By Henry Giroux
Political theorist Hannah Arendt warned that authoritarian politics rarely begin with spectacles of repression. More often, authoritarianism advances through routine administrative decisions that appear technical or neutral but gradually reshape public life — a kind of bureaucratic normalization of injustice she later described as the banality of evil.
Over time, these measures alter what can be discussed, remembered or taught. They also redefine who counts as belonging within the political community.
The backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives (DEI) reflects a deeper political transformation. Public debate often treats DEI as a dispute over university offices or workplace training programs, but the conflict runs far deeper. Under Donald Trump’s administration in the United States and its allies, diversity itself has been recast as a threat.
Campus protests, for example, are frequently invoked as proof that equity initiatives foster antisemitism, turning demands for justice into evidence of alleged institutional decay.
False claims about equity measures
American feminist philosopher Judith Butler argues the attack on DEI is a “shameless display of hatred, the contempt for rights, [and] the willingness to strip people of their rights to equality and freedom.”
In the U.S., federal directives have dismantled diversity programs across government agencies as political leaders pressure universities to eliminate initiatives addressing systemic racism. Presented as restoring merit and neutrality, these measures define structural inequality as a threat and place citizenship itself at stake.
This reversal reflects a political narrative that treats demands for racial justice as grievance politics and portrays multicultural democracy as national decline. Within this narrative, equality appears as loss for historically dominant groups. Immigration, demographic change and racial justice movements are framed as dangers to “western civilization,” while policies expanding opportunity are depicted as attacks on merit.
Under the Trump administration, DEI has been transformed into a political weapon. It is cast not as an effort to confront historical injustice but as a threat to the nation itself, a supposed assault on merit, tradition and order.
These types of arguments echo the ideological logic of contemporary white nationalism, which presents social hierarchies as natural and treats efforts to confront inequality as illegitimate.
Once politics is framed in these terms, dismantling diversity initiatives can be cast as a defence of fairness rather than a retreat from civil rights. Government actions targeting DEI programs, restricting how racism is discussed in classrooms and pressuring universities to abandon race- and gender-conscious research are justified as restoring neutrality. Yet such measures narrow the intellectual and moral spaces where democratic debate takes place.
Not improvement, but elimination
Similar tensions are emerging beyond the U.S. In Canada, the Alberta government has advanced proposals promoting “institutional neutrality” in universities. Critics say these policies could weaken or suspend equity initiatives addressing barriers facing racialized and Indigenous scholars.
Critics on the political left, including political activist and philosopher Angela Davis, have long noted that many DEI initiatives are limited in their ability to address deeper structures of power. Workshops and diversity statements cannot dismantle economic systems marked by racial inequality or institutions shaped by centuries of exclusion.
Yet the current political campaign against DEI isn’t aimed at improving these programs. It seeks to eliminate even the limited institutional recognition that systemic inequality exists.
Arendt’s work helps illuminate why this moment is politically consequential. In her writings on authoritarianism, she argued that the greatest danger arises when institutions cease to question the assumptions guiding their actions. Political choices appear technical, administrative procedures replace ethical judgment and thinking is displaced by routine compliance.
The backlash against diversity and inclusion initiatives operates within this dynamic. By portraying historical analysis as ideological bias and structural critiques of inequality as threats to social cohesion, it encourages institutions to treat questions of justice as matters best avoided.
Refusing cruelty
When societies stop examining the histories that produced inequality, public memory narrows and democratic debate contracts. Social hierarchies begin to appear natural while demands for justice are reframed as sources of division.
But remaining alert to these erosions of rights is urgent at a moment when the capacity to think historically and judge morally is being deliberately eroded under the Trump administration and other emerging authoritarian movements. What is being normalized is precisely the condition Arendt warned about: a political culture in which thoughtlessness allows cruelty to appear ordinary and injustice to operate as a routine function of governance.
That is the banality that some western societies are now being asked to accept.
The challenge is to refuse it and expose the systems that produce it while rebuilding the civic capacities democracy requires. In the face of accelerating authoritarianism, the struggle to build a future grounded in equality, shared prosperity and the radical promise of collective freedom has become not only necessary, but essential.
Henry Giroux, Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies, McMaster University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Henry Giroux is Chaired professor for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the Department of English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University.
