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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   11816 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 3, 2026

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A common refrain when the Jussie Smollett story (along with assorted other hoax hate crimes) collapsed was that, among white progressives, the demand for racist hate crimes now exceeded the supply, such that they had little choice but to invent them from whole cloth, or at least avoid asking difficult questions about those that had been invented. So too, it seems, in academia: the demand for talented academics from minority ethnic backgrounds (and if they have disabilities too, all the better) exceeds the supply, such that they have no choice but to hire academics who have burnished exaggerated invented their credentials. It seems like an inexorable law of the universe: whenever an institution begins optimizing for something other than merit, it's only a matter of time before the liars and cheats begin clawing their way in.

Anecdotally, genuinely talented minorities tend to be the people most opposed to DEI policies as they see DEI as an effort to undercut their status and accomplishments. They also tend to have more lucrative opportunities available to them than anything academia can offer them.

I think it depends on degree.

If you're a 180 IQ Minority Supergenius you're probably going to be against DEI since it might besmirch your accomplishments. If you're a 120 IQ you're probably benefiting from DEI to a degree turning your career from good to great, but you're also likely going to look down on somebody who's blatantly incompetent but also only allowed in through the door due to DEI. Without getting into the amount of people in the middle categories who develop a complex about being a 180 IQ Supergenius due to how successful they are when they've actually had a substantial thumb on the scale in their favor.

Anecdotally, genuinely talented minorities tend to be the people most opposed to DEI policies as they see DEI as an effort to undercut their status and accomplishments. They also tend to have more lucrative opportunities available to them than anything academia can offer them.

I've never spoken to any racial/ethnic minorities about it, but I did go to university with a female engineer who was furious when the institution introduced a female quota for the cohort after us.

Hard to say how much was her angry at the unfairness of less talented female undergrads being let in below the threshhold that she had to meet, vs regular intrasexual competition, although knowing her I'm inclined to be generous.

Another possibility slightly different than "regular intrasexual competition" is she chose the program she did because she wanted to get away from other women due to cultural differences and is worried attempts to bring in more women will import that culture she wanted to escape. That was the primary motivation for a number of my female colleagues.

Since engineering is concerned I doubt there was that much intrasexual competition involved even after a female quota was enforced. I’m guessing what made her furious is her likely and also correct assumption that the normalization of female quotas results in the public perception that the average newly hired female engineer is more likely than not to be an underperforming DEI hire.

Is this true? Obama would seem to be the leading brand. And he definitely played the DEI game.

The counter force to DEI tarnishes my accomplishments is tribal loyalty feels like a human personality trait.

More than a few big donations to HBC despite probably having intelligence to realize HBC were essentially dead as institutions posts affirmative action.

“ Robert F. Smith has given over $134 million to HBCUs, famously paying off Morehouse College's entire 2019 graduating class debt and launching the Student Freedom Initiative to support STEM students at dozens of HBCUs.”. - pulling from google AI summary.

Is this true? Obama would seem to be the leading brand. And he definitely played the DEI game.

It's certainly not universal or consistent, but there are examples. Clarence Thomas has described affirmative action as a "badge of inferiority" and wrote a concurrence in Students for Fair Admissions (2023) against it. There are at least a few Hispanic writers that have criticized the practice (Richard Rodriguez in Hunger of Memory is, I think, the one I read in school). Kemi Badenoch is also on the record against it, if you want a non-American example.

'as an effort to' or 'a consequence of'?

I've definitely known some people who felt they had to overcome the diversity hire stigma, but can't say I've met anyone who felt DEI was developed to undercut them.

Well, if you're the kind of talented person who would naturally thrive in a legitimate meritocracy, any policy designed to make it easier for untalented people to thrive must intuitively feel like an effort to undercut your own status, even if it isn't presented like that.

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