It's really quite dramatic in its scope, and while some of the initiatives are probably just public relations, and some are probably salutary, some others look like they may affect academic freedom.
For example, the plan for Yale Arts & Sciences includes an initiative to "increase curricular breadth for addressing racism and supporting DEI and belonging." Race and racism are scholarly topics in many fields, but each discipline needs to decide, according to its disciplinary standards, whether "race" and "racism" are suitable units of analysis, and, if they are, whether faculty have any interest in teaching and research in those areas. Will this initiative respect those essential elements of academic freedom, or will there be an expectation that every department must "increase curricular breadth for addresing racism"?
Of course, at a time when corporate America has decided "diversity" is good for business and public relations, it's not surprising that Yale, gives its traditional relationship to the ruling class in America, would opt for similar posturing. Why, not, after all "increase curricular breadth for addressing the pathologies of capitalism and the ideological distortions that result"? That won't happen, of course, since these initiatives are as little about "social justice" as they are about scholarship.
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