JimboXYZ says
This seems to trigger me everytime I read an authors concept of pro DEI.
We all know the pecking order really. Nepotism Cronyism, DEI (whether you want to call it the rebadged nonsense it’s become over the past decade plus (2008ish-present) or you want to call it Affirmative Action Equal Employment Opportunity & anything else that was a separate social movement of sorts to get us where we are today) & then the free for all that the majority of the masses that fly their careers in true competition for employment, etc..
The Nepotism, Family bllod or by marriage is always going to have that inside track of privilege. Cronyism, that’s one’;s networking, the Frat & Sorority-like privileges of being networked for affiliation. DEI that’s the privilege because somehow the color of your skin or gender seems to matter for the percentages of demographics to match the actual distributions of White, Black, Hispanic (the Browns that include Native Americans & Asians). And then there are those of us that don’t get privilege of a protected status , because we aren’t related to anyone ny blood or marriage in a position pf power to bestow privilege. that aren’t affiliated by some club or membership for privilege and aren’t the lunatic fringe of minority or what was considered an oppressed group that the Federal Government bestows privilege to as an “endangered species” of sorts.
I read these articles and somehow the author(s) think that all white Caucasians have this white privilege. Well I’m here to tell anyone, there is such a thing as not being the whitest white guy, white but not white enough. That’s the group I’ve fit in. Every job I ever applied for, was based upon what was on my resume. I started my career temping for the nepotism/cronyism preggers with a BSBA degree. It was an hourly (non-exempt pay scale that paid a few bucks over minimum wage, there were no company benefits for healthcare, retirement savings or anything else. And when I did get any inside track for an interview it was based upon the fact that I was a temp working at the employer so I was free to apply for the job posting the HR Department posted. But I can’t count the jobs I interviewed for where I was passed over for Affirmative Action or Equal Opportunity jobs. What’s even more insulting the Corporation was head counting to make sure DEI of it’s day precluded me from that FT Hire of the Welcome Aboard employment job of a more stable career.
I stopped counting the State of FL jobs that had a zero response for even an interview living in Jacksonville, FL. So much that I finally broke thru to get employment in Miami, FL. How many industries I had experience for temping was a shotgun of employment history on the resume. One never knows where their career is heading as labor & workforce. You’re just a piece of meat and around long enough for a skill to be a knowledge transfer or a project to be completed and then you end up just as unemployed as anyone else with a $ 275/week benefit from the State of FL.
DEI is nothing more than the lucky lottery winners of FT hire anyone seeks for a FT Hire of “welcome aboard” employment that has it’s share of glass ceilings that apply to any white male just the same. Don’t believe me, visit those websites & read about all the ex-employees that got fed up with their employers game of fair & unfair demographic distributions. I’ve had a career where I been in & out of employment for that nonsense of white privilege. Hunter Biden made more in unpaid taxes that he never went to prison for. So yeah, when they caught him stealing $ 1.5 million form IRS Tax Evasion, this was the 1st & most vocal white male that wanted to see Joe Biden’ last remaining progeny locked up like anyone else that evaded taxes. There’s no racism for that. And it doesn’t stop there, once the DEI hire gets that level of power, you can bet they’re going to pad the staff statistics to favor those in their little endangered species of demographic. I lived in Miami, FL for 20 years & that went on at every employer there too. And if you’ve lived it, the Cubams rule down there, followed by the Blacks, being white is a minority at many employers. Quite a few employers their IT Database Admin group was a literal India Call Center of IT that every computer industry had assembled as teams. Try breaking into that field for a career ? If one isn’t eating Curry dishes for lunch everyday at the corporate cafeteria for a perk/benefit, one is still a relative outsider. They may toss you a bone for an entry level position, but know your aren’t one of them, even though there’s some recognition & acceptance because they know you, maybe even trust you.
