Was DEI a Conspiracy?

No and Yes

Conspiracies have a bad name because conspiracy is the first word in “conspiracy theory” and “everyone knows” conspiracy theories are the stuff of lunatics, demagogues, and the easily led. And lord knows, there are some wild conspiracy theories out there, which are beyond the scope of this essay.

But conspiracies really do happen, and, before the facts have been widely and publicly verified, it is possible to speculate or even believe that certain conspiracies have taken place. Two famous actual conspiracies include Nixon’s conspiracy to cover up the Watergate break-in and cigarette companies’ deception of the public about the dangers of smoking, though there are plenty more.

In this essay, I argue that, although installation of DEI bureaucracies and adoption of DEI policies was not a conspiracy, implementation of those policies, at least sometimes, involved a conspiracy.

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) was the hottest thing in academia from about 2018-2024 though its roots are earlier. I am not going to revisit the rhetoric around DEI (though go here or here for examples), but it promised to create a quasi-Utopian organizational culture where everyone was treated fairly, fair treatment led to oppressed groups no longer being oppressed, and everyone felt “included” and valued by the organization. Indeed, Rutgers DEI office still promises to create a “beloved” community, despite the faculty striking for the first time in 2023, the Faculty Senate voting No Confidence in the President of Rutgers, the faculty union voting to boycott Israel, requirements issued by the United States Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights in response to credible allegations that Rutgers failed to adequately address issues of antisemitism and anti-Palestinian harassment on campus.

Of course, like many Utopian delusions, DEI’s implementation was as much about demonization of "opponents and oppressors as “inclusion” of intended beneficiaries. For most of this period, it was held sacred throughout much of academia — challenge any of its core claims and your papers could be denounced and demonized, face calls for retraction, and you could even be ousted from your position (for examples, go here, here, here, or here).

Despite Trump’s attempt to extirpate DEI, to this day, there has been almost no serious debate within academia about it. There has been lots of outrage at Trump for doing this; there have been rallying cries to “defend our values” and the like. There are also more and more critics even within academia willing to go public. But there still has been almost nothing like a reasoned debate on the (de)merits let alone an ongoing one.¹

But now I want to turn to a particularly pernicious aspect of DEI per se, not the controversies. Was the widespread adoption and implementation of DEI a conspiracy? No (on widespread adoption) and yes (on implementation, at least sometimes). But before I get to that…

What is a Conspiracy?

Here is how Wikipedia describes/defines conspiracy:

A conspiracy, also known as a plot, ploy, or scheme, is a secret plan or agreement between people (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder, treason, or corruption, especially with a political motivation,^[2] while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it. In a political sense, conspiracy refers to a group of people united in the goal of subverting established political power structures.

Douglas & Sutton, in a 2022 review appearing in one of psychology’s outlets of record, the Annual Review of Psychology, defined conspiracy even more simply:

A conspiracy is a coordinated and concealed effort by two or more actors to bring about an outcome.

So now we have a standard against which to evaluate the questions of whether the widespread adoption and implementation of DEI was a conspiracy. Did two or more people secretly plan or coordinate their activities to bring about DEI or its goals in ways that were unethical and/or illegal?

Note that this standard has three key elements:

1. Engagement in something unethical or illegal

2. Cooperation to do so by two or more people

3. In secret.

Widespread Adoption

No. DEI was publicly adopted, often with great fanfare, at institutions of higher education. There were press releases, celebratory web pages, whole new bureaucratic units were installed. None of this was at all secret, so it completely fails as a conspiracy.

Implementation

Yes, at least in part.

Part I: Illegal Discrimination as Part of DEI

Some DEI programs (or universities infused with DEI rhetoric and policies) implemented preferential selection based on race, sex, and/or other demographic or identity characteristics for both admissions and hiring. Civil rights law and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibit discrimination based on race, sex, religion, ethnicity and a few other categories. So implementing, e.g., race or sex preferences is illegal.

From the 1964 Civil Rights Act:

It shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Admissions has now been completely settled by the SCOTUS Students for Fair Admissions decision. Harvard, UNC, and probably a host of other institutions not named in the suit engaged in illegal racial discrimination when they adopted lower admissions standards for racial, ethnic and religous groups progressives consider oppressed than for other groups.

Hiring has not been settled quite as definitively as far as I know. There are, so far, no court cases finding that some institution of higher education engaged in discrimination in hiring (if you know of any, let me know in the comments). One reason for this could be that there was none. Another reason could be that bringing suit is hard, time-consuming, and often expensive, so no one has bothered. Yet another reason could be that it is easier to hide discrimination in hiring than in admissions because so many more students are admitted than faculty hired. This mean there are vast reams of data on admissions but far less on faculty hiring, so if discrimination was occurring, it would be harder to detect. Last, one typically needs legal “standing” to sue; so if someone did not apply (e.g., because they saw the writing on the wall), a court could rule that they could not sue.

