MFE: A reasonable alternative to DEI, CRT, SEL, etc. etc. etc. ?
These acronyms are ravaging public education across our country. They’re doing a number on the campus of our local community college. Diversity, Equity, Inclusivity. Critical Race Theory. Meet MFE — Merit, Fairness, and Equality:
[…] Roughly one century ago, “progressives” set out to take over American education. They wanted to extirpate the individualism that had always been the hallmark of the people’s character, so that they would be receptive to the collectivism and central control that progressivism calls for. The best way to make that happen would be to instill their precepts in young minds.
The progressives (I will not call them “liberals” even though that’s common parlance today; the progressive project is the exact opposite of true liberalism) have been extraordinarily successful in their goal of dominating our educational institutions.For many decades, they made slow-but-steady progress, as more and more teachers and professors of a leftist bent were hired. Traditional academic norms, however, held most of them back from going too far and blatantly turning their classes into propaganda for their pet beliefs. The American Association of University Professors held to the idea that faculty should teach their subjects and not deviate into matters of personal opinion.
Those norms have been eroding. They began to give way in the 1970s, and have been receding ever since. Increasingly, new faculty members have been emboldened to put a political slant on their teaching. Many were upfront about it. One professor, Donald Lazere, even wrote a book entitledWhy Higher Education Should Have a Leftist Bias.
Having absorbed progressive beliefs throughout their own education, many faculty members now see their roles as “change agents” rather than as objective scholars. Many courses that were formerly politically neutral (English, for example) have been turned into indoctrination camps where the readings and assignments have an overwhelmingly leftist bias. […]
At Sandhills Community College, entry level English composition classes force on students some critical 
thinking exercises featuring (1) an essay suggesting Thanksgiving damages and disrespects the writer’s Chinese heritage, and (2) an essay where the writer expressed disbelief over her parents’ celebration of the 4th of July — which the writer says celebrates centuries of racism. Sadly, stuff like this is NOT uncommon.
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[…] Faculty are able to do that because most college administrators are on their side. Just like the faculty, administrators have been steeped in progressive activism. Very few are willing to clash with faculty (and students) who want to politicize their schools. Quite often, they take the lead in doing so.
At the University of Tennessee, for example, the administration has demanded diversity plans from all the academic units of the university. Perhaps more alarmingly, the diversity, equity, and inclusion mania has been brought into the U.S. Naval Academy.
The DEI fixation prevents academic leaders from standing up for academic freedom when students who say they’re offended demand that professors be punished, as has occurred at University of Pennsylvania Law School regarding Professor Amy Wax. They are also eager to demand that applicants for faculty positions or advancement submit “ diversity statements,” which amount to loyalty oaths to a set of ideas—an requirement utterly at odds with the concept of the university as a place for free inquiry.
With the divisive and anti-educational DEI entrenched at so many colleges and universities, it seems that there is an opportunity for some “product differentiation.” Why shouldn’t those schools that stick to education, and eschew DEI, trumpet that fact to prospective students, families, and financial supporters?
That is what Professors Dorian Abbot of the University of Chicago and Ivan Marinovic of Stanford University propose. Colleges and universities that are not beholden to DEI should declare themselves for MFE: merit, freedom, and equality. Writing in Newsweek, they state, “We propose an alternative framework called Merit, Fairness, and Equality (MFE) whereby university applicants are treated as individuals and evaluated through a rigorous and unbiased process based on their merit and qualifications alone.”
What MFE would mean is that students would be admitted only because of their academic and personal achievements, not because of their ancestry or family connections. It would also mean that school personnel would be similarly chosen on merit, with no favoritism for applicants because of their race or other immutable characteristics, and no favoritism for those who espouse certain political beliefs.
At DEI institutions, individuals applying for faculty positions often have to declare their support for the DEI agenda by submitting a “diversity statement.” Those statements make it possible for the decision-makers to cull out anyone who is not an advocate of that agenda. If, for example, a chemistry professor said, “I believe in treating all students equally and am completely colorblind, in that I do not take race into account in my teaching, grading, or interactions with students,” that would ruin his chances at DEI schools, no matter how stellar his teaching and research might be.
On the other hand, MFE schools would announce that they have no ideological litmus tests and hire and promote faculty purely on the basis of achievement.
Furthermore, the DEI agenda adversely affects students. At DEI schools, students have to watch what they say, lest they find themselves under investigation by the school’s “bias response team,” for having said something deemed offensive by another student. They also may be compelled to take courses that have scant knowledge content but are intended to impart DEI beliefs such as the existence of “white privilege.”
A school that had embraced MFE would have no such obstacles to freedom of speech and would not try to indoctrinate students with politicized courses.
As matters now stand, most colleges and universities are partially to wholly in thrall to DEI. It is divisive and destructive, but has swept through most schools with little opposition since those who don’t like it fear being “canceled” by DEI zealots.
The “lovable” John Dempsey’s true legacy at Sandhills Community College includes an embedded DEI system, speech codes, PRONOUNS, and draconian ideological lockstep groupthink. All of this will likely outlive him — unless drastic, dramatic action is taken.