So getting back to DEI, why the hell would anyone vote for that to be the bigger person when that person is never going to be the lucky lottery winner of a DEI hire for a job that’s more of a apprenticeship of advancement. Imagine, everytime being the white male that loses to a DEI hire and being the one that is retianed as a temp, long enough to train the DEI hire to do the job that they had been doing for weeks/months. Yep, that’s right, temped for the pregge that got the 3 months of maternity. There long enoigh for the pregger to decide to stay or leave the position & then being thrown into a pool of DEI for the pregger that surrenders the job. White male and the Corporation is back to the demographics of head counts. They need a Black or Hispanic female that checked 2 boxes of DEI, white male stands zero chance of being the FT hire replacement for that. So you put what you did on the resume & hope there’s another department internally or employer externally that needs that for the next temp contract assignment. And since that external employer is going thru the same process of DEI, whatever that next temp job is, it’s the same situation. They aren’t looking for a white male for the same DEI lottery of checking minority boxes for head count on the Federal forms. There’s only 1 job, they are hiring the most qualified DEI box check, it’s not for a white male. Candidly, I wish they’d just STFU & thank me for training them & bringing another minority corporate baby into the world. DEI or whatever the social movement was in the 20th century, we all pay for that for limited career opportunities & income for the rest of your life. And what are your choices. The DC Congress of Privilege has legislated that for the masses. There is no choice, just like in Covid 2020, 16 million laborers are going to be told they are unemployed & bringing anyone back, it’s a perfect opportunity to apply DEI. The reboots have always been recessions prior to Covid 2020.
If the door gets closed on DEI going forward, I have no problem with it. I’ve have a career & a lifetime of the predecessor of DEI. Because we all saw how Biden pardoned his whole GD/POS family. None of us get that. and it doesn’t do anyone favors to be forced to do knowledge & training transfers to DEI types. give away competitive advantage that wasn’t bestowed upn anyone that ever had to figure it out for themselves when the pregger took 3 months of maternity, wasn’t there to train anyone. Had I failed as a temp as a relief pitcher, they would have shown me the door & gotten another in the position. There were no silver spoons or privilege, the measuring stick was performance. Here’s the other thing about it, ever seek to break into Accounting ? Can’t count the jobs where I saw, even was passed over for the cute DEI hire with the big boobs and hour glass body. Pick your employer/industry. A cute DEI hire that’s still working towards a 2 year AS/AA in Accounting vs/stacked up against a BSBA in Accounting. On education alone the not the whitest white guy on the interview candidate list loses that hire process ? Throw in even temp experience over the DEI hire. Decades of that nonsense & I simply have no problem with DEI going away.
The more we watch the squad Somalian get exposed for the MN fraud & abuses, who comes up with claiming they have $ 6-30 million of wealth in her disclosures & restates that to $ 18-95K ? Does a liar like Ilhan Omar rate holding a Congressional job ? Every business Ilhan Omar has ever done has failed, she gets voted in for her constituents. The same one’s that have been bilking & milking federal programs for day care & food programs, pretty much Somalians. FCOL she was married to her brother on documents for that were nothing more than fraud & abuse. Leticia James ? her father was her spouse for a favorable interest rate. when they catch them they need to have their lives ruined like the rest of nay of the masses do. The Biden’s (Hunter) Omar’s & James’s of the world are more than happy to get their DEI privileges for that relative DEI (white/color) washing.
Life isn’t fair, do the best you can, but fraud for job applications, those folks need prison time & to be banned from ever holding a position of power in that. Ask the Advent Imposter Nurse. They found every excuse & way possible to make that disappear, Advent was more than happy to get a verdict over & done with. Gee, I wonder why that was the outcome ? And the comments reflect the relative racisms of white nurse, no jail, wouldn’t be that way for a DEI hire ?
Ed P says
DEI and meritocracy don’t play nice.
Intel was widely spotlighted a premier corporate DEI success.
Why have they quietly removed the DEI goals and eliminated over 35,000 jobs or 1/3 of its work force?
The reality is the best qualified person should be hired, promoted and retained.
Pretty basic.
Pogo says
Learn Chinese.
Sherry says
Thank You Pogo!
Fox racist conspiracy theories aside. . . as AI is rolled out across “ALL” industries, some of the first people to see their jobs eliminated are the very experts who created AI to begin with. This was very candidly pointed out in several university high tech conferences I, as a Virtual Reality publication editor and high tech recruiter, personally attended in the 1990’s.