Just because there is no finding of discrimination does not mean it did not occur. According to ChatGPT over 40% of murders go unsolved; that does not mean they did not occur.

Michigan’s Hiring Was Impossible

There is an awful lot of circumstantial and incriminating evidence that at least some institutions did engage in demographic preferences, even in states where such preferences were banned by law (such as Michigan and California). For example, when the University of Michigan realized it had not succeeded at greatly increasing the proportion of underrepresented minorities on its faculty, as per an investigative story in the NYTimes, it embraced a massive DEI effort, complete with massive bureaucracy. And part of that involved creating a two-tiered system for hiring faculty. The normal system was through department decision-making, which obviously was not doing much for “equity” aka equal outcomes, or achieving “representation” comparable to some benchmark. So if, for example, Black people make up about 13% of the population of the U.S., but only 4% of the faculty at Michigan, then Black people are “underrepresented” and this implies the need to take significant steps to “rectify” the underrepresentation.

Enter the second tiered hiring system. In 2016, Michigan created its Collegiate Fellowship Program to hire postdocs but on a track to receive tenure track jobs. Applicants were hired through one of Michigan’s diversity advocacy bureaucratic units, the National Center for Institutional Diversity. As per the NYTimes report, of 49 people hired in this manner, over 80% were “people of color” (hence POC). Who counts as White can be complicated (e.g., in some counts, Latinos can be White; in others, they are not considered White). Regardless, at least 55% of the country is White (it may be as high as 70%, but a lower figure works AGAINST the conclusion I am about to reach, so I am being conservative). The probability of hiring 40 of 49 POC UMich Fellows, given that the country is 55% White, is effectively 0² — i.e., it is not possible assuming all else equal, including opportunity. And, of course, all else is not equal. White people make up more than 55% of the country and over 60% of the PhDs, which is relevant because you need a PhD to get a postdoctoral! fellowship.

Not Just Michigan

Of course, that is just the University of Michigan. But I suspect practices like this, some formal, some informal, were widespread. For example, NSF has a multimillion dollar program to fund universities creating creation of a pipeline of minority scholars to tenure track jobs. “If its illegal as you say,” you ask, “then how can this program exist?” First, I am no lawyer. I do believe its illegal based on a simple reading of the text of civil rights law. But perhaps I am missing something.

Alternatively, everything is “legal” unless you get caught in the sense that no person has legally committed at crime until someone is arrested and convicted. So, the answer to, “If they are illegal, how can they exist?” is, “They can exist until they are caught and a judge rules that what they did was illegal.” To get caught at something like this requires someone intervening, either by bringing a successful lawsuit, or by a higher level administrator ending the program (which Trump is trying to do, though his efforts have so far largely been blocked by judges).

So standard 1 for inferring a conspiracy — engaging in illegal behavior — seems likely to have been met, at least in some cases.

Part II: Cooperation among Two or More People

Colleges and universities are large, sometimes vast organizations. Under normal conditions, academic hiring and admissions requires cooperation by a lot of people — deans, DEI bureaucrats, department chairs, faculty. Essentially the same people need to be enlisted if hiring and admissions are to be corrupted to engage in illegal discrimination.

Thus, if illegal discrimination in hiring has occurred, the second standard — cooperation among two or more people — is clearly met.

Part III: Secrecy

The bureaucrat in charge of the UMich DEI program flatly denied (in the NYTimes report) engaging in racial discrimination:

In an interview, Chavous stressed that the program was carefully designed to comply with Proposal 2. “We wouldn’t even want to hire people because of their identities,” she said. “It’s about their skills and competencies.”

Proposal 2 was Michigan’s ban on the racial preference form of affirmative action, which passed in a statewide referendum. Implicitly, her argument then is that POC were “more competent” 40/49 times. If that was really true, one would not need any DEI bureaucracy or effort at all. Instead, one would merely need to focus on merit, and the cream would rise to the top.

Something smells pretty rotten in Michigan, though I have no idea whether this would be sufficient to win a discrimination lawsuit. Regardless, the juxtaposition of a DEI officer against her own argument for merit based hiring, is a bit of a spectacle because her rhetoric renders her job useless. The contradiction (between her rhetoric and her job) is only obvious if you juxtapose them for more than 10 seconds.

But wait, there’s more.

As I described here “diversity” has two meanings: 1. variety; 2. membership in oppressed or underrepresented groups. When academics use the term “diversity” they use it almost exclusively in the second sense — underrepresented or oppressed groups. So if one is advancing DEI, one is advancing underrepresented or oppressed groups. Although it might be possible to do this without engaging in illegal discrimination, at mininum, it encourages outright discrimination and preferential selection in hiring and admissions because preferential selection is the quickest route to “advancing” DEI.

