There is a war being waged against DEI. We're going to talk about the antagonists in this war and some of the tools they're using to wage it. But before we do so, it's important to reflect on the stakes. And to do that, we should consider for a moment what DEI is.
DEI is a value system. It is a set of values that, when practiced, both expand and elavate our consciousness as human beings, and move us in the direction of becoming better moral actors in a society we share with other people.
How does it do this? By making us more aware. More tolerant. More understanding. More compassionate. More empathetic.
If you were to write out the top 10 human virtues, it's is likely that at least some of these words would be on your list.
DEI is anti-venom to the poison of tribalism. Our brains are wired to constantly be on the alert for potential threats. We fear the unknown and the unfamiliar. So when we see someone who doesn't look like us, or who doesn't talk like us, or who lives differently from us, there is an instinct to retreat back into the comfort and safety of our own group.
The problem is that's a reptilian response, not a civilized one; and, if we give in to it, we are now separated into groups - us and them, us and them. Once so positioned, it takes just a nudge - from a demagouge, from an algrothim - to change us and them to us versus them.
DEI is a countermeasure to that. It teaches us how to co-exist without conflict. But even more importantly, it builds bonds betweeen people, bonds of respect, loyalty, affection and sometimes even love. Who could possibly have a problem with that?
Well, we're lawyers, so we're trained to answer such questions. Probably there are government actors in Vladamir Putin's Russia, or Xi's China, whose job it is to sow as much discord and division in the American body politic as they can. I get it. That's geopolitics.
But that's not where the threat to DEI is coming from. It's coming from here. From people in this Country who have ascended to positions of political power, and who are using every tool in Article II and the statutory law to suppress, stamp out and destroy DEI wherever they find it.