies, and compared what I’d learnt with my experiences on campus. Gradually, I developed the concept of “luxury beliefs”, which are ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class at very little cost, while often inflicting costs on the lower classes.” [emphasis added]

It’s like the old joke.

Reporter: “Why do you rob banks?”

Bank Robber: “Because that’s where the money is.”

If you want to mold the elite of tomorrow, you go to where they are and shape them while they’re malleable.

University DEI, for all its facial nobility of intent, is a mechanism for sucking influence and money out of its host, ironically weakened by its own incumbent bureaucratic structures, even as it enables manipulation of the future elite.

Perhaps DEI’s ascent is a symptom of the broader institutional failure of the contemporary university.

The Harvard Crimson tells us that the kids aren’t studying like they used to.

‘“Many Harvard College students do not prioritize their courses and some view extensive extracurricular commitments as a more fulfilling, meaningful, and useful allocation of their time,” the report’s authors wrote. “Most faculty view student curricular disengagement with alarm.”’

Think about that. For those who are ostensibly the best and brightest, it’s more important for one’s career to focus on networking and clubs than on school. A writing instructor from SMU has a theory.

‘Once students graduate, the jobs they most ardently desire are in what they proudly call the “sellout” fields of finance, consulting and tech. To outsiders, these industries are abstract and opaque, trading on bluster and jargon. One thing is certain, though: That’s where the money is.

‘All in all, it looks as if success follows not from knowledge and skill but from luck, hype and access to the right companies. If this is the economy students believe they’re entering, then why should they make the effort to read? For that matter, how will any effort in school prepare them for careers in which, apparently, effort is not rewarded?’

By this logic, university admissions notifications in the senior year of high school are the real life incarnation of the scene in a dystopian novel in which the children find out where on Huxley’s social alpha-epsilon spectrum they fall.

The pro move here is to get accepted to Harvard or Stanford to acquire the mark, do a semester (or two) to seed your network, and then withdraw to start your own venture-backed company.

I mean, it worked for Elizabeth Holmes. She knew how to monetize her acceptance letter efficiently.

What’s worse is that students don’t seem to be able to read as much as students in prior cohorts. This is from a provocative article in The Atlantic (arousing for its location, as much for its content).

‘Nicholas Dames has taught Literature Humanities, Columbia University’s required great-books course, since 1998. He loves the job, but it has changed. Over the past decade, students have become overwhelmed by the reading. College kids have never read everything they’re assigned, of course, but this feels different. Dames’s students now seem bewildered by the thought of finishing multiple books a semester. His colleagues have noticed the same problem. Many students no longer arrive at college—even at highly selective, elite colleges—prepared to read books.

‘This development puzzled Dames until one day during the fall 2022 semester, when a first-year student came to his office hours to share how challenging she had found the early assignments. Lit Hum often requires students to read a book, sometimes a very long and dense one, in just a week or two. But the student told Dames that, at her public high school, she had never been required to read an entire book. She had been assigned excerpts, poetry, and news articles, but not a single book cover to cover.’

Even more alarmingly, they’re using AI to do their work for them. The Chronicle for Higher Education reports:

‘Beth McMurtrie Well, you know, I’ve been noticing a lot of really significant changes in classroom dynamics since the pandemic hit. And one of the things I had been hearing from professors was this explosive use of AI in unauthorized ways in their classrooms. You know, students were using AI not only to significantly help them with their papers, but even with short assignments, you know, multiple choice exams, discussion board posts, things like that. And it was really overwhelming a lot of instructors in the classroom. But also I’d been hearing from students something that I found fascinating, which is that during the pandemic, when a lot of classes went online in high school, cheating became kind of normal. Students found it really easy to look up answers on Google. This was, you know, pre-ChatGPT, but students found it really easy to look up answers on Google. And I think sort of cheating begat cheating. And students sort of felt like it was no longer inappropriate to cheat in their classes and that carried over into the college setting. And I’d also heard, interestingly, that some campuses were wrestling with whether or not their honor codes had any meaning anymore.’

What exactly is the point of college anyway? Is it to demonstrate that you know how to use ChatGPT?

Diluting the whisky even further is the rampant grade inflation at these institutions, even as the students do less work (and less of their own work). Arbitrage!

Here’s the New York Times talking to Their Crowd.

‘Nearly 80 percent of all grades given to undergraduates at Yale last academic year were A’s or A minuses, part of a sharp increase that began during the coronavirus pandemic and appears to have stuck, according to a new report.

‘The mean grade point average was 3.7 out of 4.0, also an increase over prepandemic years.’

In fairness, some courses are easier than others.

‘To many Yale students, the report was unsurprising.

‘Some noted the divide between science and math classes and those in the humanities. Less than 65 percent of grades in economics, mathematics and chemistry, for instance, were A’s or A minuses, compared to more than 80 percent of grades in English, African American studies and the humanities.

‘“It is a different academic experience,” said Jonah Heiser, 20, a mechanical engineering major, adding, “There’s a common understanding that they’re kind of different scales.”’

Maybe this is one reason why there is a tidal rush into Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math away from the humanities. Students have intuited the need to show that they have some substance, that they had a cognizable university experience, that they didn’t get dressed up for nothing, as they say.

“Fewer than one in ten students graduate with a humanities degree.”

The humanities are ground zero for DEI, post-modern textual deconstruction, and all manner of pseudointellectual sophistry. Jacques Derrida was the anti-Christ heralding the end times for common sense in our putative betters.

We’ve written previously about Michael Spence’s signaling theory.

‘Education credentials can be used as a signal to the firm, indicating a certain level of ability that the individual may possess; thereby narrowing the informational gap.’

Make no mistake, there is a signal, just not the one that employers might assume.

Hiring managers might think that demonstrating the ability to attend class (meetings), pass courses (write reports), and engage with ideas (think strategically) signal suitability for employment. But the truth is more likely that a university degree (and most critically the name on the diploma) denotes something else. Simon Kuper from the FT nails the depiction of the current situation.

‘Universities such as Bologna (founded 1088), the Sorbonne (1253) and Harvard (1636) are among the oldest functioning institutions in their countries. They’ll survive. But they may be shrinking into signifiers of class, diploma factories, fun parks and networking clubs.’

A degree from Harvard is the Birkin bag of social accomplishment. It is no wonder all the beautiful people were trying to bribe officials to admit their children. They understood that matriculation was the ultimate status marker (for them as much as for their kids).

DEI is the pivotal bureaucratic bottleneck in this conception. The apparatchiks of political correctness are the gatekeepers for future status. Students for Fair Admissions is fighting uphill.

Team DEI is not going to go gently into the good night.

The purpose of a system is what it does. Universities are weakening in their role as institutions that identify and cultivate intellect and character. Instead, they have become talent laundering mills, charging exorbitant fees to individuals who want to claim the university’s brand as its own. Given this failing dynamic, it’s only natural that bureaucracy has emerged to fill the void with managerialist Marxism in the form of DEI. It will be extraordinarily difficult to dislodge DEI. DEI is a fantastic example of bureaucratic persistence.

When it comes to bureaucracy, it’s like Tupac said, “as wars come and go, my soldier stays eternal.”

An interesting corollary of this theory is that an institution’s level of DEI implementation is directly proportional to its own sense of status. You aren’t going to find nearly as much of this stuff at public schools or schools in the South.

It’s a luxury they don’t aspire to afford.

Columbia University has out-of-control protests while the schools of the SEC have football games and sorority fundraisers. The math they teach is the same, though.