You might well wonder, as I did, why Republicans in Congress were conducting hearings about anti-Semitism in our nation’s elite private universities. That is normally the job of the Office of Civil Rights in the U.S. Department of Education. Historically and recently, Republicans have not been known as a party that worries overmuch about anti-Semitism or other forms of bigotry.
As a matter of fact, as this article in The Hill shows, the Republicans’ real concern is to stamp out DEI programs (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in higher education. Two of the three elite university presidents who were grilled by Rep. Elise Stefanik resigned, and she crowed about her victory. The conservative media treated Harvard University President Claudine Gay as an unqualified diversity hire. Liz Magill of the University of Pennsylvania also resigned after the hearing.
From the article:
Republicans say their departures are just the beginning of needed reforms at the schools.
“This is only among the very first steps on a very long road to recovering or returning to higher education its true and original purposes, which is truth-seeking,” said Jay Greene, senior research fellow in the Center for Education Policy at the Heritage Foundation.
Conservatives cheered the departures, which came after the two, as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sally Kornbluth, faced questions on campus antisemitism before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Neither Elise Stefanik nor Jay Greene has shown interest in anti-Semitism in the past, to my knowledge. Neither issued statements to denounce the young fascists who marched with tiki torches in Charlottesville and chanted “The Jews will not replace us.” If they reacted to the slaughter of Jews at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, I am not aware of it.
An even bigger joke is for anyone at the Heritage Foundation to celebrate “truth-seeking,” when Heritage oversaw planning for the next term of Donald Trump, who has a well-documented record of telling thousands of lies. Heritage Foundation, clean your own house. Before you lecture others about “truth-seeking,” look in the mirror.
“Two down. One to go,” tweeted committee member Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). “Accountability is coming.”
“The long overdue forced resignations of former Presidents Claudine Gay and Liz Magill are just the beginning of the tectonic consequences from their historic morally bankrupt testimony to my questions,” Stefanik added in a statement to The Hill, mentioning an official probe into the schools that the panel has announced.
“The investigation will address all aspects of a fundamentally broken and corrupt higher education system — antisemitism on campus, taxpayer funded aid, foreign aid, DEI, accreditation, academic integrity, and governance,” she said, using an acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion programs…
But their biggest target recently has been DEI programs, making the case that they have been more harmful than helpful to students…
Greene said he is hopeful “additional people are going to have to be removed, both leaders of universities and their underlings, because they’re also significant actors in this. It’s not just at the top, but it’s kind of throughout these institutions.”
He also specifically called for the dismantling of DEI efforts on campus and disciplines such as gender studies, another popular GOP target.
Such efforts have been in motion long before the shake-ups at UPenn and Harvard.
In Texas, a law banning diversity programs at public universities took effect in the new year. And last year, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) also signed a bill to defund DEI programs at public universities. …
A tracker by the Chronicle of Higher Education last year found 40 bills had been introduced in states across the country to try to restrict DEI programs, diversity statements and mandatory diversity training at schools.
It’s disgusting to see a feigned concern about anti-Semitism used as a stalking horse to dismantle DEI programs and as a pretext for inserting Big government into the policy making process in private higher education.
As long as Republicans control either House of Congress, we can anticipate the rise of a new McCarthyism, purging the curriculum and professors.
At last, Rep. Stefanik, have you no shame?
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Steve Bannon infamously stated that the goal was to fill the room with s#$%. This is what is happening among a vocal minority attacking higher education. What Bannon and his minions don’t seem to understand is that excrement makes an excellent fertilizer. What those of u who see this attack on D.E.I. as nonsense should do, a majority by the way, is respond with the opportunities we have before us rather than cowering in the fear mongering. That way the fertilizer will grow mighty oaks resistant to such repugnant propaganda.
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Only the voters can stop the fascist machine that the Republican Party has become. Since they have a bottomless bucket full of dark money to fund their propaganda and endless manipulation and lies, there’s no stopping them any other way.
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I would like to see more articles and evidence/stories of the benefits of DEI. Why are they against Diversity and equity in education? We need more stories of how diversity programs have helped students to succeed.
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Why are they against Diversity and equity in education?
Because they are racist pieces of ____ like Trump who cannot stand to see a nonwhite person succeed at anything. It drove Trump (and a lot of Republicans) CRAZY that a black man was elected president. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know, Mr. Jordan.
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But I don’t think all of the republicans are racist just misinformed. To change people’s minds, you have to engage them (not the extremists). DEI helps students of color and poor and doesn’t take anything away from those white or Asian students who don’t need help. These kinds of stories of success need to be in the media.
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The Heritage Foundation seekers of truth?
They’re the ones writing the 2025 Plan for fascism in America. Read it and weep for the end of a democratic nation.
Click to access 2025_MandateForLeadership_FULL.pdf
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This plan starts with a paragraph containing this sentence:
Indeed, one set of eyes reading these passages will be those of the 47th President of the United States
I guess that means that they do NOT expect Donald Trump to become president. If he were president, they would have to turn the report into a big picture book with five or six words per page to be read aloud to him and mostly talking about the awesomeness of Donald Trump. That’s what people doing briefings of this MORON had to do.
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