Would you support requiring a pledge of allegiance to a particular political party or ideology before conference attendees made their presentations?
This is surprisingly close.
The issue at stake is more abstract than American racism. This is a dangerous precedent.
And it requires some itchy mental gymnastics. Thinking about and encouraging diversity and inclusion through action is great. Forcing people to do it seems specifically contrary to the abstract goals of diversity and inclusion! Said another way: Is the point of these statements to increase or decrease the intellectual diversity of discourse?
Agreed. And the whole style, wording, method is dumb.
> intellectual diversity of discourse
The goal is clearly to reduce a certain part of the "thought space" (intellectual diversity), in particular the goal is to weed out anti-racist thoughts.
I guess they think of this as public health thinks of pathogens. Diversity of species is great but we still want less of pathogens.
What these people seemingly have no idea about, is that populist xenophobic movements can start, spread and become popular at no time. And obviously (?) the way to contain them is not with preemptive firebombing of academia, but by strengthening the ideals of equity, and the institutions themselves that implement those ideals. Make them shining beacons of good. The first criterion for that is efficiency, transparency, etc.
This is surprisingly close.
The issue at stake is more abstract than American racism. This is a dangerous precedent.
And it requires some itchy mental gymnastics. Thinking about and encouraging diversity and inclusion through action is great. Forcing people to do it seems specifically contrary to the abstract goals of diversity and inclusion! Said another way: Is the point of these statements to increase or decrease the intellectual diversity of discourse?