Advocates for Equality Must Emerge from the Bunker and Speak Up

I recently toured the now-defunct Project Greek Island at the Greenbrier Resort. Built in 1958, this top-secret government facility was a fortified bunker into which the U.S. Congress would relocate in the event of a national emergency, i.e., nuclear war.

Today, advocates for equality and fair, non-discriminatory competition for positions in schools or the workplace hide in another kind of bunker. They shelter in place avoiding the DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) storm. They are safe from being looked upon by their peers with faux moral revulsion, being labelled a racist or a Neanderthal for not pledging fealty to the 21^st Century diversity movement. But their bunker is one of silence, not concrete. And it is only a matter of time before the risk they are avoiding reaches them.

The quest to expand the American Dream to all Americans has made progress. Sometimes, it is organic as people are exposed to those with different backgrounds and ethnicities. Other advancements required legal or political action. President Truman desegregated the armed services. President Eisenhower desegregated the federal workplace. The Supreme Court desegregated public schools. Congress passed laws in the 1960s that ensured de jure non-discrimination in many facets of American life.

Disturbingly, the movement toward harmony has morphed into a campaign that promotes racial stereotyping and drives us apart. As early as kindergarten, children are grouped by race for certain activities and lessons. In higher education, students are placed in affinity groups—Newspeak for segregation.

In short, DEI adherents are echoing the 1950s rhetoric of the opponents to integrated schools: people of different races learn better in separate environments where they can be their true selves. How is this diversity and inclusion?

Like the Cold War that necessitated a bunker in West Virginia, I thought the Red Scare-inspired loyalty oaths to root out communists were in history’s dustbin. Not true. Despite a prohibition against political tests for employment in the California public college system, at U.C. Davis, for example, the application for a faculty position as a surgical oncologist requires a “Statement of Contributions to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” while a statement of research or teaching is optional.

Thankfully, a return to fairness is on the march. Do No Harm, a non-profit organization fighting identity politics in medicine has filed civil rights complaints and lawsuits attacking, among other things, racial quotas on medical boards and discriminatory hiring incentive programs that exclude qualified individuals. Full disclosure: I am a plaintiff in the California lawsuit against mandatory implicit bias training.

But too many Americans who believe in merit, evidence-based healthcare, and equal treatment under the law remain silent. Racial silos rob all individuals, but especially black persons, of their dignity. When we lose our individuality, we lose our true selves. Let’s get out of our bunkers and fight this fight before it’s too late.