The establishment media now calls him “a ringleader,” because they don’t like it when part of their establishment elite gets taken down while another sees the light of the ignorance of wokeness. Billionaire hedge fund CEO Bill Ackman is focusing his attention on the plague on universities called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — otherwise known as DEI.
In a very lengthy post to X, Ackman conveyed his perspective on DEI and why it’s so harmful to society at large, while also explaining how and why he saw the light.
The motivation for his “awakening” was the response at his alma mater, Harvard University, to the conflict between Israel, Hamas and the Palestinians brought on by the Hamas terrorist attack back in October. Ackman feels that the protest had and have less to do with anti-Semitism as it does the ideology that permeates college campuses all over the country.
I came to learn that the root cause of antisemitism at Harvard was an ideology that had been promulgated on campus, an oppressor/oppressed framework, that provided the intellectual bulwark behind the protests, helping to generate anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hate speech and harassment.
Then I did more research. The more I learned, the more concerned I became, and the more ignorant I realized I had been about DEI, a powerful movement that has not only pervaded Harvard, but the educational system at large. I came to understand that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion was not what I had naively thought these words meant.
Ackman went on to explain that DEI is, in fact, not about any kind of push towards equality, but a way to push the thoughts and beliefs of Marxists, although Ackman never mentions Marxism.
Under DEI, one’s degree of oppression is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression where whites, Jews, and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color, LGBTQ people, and/or women are deemed to be oppressed. Under this ideology which is the philosophical underpinning of DEI as advanced by Ibram X. Kendi and others, one is either an anti-racist or a racist. There is no such thing as being “not racist.”
Under DEI’s ideology, any policy, program, educational system, economic system, grading system, admission policy, (and even climate change due its disparate impact on geographies and the people that live there), etc. that leads to unequal outcomes among people of different skin colors is deemed racist.
As a result, according to DEI, capitalism is racist, Advanced Placement exams are racist, IQ tests are racist, corporations are racist, or in other words, any merit-based program, system, or organization which has or generates outcomes for different races that are at variance with the proportion these different races represent in the population at large is by definition racist under DEI’s ideology.
Pay attention to one thing Ackman wrote in particular: “…one is either an anti-racist or a racist.” There’s no room for a post-racial society under DEI. You either need to be constantly fighting racism — ironically by being a racist — or you’re simply a racist for not joining the fight to eradicate the racism that the anti-racists have fomented.
Related: Claudine Gay Blames 'Racial Animus' For Backlash That Forced Her Resignation
Ackman summed up his musings by making suggestions for Harvard going forward following his addressing of the resignation of embattled now-former university president Claudine Gay.
Harvard must create an academic environment with real academic freedom and free speech, where self-censoring, speech codes, and cancel culture are forever banished from campus.[…]
Today was an important step forward for the University. It is time we restore Veritas to Harvard and again be an exemplar that graduates well-informed, highly-educated leaders of exemplary moral standing and good judgment who can help bring our country together, advance our democracy, and identify the important new discoveries that will help save us from ourselves.
For prominent figures like Ackman to come publicly come out against societal poisons like DEI is a step in the right direction for fixing our badly damaged culture that has affected multiple generations at this point.
To read Ackman's full statement, check out the X post below:
In light of today’s news, I thought I would try to take a step back and provide perspective on what this is really all about.
— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) January 3, 2024
I first became concerned about @Harvard when 34 Harvard student organizations, early on the morning of October 8th before Israel had taken any military…
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CNN NewsNight host Abby Phillip interviews experts, yet relentlessly tries to get them to agree with her.https://t.co/c7s9oB1nD8
— MRCTV (@mrctv) January 4, 2024