«I have a dream; a dream that all people — human, Jem’Hadar, Ferengi, Cardassians — will someday stand together in peace … around my Dabo tables.»
Quark, with the Ferengie version of Martin Luther Kings Dream, in Star Trek DS9: «The Search»
Pretty much without comment: Niall Ferguson on U.S. College Campuses: «Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is the path to hell» (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3H7wXi4vQE)
or as transcript:
So we have to, in this country, this is really important, realize the path to hell for universities has a sign that reads diversity, equity, inclusion.
And you have to understand that. I’m sorry because I know these words sound nice and nobody wants to be against them, but I have to tell you that in George Orwell’s 1984 words mean the opposite of what they appear to mean.
So what does equity and inclusion turn out to mean at Harvard was uniformity of thought, no equity, no due process for anybody who fell foul of the inquisition, and exclusion of conservatives and indeed anybody who is deemed to be too far to the right, including classical liberals.
So British universities, British schools, please heed my warning.
There is no excuse for making these mistakes when they’ve already been made in America over the past ten years and the consequences are plain for all to see.
If any institution that you’re involved with is doing this stuff, point out where it led Harvard.
When I went to Harvard in 2004, I was extremely excited, it was the best university in the world and I really felt that I had arrived.
Larry Summers was president, it was intellectually a vibrant place.
Fast forward to 2023-24 and it’s a laughing stock.
If that’s what you’d like to happen to Oxford and Cambridge, then proceed down the DEI path.
But it is a path to hell and I can’t emphasize enough the mentable folly of repeating mistakes when they so obviously have these consequences.
I feel passionately about this because I was a lucky young person, I got to think freely, speak freely, take risks in classrooms, say dumb stuff in tutorials, write stupid stuff in student magazines without the thought police, without the social media, without that sense that there would be terrible irreparable consequences for my entire life.
Today’s 18, 19, 20, 21 year olds who are in undergraduate programs in the US live in a climate that’s almost like a totalitarian light, fearful of what their comrades may say to the high authorities, worrying if the dean for student affairs or the vice provost for this or that or the diversity, equity, inclusion officer will send them the dread email saying would you please report there’s going to be an investigation into the party that you held in which somebody wore an inappropriate costume.
That stuff is like something out of Stalin’s Soviet Union.
The secret letter of denunciation, I had one read to me once, it’s sick and we’ve allowed it to happen in the greatest universities in North America, don’t let have it happen here because young people have a profound entitlement to free thought.
They have a right to be able to say stupid stuff.
That’s the only way you learn.
I have said a lot of wrong things.
I’ve published articles that were completely wrong.
You’ve got to be willing to take some intellectual risk to arrive at truth.
That’s why we say the fearless pursuit of truth because you have to take some risk.
There’s no risk in academic life anymore in America.
Nobody dares step out of line.
That’s so sad.
I would never have thought that would happen because I thought, I thought that that stuff happened in totalitarian regimes when there was a dictator in place.
That in a free society people could volunteer to write letters of denunciation about their classmates.
I never thought that could happen and yet it has.
That’s been one of the biggest surprises and disappointments of my life.
Niall Ferguson on U.S. College Campuses: «Diversity, Equity and Inclusion is the path to hell»
And yeah, totally agree and that is a warning we should heed in Germany as well.