It has taken a little longer than predicted, but here we are. Wearing my professional recruiter’s hat, I would suggest that people of all skin colors and nationalities pursue careers that cannot be done by AI/robots. Consider more “Human Hands On” professions like plumbing and electrical work. We are on the cutting edge verge of a massive shift in “human employment” for the future. With major industries focused quarter by quarter, and universities stuck in a time warp, it seems we are not even close to be prepared. Speaking Chinese may help. . . .
Pogo says
Hi ya Sherry
The Canadian professor isn’t wrong about American history, society, and politics; and he is fortunate to live in a better place. I largely agree with his every word.
Consider the Equal Rights Amendment:
As stated
https://www.google.com/search?q=when+was+era+passed+by+congress
Comments(?) — anyone?
Now, look at the “energy” and lifelong grievance of j….xyz’s comment, multiplied by millions. That’s the backlash that puts a monster like Trump in power.
Utopian science fiction dressed up as public policy is a wonderful ideal, and just as often, a tragic reality. Warp 9, and replicators for any and all things, are not real things.
Beam me up.
FWIW
https://www.google.com/search?q=utopian+science+fiction
Sherry says
Thank you Pogo! Critical and reasonable thinking is just so very refreshing!
JimboXYZ says
“Now, look at the “energy” and lifelong grievance of j….xyz’s comment, multiplied by millions. That’s the backlash that puts a monster like Trump in power.”
Trump isn’t exactly the monster here ? Biden-Harris, years of open borders ? Giving away everuyone’s social contract of Social Security, FEMA funding, & anything else that was intended for USa citizens. Every illegal that crossed the border(s) into USA ? Virtually all of them just happen to be DEA categories. Correct me if I’m wrong ? Democrats election tampering for the direction we were heading with the Delaware Liar. So who would line up to support what becomes a DEI voter ? At the end of Trump every person had a vote, it’s relative value was percentage of 1 of 330 million population. Every person still has a vote, but illegals being allowed to vote would eventually become a percentage of 1 of 350 million population. Like the inflation on your dollar for consumer purchasing power, Biden-Harris devalued the voting power of legal USA Citizen votes. The DNC knew exactly what they were doing as they sought to landslide elections for DEI votes & hires. All of that flourished under Biden-Harris. Imagine a voting population that sway elections & take over states like TX & FL. The evil is the DNC. Because like I said in my 1st comment, once DEI gets their power, they certainly are going to perpetuate their own version of discrimination. There’s going to be the same Nepotism & Cronyism going on that has always existed.
All one needs to observe is the World Cup of Soccer. Team Black & Brown have Nationalities of fan bases. Here’s one observation I always saw in 20 years of a life in Miami, FL. In the Black & Brown communities there, there is a delineation of Caribbean Island Blacks vs Continental USA Blacks. Trust me there’s racism in that. A Haitian vs a Dominican even, vs the regional blacks of the USA. Trust me, one nationality actually believes they are the better African Slave Trade Black than where the other was bought & sold. Just as one can go to Europe and see it with Great Britain, Germany, France, Spain, Italy & Portugal. And because of that DEI is doomed to fail. While I’ve never been to Africa, I can guarantee even amongst nations, tribes of Africans, that same racism, cloaked as nationalism/tribalism has existed from the dawn of time, exists in the present & will exist forever more. Because in the end classifications of humans are designed to produce biases & prejudices, to ultimately become any form of discrimination. That’s where DEI is & was heading. Biden famously addressed the NAACP back in Dec 2020. Anyone that listened & watched the video saw Biden proclaim that he’s the one that brought the White vote to the masterplan of DEI. Even Dementia Joe Biden knew what his role was in the masterplan to overthrow America as an implosion from within of infiltration. And we saw Cartel after cartel invade the USA-Mexico border towns & take those over. what a mess Biden-Harris created on that scale ? Like fleas & ticks on your pet, weeds in your yard, getting that invasion of pests & parasites is expensive & difficult. We can thank Obama & Biden for that.
Anyone actually think Iran with a nuclear weapon is a good thing ? A powerful Iran as a conventional force is this cancer the Obama & Biden handed off to Trump twice in the last decade (2016=>2025=>present) ! Evil monster, who funded Iran with the money, the nuclear program ? Not Trump is the answer to that question.
