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UNC Chapel Hill Board of Trustees has voted to end its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs after anti-Israel advocacy.
The post UNC Chapel Hill Board Votes to End DEI Programs appeared first on Breitbart.
The following is an updated version of a column originally published in December 2022.
One of the bestselling books of the 1970s was “The Peter Principle,” a business management book by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull.
The book’s premise was that employees get promoted based on their performance in their previous jobs until they are ultimately elevated to a position in which they’re incompetent, since skills and success in one position don’t necessarily ensure success in the next. “In a hierarchy,” Peter explained, “every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence.”
If “The Peter Principle” were published today, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre would be a case study in the phenomenon, now called “failing upward.” In Jean-Pierre’s case, that’s reflected in her work for the short-lived Democratic presidential campaigns of John Edwards in 2004 and Martin O’Malley in 2016, and now as the chief spokeswoman for the Biden administration. On Monday, she will mark her second anniversary in that role.
In recent weeks, however, with the 2024 election campaign shifting into high gear, there have been well-sourced reports that high-ranking figures in the Biden administration are not-so-subtly seeking to push Jean-Pierre out of the role—for which she was never qualified to begin with. Many of the same administration figures reportedly behind those efforts to oust her are, not surprisingly, denying the accuracy of the reports.
The New York Post quoted a source as saying the high-ranking administration figures “‘were trying to find Karine a graceful exit’ because of the ugly optics of removing her against her will,” especially because she thinks she’s doing a good job. (One face-saving exit strategy was to offer her the presidency of EMILY’s List, an abortion rights group.)
But as a textbook example of an affirmative-action hire, Jean-Pierre appears not to be going anywhere. An administration so thoroughly wedded to so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion is, in this case, now finding it difficult to divorce itself from DEI. (More on that below.)
The most glaring evidence that Jean-Pierre, 49, has been promoted to her level of incompetence as White House press secretary is her near-total dependence on a binder full of administration talking points, which she often reads from directly at her daily news briefings to the White House press corps.
It’s so bad that Fox News commentator Jesse Watters has taken to referring to her derisively as “Binder,” and it’s so, well, cringeworthy that other critics deliberately mispronounce “Karine” as “Cringe.”
Just as an aside, recall how 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney was ridiculed mercilessly in the liberal media for saying during the second presidential debate that he had “binders full of women.” That was his awkward way of referring to files of résumés of women he would consider for staffing his administration were he to win the election. Many of the talking heads’ “binder” jokes snarkily suggested that the squeaky-clean Romney was engaged in some form of BDSM with those women.
It’s standard operating procedure for a press secretary to have notes for ready reference. It’s quite another thing to stare down at them and read those notes all but verbatim.
As far as we know, none of the talking heads who ridiculed Romney has ever mentioned—much less made fun of—Jean-Pierre’s near-complete dependence on her press-briefing binders. Nor have they satirized her oft-repeated deflection—“I don’t have anything”—when she doesn’t have answers to questions for which she’s unprepared.
Nor have the liberal media (or the late-night TV comics) noted, much less lampooned, how Jean-Pierre has mispronounced or mangled words and phrases in the course of her press briefings.
On Dec. 13, 2022, Jean-Pierre touted “bicarmel” support in Congress for the so-called Respect for Marriage Act. “Bicarmel, bipartisan support was had for this piece of legislation,” she said.
But this was no one-off slip of the tongue: She used the term “bicarmel” three times to describe it in the course of the half-hour press briefing. It should have been “bicameral,” of course; meaning, support in both chambers of Congress.
The official White House transcript of the briefing was dishonestly corrected in all three instances to “bicameral” with no indication that it was not an accurate reflection of what was actually said.
On Nov. 28, 2022, in congratulating three Americans who had won Nobel Prizes in chemistry, physics, and economics, she mispronounced “Nobel” five times in 40 seconds as “noble.”
Two months to the day earlier, on Sept. 28, Jean-Pierre said that as part of Vice President Kamala Harris’ then-pending trip to South Korea, the veep would visit the Demilitarized Zone between the two Koreas. Jean-Pierre helpfully noted that it had been “nearly 70 years since the Korean ‘armtis’”—not to be confused with the Korean armistice.
Three weeks before that, on Sept. 6, Jean-Pierre conflated a Russian natural gas pipeline with an upscale American department store chain. She accused Russia of causing an energy crisis in Europe by shutting down its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which she referred to as the “Nordstrom 1” pipeline.
One can only imagine how former President Donald Trump’s press secretaries, Sarah Huckabee Sanders and later Kayleigh McEnany, would have been pilloried by the liberal White House press corps had they made those sorts of repeated verbal gaffes.
One reason Jean-Pierre still has the high-visibility press secretary’s job, to which she was elevated on May 13, 2022, despite all of the gaffes, is because President Joe Biden is legendary for his own innumerable flubs and miscues.
“White House communications staff has had to correct President Joe Biden’s public remarks at least 148 times since the beginning of 2024, a review of official White House transcripts shows,” the Daily Caller reported April 29. Biden couldn’t very well hold Jean-Pierre to a higher standard, could he?
