ByJanice Gassam Asare, Ph.D.,
Senior Contributor.
Recently, President Trump stated that civil rights-era protections led to white people being “very badly treated.” New York Times White House correspondent Erica L. Green reported that Trump stated, “White people were very badly treated, where they did extremely well and they were not invited to go into a university to college,” and went on to say, “So I would say in that way, I think it was unfair in certain cases.” His statements add to the litany of criticism and anti-DEI legislation that has cropped up in recent years. But despite the commonly held belief that DEI and other related programs designed to address systemic inequities are causing anti-white discrimination, a new report suggests that the removal of DEI-related policies in higher education may actually have a detrimental effect on white men.
Opponents of DEI have long argued that it reinforces the unfair practice of giving “unqualified” minority applicants opportunities in the form of jobs or college admissions that should, instead, be awarded solely based on a person’s merit. By this logic, if DEI was nothing more than unqualified non-white candidates getting unearned opportunities, then the removal of DEI programs should result in increased white representation. There is already evidence indicating that the removal of affirmative action in higher education has led to a decrease in Black and Hispanic student enrollment, but according to the Hechinger Report, the removal of DEI programs within colleges and universities may also hurt white male enrollment rates.