My comment wasn’t so much a grievance or even a pity seek. But these are the 3D chess issues of Democrats playing tic-tac-toe or tiddly winks for policy. To think the the DC Swamp doesn’t know what the repercussions of their actions are is absurd. Every one of them hides behind an immunity of accountability & responsibility for their hand in complications. Their fixes as corrections/cures/solutions are nothing but worse than having the diseases run their natural courses. Iran has evolved into this problem from the Day Bush went after Saddam Hussein & Iraq. Like Covid leaking from a Wuhan Lab this is where we are.
Deborah Coffey says
Great article and spot on! Thank you. Only a real hater of himself/herself could love all the White Nationalist moves put out by the Trump administration. You have to be really, really disappointed and unhappy with your own life to believe that “others” are the cause of your current misery. Down with Fascism, Nazism, and all types of Authoritarianism. Long live the Democracies of the world! Let’s bring our own Democracy back and work hard to perfect it so that ALL kinds of people are able to be big participants in it. But first, we need to learn to love our neighbor as we love ourselves (meaning, we have to learn to love ourselves first).
Sherry says
Right On Deborah. . . it all begins with a good moral compass to self esteem and self love.
Skibum says
One has to shake their head in wonderment at JimboXYZ’s long, drawn out diatribe against DEI, nepotism and cronyism because he never once even mentioned the king of nepotism and cronyism, our home grown pedo prez who is currently president. Want to negotiate an end to a war HE started? Well, go over there son-in-law Jared, without any qualifications except nepotism.
The cronyist of crony presidents in the history of this nation even said he wanted to name his daughter Ivanka as UN Secretary when that spot had previously come open!
His two oldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric, were just revealed to be high dollar investors in a military drone company that, guess what, just got a huge, multi-million dollar federal military contract while their daddy warmonger is prolonging the war with Iran, spending billions of our taxpayer dollars each and every day on military adventurism. Gee, I wonder how that contract to the president’s son’s investment happened?!?!?!
But the maga disinformation mouthpieces would have everyone believe there’s nothing untoward or unethical about this corrupt president’s seeking appointment of his own family members, while at the same time railing on incessantly about DEI, nepotism and cronyism in government as long as their targets don’t dare mention the vast, out in the open and never before seen amount of corruption that is blasted in our faces every day!
It would be funny if it were not so shockingly sad and contemptable.
Sherry says
Hi Skibum. . . Yes, the Maga SOP blatant hypocrisy is absolutely astounding. Some core maga cult members are so oblivious they’re not even aware of their surroundings. Some in the gutter, some under their bed. . . some under their bed in the gutter. One thing they have in common, though, is that they are all fooling themselves bigly.
Yes, sad and contemptible. . . solid descriptors.
Atwp says
This is what happens when wrong leadership is in control. We must vote against them.
Ed P says
Hello Atwp,
It occurs to me no one should endorse voting against but rather voting for a better qualified leader.
The “against” anything/everything statistically includes a losing strategy because a “better or best” alternative is never guaranteed by that logic.
Flipping a coin at least gives you a better chance of being right.
Tony Mack says
How about normalizing life without regard to race. As MLK implied, character, not race, is what’s important.
King yemma says
So being whites not normal that sounds racist to me
Laurel says
No, being white is not the problem. The problem is the white male has been at the apex for the most of this U.S. experience, and that, of course, has been just fine by him. He didn’t need merit. Some advanced by merit, some advanced without merit. Now, he is afraid he will be the minority. That doesn’t sit well with him. Now, he feels “discrimination,” what all the rest of us have lived our lives with.
I’m all for merit, but to state, like Charley Kirk did, that a black pilot should be of concern, is nothing but bigotry. What’s good for the white gander is good for the black goose, correct?
Yes! Let’s advance by merit!
Ed P says
Hello Laurel,
Please check with Snopes and read the ENTIRE Charlie Kirk comment and interaction about your black pilot qualifications comments. Context matters.
The essence of the comments were when everything is viewed through a hyper-racialized diversity-quota lens because of massive insistence to try reaching quotas makes us worse versions of ourselves.
He was knocking DEI.
His response to the comment…
“ of course I believe anybody of any skin color can be a qualified pilot” Charlie Kirk.
Not supporting DEI doesn’t make anyone a bigot, racist, or white supremacist.