But the real reason Jean-Pierre remains in her post today is because of the identity politics to which the Biden administration and the Democratic Party have sworn undying allegiance. She is immune from criticism—and from reassignment to a less high-profile post—only because she checks all of the boxes of identity-politics “intersectionality” as the first black, first LGBTQ, and first immigrant White House press secretary.
In the Biden administration, Jean-Pierre demonstrates daily that meritocracy is an afterthought—if it’s thought of at all. The moral of this story: Live by DEI, die by it.
The post Biden Admin in a DEI Bind(er) of Its Own Making, Stuck With Incompetent Jean-Pierre appeared first on The Daily Signal.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) announced that faculty candidates will no longer be asked to provide diversity statements during the application process.
The post MIT Will No Longer Require Faculty Candidates to Write Diversity Statements appeared first on Breitbart.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) offices should be "abolished" within the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the intelligence community, Cliff Sims, who served as the deputy director of national intelligence under former President Donald Trump, said during an interview on Breitbart News Saturday, adding that he was surprised to see the DEI office in the CIA headquarters and by the "politicization" inside the intelligence community.
The post Exclusive – Cliff Sims: ‘Really Shocked’ to See the ‘DEI Office’ and ‘Politicization of the Intelligence Community’ in the CIA Building appeared first on Breitbart.
On Tuesday’s broadcast of NewsNation’s “Cuomo,” Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern School of Business Scott Galloway stated that the antisemitism on campus is “the most anti-American activity I have seen since they tried to hold that girl out of school
The post NYU Prof.: DEI Eating Itself on Campus, Becoming ‘Evil’, Campus Antisemitism Most Un-American Act Since Segregation appeared first on Breitbart.
Violence from people-smuggling gangs and illegal migrants along the French coastline is escalating, a British Border Force official warned.
The post People Smugglers Using Children as Human Shields Against French Police, Says UK Border Force appeared first on Breitbart.
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The bill would theoretically see illegal migrants removed from Britain to Rwanda, however, getting illegals on flights is not a certainty.
The post UK Finally Passes Rwanda Migrant Removal Bill, But No Guarantee Illegal Migrants Will Actually Be Removed appeared first on Breitbart.
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Davis Mamet, the man who wrote The Verdict, The Untouchables, House of Games, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Spanish Prisoner, The Edge, Wag the Dog, Ronin, and Heist, can’t get work.
The post Nolte: David Mamet Ridicules ‘Garbage’ DEI as ‘Fascist Totalitarianism’ appeared first on Breitbart.
Planet Fitness's incoming boss Colleen Keating also reportedly backed "hiring through a DEI lens" in her former position.
The post Planet Fitness Incoming CEO Forced Workers into ‘Unconscious Bias Training’ at Former Company appeared first on Breitbart.
A study on juvenile delinquency in a German province found that radical ideology is prevalent among the Muslim youth population.
The post Germany: Nearly Half of Young Muslims Want Islamic Theocracy, Third ‘Understand’ Violent Retribution for Insulting Mohammed appeared first on Breitbart.
Al Roker and his production company have been sued by a producer who alleges he was fired after objecting to the company's failure to implement diversity initiatives for an upcoming PBS animated show.
The post Lawsuit Claims Al Roker ‘Circumvented’ DEI Quotas on PBS Kids Show ‘Weather Hunters,’ Fired Producer for Objecting appeared first on Breitbart.
On Thursday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Kudlow,” Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz stated that Columbia University President Nemat Shafik should get some credit for her handling of antisemitism on campus, but “she hasn’t dealt with the problem.
The post Dershowitz: Columbia Hasn’t Addressed DEI, Which Causes Antisemitism and Will ‘Destroy’ Every School appeared first on Breitbart.
I think the answer to that question is Yes. In reality, the whole point of DEI is bigotry, so the fact that its exponents keep getting outed as haters is not at all coincidental. The latest case comes from Johns Hopkins, where the Chief Diversity Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine has resigned following a hateful outburst:
The Chief Diversity Officer at Johns Hopkins Medicine resigned on Tuesday after criticism stemming from her distribution of a list of groups she believes have “privilege.”
As Campus Reform reported, Dr. Sherita Golden sent the list of groups in a January email sent to staff members, which defined “privilege” as “a set of unearned benefits given to people who are in a specific social group.”
Of course she wasn’t referring to welfare recipients, public employees or beneficiaries of political influence like “greens” or DEI officers.
Golden went on to name nine groups in the country that have been “granted” privilege “at the expense of members of other groups.”
According to Golden, these “privileged” groups are: “White people,” “Able-bodied people,” “Heterosexuals,” “Cisgender people,” “Males,” “Christians,” “Middle or owning class people,” “Middle-aged people,” and “English-speaking people.”
Doesn’t that cover almost everyone in the United States? The only “non-privileged,” apparently, are crippled, gay, female, Muslim illegal immigrants below the age of 40 who just arrived and haven’t yet learned English. That is a niche constituency, to say the least. It includes maybe three people.
“Privilege is characteristically invisible to people who have it. People in dominant groups often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if only they worked to earn them. In fact, privileges are unearned and are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent,” she claimed.
