DEI is Psychologically Harmful
A new study found that diversity, equity, and inclusion materials have a wide range of negative consequences, including psychological harm, increased hostility, and greater agreement with extreme authoritarian rhetoric, such as adapted Adolf Hitler quotes.
Both the New York Times and Bloomberg were preparing stories on the findings, but axed them just before publication citing editorial decisions.
The Network Contagion Research Institute, or NCRI, and Rutgers University Social Perception Lab released the study “Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias” on Monday. The study examined whether the themes and materials common in DEI trainings foster inclusion or exacerbate conflicts, and whether such materials promote empathy or increase hostility towards groups labeled as oppressors. The study consisted of three experiments — one focusing on race, one on religion, and the last on caste.
Although proponents of DEI trainings claim that they are designed to educate individuals about biases and reduce discrimination, the study found that participants primed with DEI materials were more likely to perceive prejudice where none existed and were more willing to punish the perceived perpetrators. In one experiment, the DEI materials made people more willing to agree with Hitler quotes that substituted “Jew” with “Brahmin,” the highest caste in the Indian caste system.
“Participants exposed to the DEI content were markedly more likely to endorse Hitler’s demonization statements, agreeing that Brahmins are ‘parasites’ (+35.4%), ‘viruses’ (+33.8%), and ‘the devil personified’ (+27.1%),” the study reads. “These findings suggest that exposure to anti-oppressive narratives can increase the endorsement of the type of demonization and scapegoating characteristic of authoritarianism.”
In the experiment focused on race, the researchers randomly assigned 423 Rutgers University undergraduates into two groups: one control group exposed to a neutral essay about U.S. corn production, and the other exposed to an essay that combined material from Ibram X. Kendi’s book How to Be an Antiracist and Robin DiAngelo’s book White Fragility. After exposure to either text, participants were presented with the following race-neutral scenario: “A student applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2024. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer. Ultimately, the student’s application was rejected.”
The results showed that participants primed with Kendi and DiAngelo materials perceived more discrimination from the admissions officer, despite the absence of any racial identification and evidence of discrimination. Those participants also believed that the admissions officer was more unfair to the applicant, had caused more harm to the applicant, and had committed more “microaggressions.”
In addition to imputing bias without evidence, the participants who read Kendi and DiAngelo were 12 percent more willing to support suspending the admission officer for a semester, 16 percent more willing to demand a public apology to the applicant, and 12 percent more willing to require additional DEI training to correct the officer compared to participants in the control group.
“Educational materials from some of the most well-published and well-known DEI scholars not only failed to positively enhance interracial attitudes, they provoked baseless suspicion and encouraged punitive attitudes,” the study states.
Lee Jussim, a professor at Rutgers University and one of the study’s authors, told National Review, said researchers purposely built some ambiguity into the scenarios.
“In social psychology, we purposely study situations that have some ambiguity in order to evaluate whether and when people’s biases influence their judgments of those situations,” he said.
In the experiment on anti-Islamophobia trainings, the researchers presented over 2,000 participants with either the essay about corn or content drawn from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding organization that addresses Islamophobia. The participants were then presented with a scenario involving two hypothetical individuals, Ahmed Akhtar and George Green, who were both convicted of identical terrorism charges for bombing a local government building.
The participants exposed to the corn essay perceived Akhtar and Green’s trials as equally fair and did not indicate any perception of Islamophobia. However, those exposed to anti-Islamophobia training materials rated Akhtar’s trial significantly less fair.
“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,” the study states. “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 third experiment about caste involved nearly 850 participants and used materials developed by Equality Labs, a self-described “South Asian feminist organization” that works to “end caste apartheid, gender-based violence, Islamophobia, and religious intolerance.”
Participants were exposed to either caste-sensitivity-training material from Equality Labs or an academic essay about caste, then were presented the following scenario: “Raj Kumar applied to an elite East Coast university in Fall 2022. During the application process, he was interviewed by an admissions officer, Anand Prakash. Ultimately, Raj’s application was rejected.” (The names were reversed between respondents to avoid the possibility that the results reflected inferences drawn from the names themselves.)
“Rather than using a purely neutral control like the corn essay, we had a more historically accurate and less politically charged, less accusatory, control essay on caste to see if we still see pernicious effects of the DEI training,” Jussim said. “And the answer is yes.”
Compared to the group that read the neutral academic essay, the participants who were exposed to the DEI materials had a significantly higher perception of “microaggressions,” perceived harm, and assumptions of bias. Additionally, those who read the DEI materials showed a higher willingness to punish the admissions officer and assessed Hindus as more racist.
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