This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
There is a recent poll on DEI[1][2][3]. DEI seems to be viewed more favorably than not.
A majority reject the following:
They agree that:
There are a number of questions about whether people should receive DEI training; a majority is in favor of DEI training in all cases, most strongly in the case of police officers (69% - 31%) and least strongly for private sector employees (64% - 36%).
The document provides some comparable numbers which are claimed to come from October 2024, but that appears to be a mistake; the previous polling on DEI was done in January 2024[4].
A lot of the public doesn’t have strong views on DEI. 92% of respondents have heard the phrase “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” (up from 72% in January 2024), but when given the option “neither agree of disagree,” many respondents chose it. For the DEI training questions, “neither agree of disagree” was not an option.
When asked what the top three priorities of the Trump Administration should be, 2% selected ending DEI programs as the top priority, and 10% included it in one of the top three. 19% of Republicans, 6% of independents, and 2% of Democrats included ending DEI in their top three priorities.
The poll didn’t ask about people’s own experience with DEI, but I found a Feb. 2023 poll that did[5], which presumably gets a more knowledgeable pool of respondents. People who worked at a place that had a staff member whose primary job was to promote DEI said that having such a person was:
In the same poll, 56% of respondents said that “focusing on increasing diversity, equity and inclusion at work is mainly a good thing,” 16% said it is mainly a bad thing, and 28% said it is neither good nor bad.
So DEI seems to popular but controversial, with one third of the country and 65% of Republicans saying that DEI discriminates against white people.
Links:
[1] https://www.umass.edu/political-science/about/reports/2025-8
[2] Top line results: https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/personal/poll_umass_edu/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?ga=1&id=%2Fpersonal%2Fpoll%5Fumass%5Fedu%2FDocuments%2FPoll%20materials%20uploaded%20to%20website%2FViews%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025%2FToplines%20Views%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fpoll%5Fumass%5Fedu%2FDocuments%2FPoll%20materials%20uploaded%20to%20website%2FViews%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025
[3] Crosstabs: https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/personal/poll_umass_edu/_layouts/15/onedrive.aspx?ga=1&id=%2Fpersonal%2Fpoll%5Fumass%5Fedu%2FDocuments%2FPoll%20materials%20uploaded%20to%20website%2FViews%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025%2FCrosstabs%20Views%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025%2Epdf&parent=%2Fpersonal%2Fpoll%5Fumass%5Fedu%2FDocuments%2FPoll%20materials%20uploaded%20to%20website%2FViews%20on%20DEI%2C%20Trans%20Rights%2C%20Higher%20Education%2C%20and%20AI%20National%20Poll%20%2D%20April%2022%2C%202025
[4] https://www.umass.edu/political-science/about/reports/january-16-2024
[5] https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/ST_2023.05.17_Culture-of-Work-DEI_Topline.pdf
My first impression of this is that the press release was written before the study, with some blanks filled in. And I noticed some of the odd results others noticed in the crosstabs. Hopefully the name of the author Tatishe Nteta isn't itself worthy of a ban. The linked page has his capsule bio as
The word "intersection" seems a bit forced there, honestly; it's like he's trying to write a bio that doesn't actually show his biases while dog-whistling them loud and clear, but dog-whistling doesn't work -- that's a train whistle.
His undergraduate was in African American Studies. His name, though, he comes by non-politically; his father was lefty activist Christopher Nteta a black South African immigrant to the US.
His past work includes papers claiming to demonstrate that "racial resentment" really does measure anti-black prejudice and not just conservative belief, and that Nikki Haley lost because Republicans are sexist.
I would not consider a study authored by him to be reliable. In theory, scientific methods work regardless of who uses them. In practice, there's a lot of ways to put one's thumb on the scale.
My post was about the poll, which was conducted by YouGov. YouGov is a legitimate polling organization; FiveThirtyEigth gave them a B+ rating. It’s unclear who wrote the press release, which quotes Tatishe Nteta and three other professors.
YouGov ran the poll under Nteta's direction:
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link