Because this is stuff “everyone knows,” no one has to say “let’s engage in race or sex preferences.” They just “advance diversity,” rhetoric which can effectively camouflage illegal discrimination. And this is all over academia.

And then there is this, by a Berkeley Law Dean. It is under 2 minutes, you should watch/listen to the whole thing:

Quoting:

If ever I am deposed, I am going to deny I said this to you. When we do faculty hiring, I am conscious of the fact that diversity is important to us. We say diversity is important, its fine to say that. But I am very careful when I have a faculty appointments committee meeting … Anytime somebody says we should really prefer this candidate over that candidate because this person will add diversity, DON’T SAY THAT! You can think it, you can vote it, but our discussions are not privileged, so don’t ever articulate that that’s what you’re doing. That works more easily with regard to faculty hiring. With student admissions, its more difficult because there is a statistical measure.”

Now, in fairness, this video is only an example of a dean advocating for a conspiracy to engage in illegal discrimination. It is not the conspiracy itself. But if one takes his presentation at face value, we have ample evidence at least sometimes, and perhaps quite often, illegal group preferences were camouflaged to prevent the public and other government officials from knowing that is what is occurring.

Implementation of DEI Goals Has Likely Sometimes Been a Real Conspiracy

Implementation of DEI goals, especially the “equity” goal in hiring, was likely done through actual low-to-mid-level conspiracies. To the extent that DEI goals involved illegal preferences based on demographic or identity characteristics granted civil rights protections, low-level conspiracies were needed to promote them. The President hires a DEI office of advocate at a high level (say, VP or provost or some such). The DEI office/advocate “works with” departments to ensure they understand just how important DEI is to the university. Departments learn, perhaps through back-channels, that they will be more able to hire if they “advance diversity” — and the university pulls out the stops to hire “diverse” candidates.

And then there is this smoking gun at Columbia as reported by a pro-Columbia group whose newsletter I subscribe to. They are discussing how and why Columbia is in the crosshairs of the Trump administration and this is one reason:

Race-based hiring practices. We actually believe these may be of even greater risk under the Trump administration than failing to discipline protestors. Columbia has used tools and rubrics that mathematically preference candidates based on race and minority status, which have since been taken offline but could still be scrutinized. Other universities are already starting to face a wave of lawsuits on these topics.

So let’s return to the simple definition of conspiracy:

A conspiracy is a coordinated and concealed effort by two or more actors to bring about an outcome (often, an illegal or unethical one).

The implementation of DEI at individual colleges and universities, to the extent that it involved two or more people planning to violate civil rights protections against race, sex, ethnic, and religious discrimination, and to the extent that it was done in a secretive manner (as advocated by the Berkeley Dean), was definitely a conspiracy.

But it gets better (or worse, depending on your view).

Conspiracy to Engage in Illegal Discrimination is a Felony

It is a felony to conspire to deprive others of their Constitutional rights and the Trump administration has invoked the relevant law (18 U.S.C. § 241) in its guidance on combating campus antisemitism. From the law:

Section 241 makes it unlawful for two or more persons to agree to injure, threaten, or intimidate a person in the United States in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States or because of his or her having exercised such a right.

Unlike most conspiracy statutes, §241 does not require, as an element, the commission of an overt act.

The offense is always a felony, even if the underlying conduct would not, on its own, establish a felony violation of another criminal civil rights statute. It is punishable by up to ten years imprisonment

Clearly, the Trump administration is aware of 18 U.S.C. § 241, but it only referenced it in its antisemitism guidance. Trump did not reference it in his Executive Order on DEI. Whether they plan to deploy it to go after DEI at some colleges or universities remains to be seen.

The Death of Julius Caesar, Heinrich Fuger 1818.

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Footnotes

1. No reasoned debate on the (de)merits of DEI. There has been none in any academic professional society of which I am aware, with one exception: SOIBS, of which I am one of 9 co-founders held just such a debate.

2. The UMich probability is effectively zero. This is a fairly simple binomial probability calculation, but I did it the easy way, with this online calculator. I rigged it to give me the probability of hiring 40/49 POC. .45 is 45% which is a very high estimate for the proportion of the USA that are POC (this works AGAINST the anti-White discrimination hypothesis compared to using a lower number, which would probably be more accurate but I like stacking the deck against my hypothesis here). As per the NYTimes article, there were 49 positions filled by 40 POC. Thus “number of trials” is 49 and “number of successes” is 40. Hiring a POC is a statistical “success” here because I am estimating the probability of this happening all else equal. So the calculator returns the value, circled in red at the bottom that is the probability of hiring 40 or more POC for 49 positions, if they each had a 45% chance of being hired. The calculator only produces probability estimates to five decimal places. Its pretty damn near 0.