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Can DEI be stopped? Robert Maranto, Michael Mills, and Catherine Salmon observe in this article on The Hill, “you can’t beat something with nothing,” and suggest that MFE is the something that might beat it. MFE, they point out, “accords with public opinion” since “Seventy-five percent of Americans believe that gender, race or ethnicity should not factor into educational admissions decisions.”
DEI has mostly conquered through stealth, and its advocates fear to engage in debate over its tenets and effects. What currently protects schools that embrace it from competition is the fact non-DEI schools don’t have a shorthand way of communicating that fact. MFE would be exactly the way to do that.
Colleges and universities that have resisted DEI could proudly declare themselves to be schools dedicated to Merit, Fairness, and Equality and explain why that matters. Students who want education without any ideological overlay would gravitate toward MFE institutions. Also, education supporters who don’t want to waste their money backing schools that are undermining the foundations of the nation would look for MFE schools.
One more thing—MFE schools not only deliver better education, but can do so at lower cost because they don’t waste resources on “diversity” administrators.
Colleges and universities that have succumbed to DEI ought to be at a big competitive disadvantage versus those that just offer worthwhile education. Let us hope that MFE catches on.[…]
MFE must catch on if public education is to survive as something worth existing. Critical Pedagogy (Critical Theory as applied to education) has saturated our public university system and is steadily infiltrating our grade schools. The path we are on leads to disaster.
Thank you for this article. In order to promote and build support for MFE, it should be branded as the Patriotic alternative to DEI/CRT/SEI . MFE needs to be associated with our Judeo-Christian conservative majority of citizens in defense of traditional American values, the preservation of the Framers’ intent. The central problem today is that social conservatives are on the defense, not the offense. With a more supportive U.S. Supreme Court now in office (thanks to President Trump), a Constitutional conservative majority on NC’s Supreme Court, a divided Congress, and a near super-majority of conservatives in the NC General Assembly, now is the time to seize the initiative on these social constructs. In North Carolina, particularly, we have the tools to regain the momentum we once had.
Bless your heart, sir, but get a clue.
You truly believe that the coalition in Raleigh is “conservative” and will fight to stop the DEE/DEI contagion infecting every aspect of our public schools, university system and so-called storied institutions?
You really think Tim, Phil, John and Jim have the balls to ban this crap and launch a Judeo-Christian based curriculum? Have they ever once given any indication that they will DEFUND these initiatives?
Or better yet let’s get “Republican” Catherine Truitt in on it; will that be before or after she removes the gender-changing option on students’ power school platform?
Or let’s get Republican Higher Ed heads Jon Hardister, Michael Lee, Ray Pickett and Amy Galey to stop the anti-White bigotry stifling UNC-Chapel Hill : https://nsjonline.com/article/2023/02/unc-chapel-hill-hit-with-multiple-civil-rights-complaints/ Why is Dr. Mark J Perry from Michigan State is doing more to protect all UNC students than the aforementioned Larry, Moe, Curley and Shep?
Or maybe we can yank Hardister off the campaign trail to look into UNC Med https://www.nas.org/blogs/article/unc-school-of-medicines-quiet-dei-revolution
The Parents Bill of Rights is just a ploy to get us to shut up. Fall for these groomers’ schtick at the peril of us, our children and this state.
Good grief, man.
Don’t agree with “Fair”. Fair is embedded in the equity definition. And who determines what is “Fair”? Instead a concept like Integrity–Merit, Integrity, Equality. Now that would scare the Leftists like garlic to a vampire.
One place where DEI / CRT is a big threat is the State Board of Education’s radical new Social Studies curriculum that are now trying to implement on the county level. The preferred local curriculum being pushed out by the Educrats at NCDPI is from the ultra-woke SAVVAS. SAVVAS has been rejected in Florida because they even crammed DEI / CRT into their MATH curriculum. In Arizona, a stink over a SAVVAS science curriculum was even covered in the British media because that SAVVAS science curriculum contended that there were more than two genders. Our local school superintendant first said that the SAVVAS social studies curriculum was the only one approved by NCDPI, but then backed up and said it was the preferred one by DPI.
SAVVAS’ Director of Professional Content, Meg Honey, openly supports Critical Theory, of which Critical Race Theory is a part. She also has a history of working with the far left anti-Christian hate group Southern Poverty Law Center.
Conservatives should watch their local school boards to guard against this woke DEI propaganda from SAVVAS disguised as a social studies curriculum. This is just another effort to indoctrinate school children with far left ideology.
In my opinion, the only way out of this corrupt education system is to boycott the government schools. Washington state schools I understand are being depopulated because the parents chose other options.
The most important job that God gave parents is to raise their children. Why don’t they act like that is their most important job? If they have to live on less, that might have to be. For single parents, there are ways to band together and co op for home schooling. Becoming the community instead of trying to do everything alone. Let the government schools starve. Fear is what keeps people from doing this.