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cover of episode Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.

Trump’s Boogeyman: D.E.I.

2025/2/7
logo of podcast The New Yorker Radio Hour

The New Yorker Radio Hour
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The initial weeks of the Trump administration saw attacks on academia, journalism, and diversity initiatives. Jelani Cobb discusses the resulting fears within academia, including concerns about funding, political pressure, and the potential targeting of faculty researching sensitive topics. The vulnerability of untenured faculty and the uncertainty surrounding administrative support are highlighted.
  • Concerns about funding for research on sensitive topics.
  • Political pressure on untenured junior faculty.
  • Fear of becoming a target for negative news stories.
  • Uncertainty about administrative support for faculty researching unpopular topics.
  • Concerns about endowment taxes, foreign student visas, and the withholding of federal funding for institutions perceived as discriminatory.

Shownotes Transcript

Many of the most draconian measures implemented in the first couple weeks of the new Trump Administration have been justified as emergency actions to root out D.E.I.—diversity, equity, and inclusion—including the freeze (currently rescinded) of trillions of dollars in federal grants. The tragic plane crash in Washington, the President baselessly suggested, might also be the result of D.E.I. Typically, D.E.I. describes policies at large companies or institutions to encourage more diverse workplaces. In the Administration’s rhetoric, D.E.I. is discrimination pure and simple, and the root of much of what ails the nation. “D.E.I. is the boogeyman for anything,” Jelani Cobb) tells David Remnick. Cobb is a longtime staff writer, and the dean of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. “If there’s a terrible tragedy . . . if there is something going wrong in any part of your life, if there are fires happening in California, then you can bet that, somehow, another D.E.I. is there.” Although affirmative-action policies in university admissions were found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, D.E.I. describes a broad array of actions without a specific definition. “It’s that malleability,” Cobb reflects, that makes D.E.I. a useful target, “one source that you can use to blame every single failing or shortcoming or difficulty in life on.”