A study published in November 2024 by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute documents how diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs breed hostility. These programs are common in education, medical and corporate environments and aim to teach that there are two types of people in the world, the oppressors and the oppressed. The oppressors are comprised of White Western individuals while the oppressed are comprised of everyone else.
Prominent DEI scholars Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo wrote essays describing DEI, excerpts of which were included in the study.
“White people raised in Western society are conditioned into a white supremacist worldview. Racism is the norm; it is not unusual. As a result, interaction with White people is at times so overwhelming, draining, and incomprehensible that it causes serious anguish for People of Color,” the Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo essay said, according to the study on page 21.
It turns out that DEI isn’t limited to the hatred of White people, it also extends into the economic and political realm of communism.
“Furthermore, racism is essentially capitalist; capitalism is essentially racist. To love capitalism is to love racism. The U.S. economy, a system of capitalist greed, was based on the enslavement of African people, the displacement and genocide of Indigenous people, and the annexation of Mexican lands. We must deploy antiracist power to compel or drive from power the racist policymakers and institute policy that is antiracist and anti-capitalist,” the Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo essay said, according to the study on page 21.
The study itself was carried out by showing some participants excerpts of various DEI material and showing others excerpts control material – a study on the economic of corn agriculture.
“The religion-focused interventions drew on content from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), commonly used in sensitivity training on Islamophobia. For race, materials featured excerpts from DEI scholars like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo. Caste interventions featured anti-oppression narratives from Equality Labs, one of the most prolific training providers for caste discrimination in North America,” the study said on page 2.
After reading the literature, participants were surveyed to find out if their hostility towards others has increased or decreased.
“Rhetoric from these materials was excerpted and administered in psychological surveys measuring explicit bias, social distancing, demonization, and authoritarian tendencies. Participants were randomly assigned to review these materials or neutral control material,” the study said on page 2. “Their responses to this material was assessed through various questions assessing intergroup hostility and authoritarianism, and through scenario-based questions (details on all demographic data, survey questions, essay conditions, responses and analyses can be found in a supplementary document to this report).”
The researchers studied the religious angle of DEI, which is often focused on defending Islam and painting Muslims as the victims of Western hatred.
“NCRI next conducted a targeted evaluation of anti-Islamophobia training materials, utilizing content distilled from the ISPU (Institute for Social Policy and Understanding), a leading organization in promoting narratives of systemic anti-Muslim bias,” the study said on page 7.
The Islamic-DEI training ended up making people view Muslims as part of the oppressed and Westerners as the oppressors.
“These results suggest that anti-Islamophobia training inspired by ISPU materials may cause individuals to assume unfair treatment of Muslim people, even when no evidence of bias or unfairness is present. This effect highlights a broader issue: DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicions of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events,” the study said on page 7.
Not surprisingly, examples of non-Whites oppressing people is not a part of DEI, as it goes against the narrative of ‘white people bad’.
“While discussions about Islamophobia and racial discrimination are prevalent in DEI narratives, caste-based discrimination among American Hindus has not been a core part of DEI discourse or trainings,” the study said on page 8.
What’s also not surprising is that the divisive literature divided people.
“Across all groupings, instead of reducing bias, they engendered a hostile attribution bias, amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice,” the study said on page 2. “These results highlight the complex and often counterproductive impacts of pedagogical elements and themes prevalent in mainstream DEI training.”
Regardless of if one adopts the DEI hatred or hates DEI, the result is hostility, an angrier world.
“The evidence presented in these studies reveals that while purporting to combat bias, some anti-oppressive DEI narratives can engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policing, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence for a transgression deserving punishment,” the study said on page 14.