By Calvin Freiburger

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion programs are billed as making society more tolerant, compassionate, and harmonious but actually have the opposite effect, according to a recent study by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs are billed as making society more tolerant, compassionate, and harmonious but actually increase hostility in workplace and educational settings, according to a recent study.

The study, by Rutgers University’s Network Contagion Research Institute, focused on “diversity training interventions that emphasize awareness of and opposition to ‘systemic oppression,’” which has “seen widespread adoption across sectors like higher education and healthcare.” It was conducted by exposing 423 Rutgers students to influential DEI training materials authored by far-left activists like Ibram X. Kendi and Robin DiAngelo, then surveying their reactions.

“Across all groupings (race, religion, and caste-based), instead of reducing bias, they engendered a hostile attribution bias,” the researchers found, “amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice.”

“This research raises critical questions about how many individuals, as a result of these programs, have experienced undue duress, social ostracization, or even termination of employment,” said the researchers, who called for further research into “the potential for a far broader scope of harm than previously considered.”

“Importantly, the intervention did not produce any measurable change in warmth or coldness towards persons of color,” the report noted. “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.”

Kendi dismissed the findings as “pseudoscience” that “will end up in the historic landfill,” and likened it to attempts to give “scientific legitimacy to racist propaganda” for slavery and against civil rights.

But the findings align with widespread beliefs that “woke” efforts to see all aspects of society through identity-based lenses and root out presumed “systemic” bigotry, generations after achieving full equality for both sexes and every race, are more likely to foster division and resentment by keeping old wounds open and attributing prejudiced motivations where none exist.

More than 30 states have introduced legislation eliminating DEI programs from education as part of a broader push against so-called “woke ideology” spearheaded by Republicans such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Conservatives have long criticized DEI and other forms of identity politics for stoking rather than curing division and focusing education toward left-wing political indoctrination at the expense of learning.

Last year, insiders from the University of California-Los Angeles’ (UCLA’s) prestigious David Geffen School of Medicine warned that the school’s diversity fixation had led to a crisis in which more than half of students in various cohorts admitted since 2020 fail standardized tests for basic medical knowledge of subjects ranging from emergency medicine and family medicine to internal medicine and pediatrics.

There has been a similar backlash in the business world, where DEI and “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) standards to encourage major U.S. corporations to take favorable stands on political and cultural issues such as homosexuality, transgenderism, race relations, the environment, and abortion.

Political and customer backlashes to such activism has translated to business woes for companies such as Disney, Bud Light, and Target. Former President Donald Trump’s defeat in November of outgoing Vice President Kamala Harris for the White House has also been seen by many as further evidence of the general public rejecting woke ideology, signaling to corporations and activists alike the lack of popular receptiveness to such projects.

McDonald’s, Walmart, Jack Daniel’s, John Deere, Tractor Supply, Lowe’s, Toyota, and Coors have all dropped “woke” corporate policies over the past several months in response to public pressure.