The privilege fairy just hands them out. Work is superfluous.
Golden resigned as Chief Diversity Officer on Tuesday, but remains on the faculty at Johns Hopkins. After her email caused controversy, she apologized:
The “privilege” list was retracted shortly after it was sent out, and Golden said she “deeply” regretted her definition of privilege, adding it “did not meet [the] goal” to “inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins. . . . In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community.”
Her email wasn’t “poorly worded,” but it certainly was “exclusionary.” Actually, it set out the DEI ideology very clearly, and exclusion of politically disfavored people is the whole point of DEI. But sometimes people notice, and a liberal needs to be sacrificed. So our condolences go out to Sherita Golden: she said what the Democratic Party believes, not poorly but too well.
DEI (racial and other quotas) is intrinsically evil. At The Hill, Matt Cole and Chris Nicholson reveal a shocking, practical downside to DEI hysteria: “DEI killed the CHIPS Act.”
The issue is critical because Taiwan now produces 90% of the world’s advanced microchips, and China has indicated its intention to annex Taiwan in the near future. So the CHIPS Act sought to incentivize chip production in the U.S. Unfortunately, that isn’t what is happening.
Handouts abound. There’s plenty for the left—requirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as “justice-involved individuals,” more commonly known as ex-cons. There’s plenty for the right—veterans and members of rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of minorities. …
***
Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanity’s most complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those underrepresented groups, as [the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company] discovered to its dismay.Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they weren’t skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December, agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab.
Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first, which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germany’s chip subsidies, as is Intel.
It isn’t only TSMC that is being stymied by DEI:
Intel is also building fabs in Poland and Israel, which means it would rather risk Russian aggression and Hamas rockets over dealing with America’s DEI regime. Samsung is pivoting toward making its South Korean homeland the semiconductor superpower after Taiwan falls.
In short, the world’s best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the CHIPS Act’s political games. They’ve quietly given up on America. …
[C]hipmakers have to make sure they hire plenty of female construction workers, even though less than 10 percent of U.S. construction workers are women. They also have to ensure childcare for the female construction workers and engineers who don’t exist yet. They have to remove degree requirements and set “diverse hiring slate policies,” which sounds like code for quotas. They must create plans to do all this with “close and ongoing coordination with on-the-ground stakeholders.”
No wonder Intel politely postponed its Columbus fab and started planning one in Ireland.
Access to microchips is a national security issue, as well as being fundamental to a modern economy. And yet Congressional majorities care more about DEI shibboleths and feeding pork to their constituencies than about American security and prosperity. Of course, that isn’t really an irony. The whole point of DEI is hating America, and if it imperils our security and our prosperity, so much the better.
Bryan Caplan, professor of economics in George Mason University’s excellent economics department, has a long article out today with the James Martin Center about the attempt to impose a mandatory “Just Societies” course for all students at George Mason starting next fall, and the course is a total ideological DEI wokefest. He also has a separate Substack article that goes into lengthy detail.
Partly because Caplan blew the whistle on this Orwellian outrage, the course requirement is on hold for the moment, pending “review” by the administration. And naturally the DEI campus Stasi is threatening to “review” Prof. Caplan for this offense.
One passage from his Martin Center article deserves special highlight:
This is quixotic, I know, but let me try to break through the woke academic echo chamber with some harsh truths. If you promote DEI for a living, the reality is that normal, apolitical people see you as a racist, sexist, censorious fanatic. They don’t say so publicly … because they are afraid of you. They don’t tell you privately … because they are afraid of you. But when they’re speaking to people they trust, they vehemently disagree with you—and yearn to see you all fired.
Well, it appears that the University of Florida has figured this out. Today the University (where Ben Sasse is now president) summarily closed down the entire DEI apparatus, and is summarily dismissing, rather than “reassigning” DEI staff to other offices. It has also canceled all outside contracts for DEI consultants. It will save $5 million right away, which Sasse says will be diverted to new faculty recruitment.
Here’s the note that went out:
More of this please. Burn them all down.
Related: Harvard announced today that it is appointing . . . a white male as interim provost. I didn’t think that was allowed any more at Harvard. But not just a white male, but a somewhat conservative white male—John Manning of Harvard Law School. Manning clerked for both Robert Bork on the DC Circuit and Nino Scalia at the Supreme Court. How he snuck onto Harvard Law’s faculty is something to ponder.
Harvard must really be badly rattled if it is willing to violate current progressive dogma and appoint a white male to such a senior position.
This morning I stumbled across a Tweet linking to an Australian “60 Minutes” segment about the unassimilable migrants that are causing the crime rate and other social dysfunctions to soar in Sweden. Turns out the episode is seven years old, but since we don’t see Australia’s “60 Minutes” here (and our CBS “60 Minutes” won’t touch this subject with a ten meter pole), I doubt little has changed in the last seven years, so here’s the complete seven minute segment—watch to the very end:
I still contend that sooner or later, European nations are going to institute mass deportations of migrants. (If it wants to survive, anyway. It may not have the will to do so any more.) Germany has already said it is going to step up deportation proceedings against recent migrants whose asylum claims are unfounded, but look for other countries to ratchet up from there.
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