What Should Replace the ‘Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion’ Regime

A s we come together as Americans to celebrate our nation’s birth this Fourth of July, it’s incumbent on each of us to take to heart what Abraham Lincoln believed set us apart from other nations of the world. In 1863, in his “Response to a Serenade,” Lincoln reflected on the enduring meaning of the holiday from its very inception: “Since on the Fourth of July for the first time in the history of the world a nation by its representatives, assembled and declared as a self-evident truth that ‘all men are created equal. . . .’ That was the birthday of the United States of America.”

He goes on to single out for praise Thomas Jefferson, for having written the Declaration of Independence, and for John Adams, for having advocated for it “forcibly” during congressional debates. Lincoln is expressing the aspirational belief that civic equality among American citizens is the bedrock of our democratic republic and its institutions, the acknowledgment of which we celebrate on the Fourth of July. At its founding, America was unique among nations in its express commitment to the belief that “all men are created equal.” Although the pursuit of that belief has taken many errant paths throughout our history, we’ve been blessed as a people to have the wherewithal to eventually course-correct, to do the right thing.

The blind tolerance of DEI and its discriminatory practices needs a course correction sorely. It has mounted a powerful challenge to the belief that all men are created equal. Fortunately, with the recent ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, and the changes in DEI advocacy among several elite universities, including Harvard and MIT, it’s beginning to look like the pace of diversity initiatives within higher education has finally plateaued. In corporate America, I think it’s safe to say, we see the ebbing of diversity initiatives enacted in the wake of George Floyd’s death and its racial reckoning. A recent headline from the Wall Street Journal reflects the about-face on ethnic and racial initiatives: “Banks, Law and Consulting Firms are Watering Down Their Diversity Recruiting Programs.” All of these changes should be seen as positive developments in how America confronts its past and the relations between American citizens. By prioritizing civic equality, equality before the law, we can finally turn the page on policies based on ethnicity or racial identity.

However, the demise of the diversity regime isn’t an unalloyed good if we, as Americans, fail to consider one of the most important questions facing us today: “What should replace the DEI regime?” Without hyperbole, we can say that the answer to this question will determine the trajectory of our domestic politics and, possibly, international relations for many years to come. As the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum. For many Americans, DEI and its identity politics filled a void but must be replaced by a positive American narrative that goes beyond creedalism and is grounded in a set of ideas and practices that are more substantial and enduring than what DEI offers. If we’re unable to construct a narrative and promote practices robust enough to provide a modicum of unity amid the competing identities currently vying for recognition in the public square, we’ll end up in a much worse place than where we were during the heyday of DEI’s divisive practices.

The void that DEI filled is both ideological and existential. Contrary to some on the right, identity politics is not simply ideological identities in racial, cultural, or sexual disguise. It’s also a response to the same market and cultural forces that have fragmented and uprooted nearly all ascriptive communities in America — family, faith communities, ethnic communities.

Ironically, the overriding question of those who embrace identity politics seems to be “Who am I?” The question isn’t simply one’s personal reflection. Rather, it gives voice to a longing for, as the late sociologist Robert Nisbet titled one of his books, a “quest for community.” The question demands that one’s assumed identity be recognized and have juridical standing. College campuses are filled with this type of corrosive identity politics. America’s ethnically diverse population, and the alienation that some of its members express through oppositional identities, would be well served by what a positive American narrative and its cultural practices would offer.

It’s no longer enough to appeal to an American creedal identity in the way Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil-rights movement did. In the 21st century, creedalism alone has been especially ineffective at keeping racial chauvinism at bay in American life. Conveniently, creedalism is only one part of the American identity, albeit a very important part. The other part is cultural. Of course, these two aspects of the American identity are not mutually exclusive. The creedalist’s argument is captured eloquently by Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address. His “new birth of freedom” was a call to Americans to ground their collective identity in substantive ideas such as constitutionalism, rule of law, and human equality. All of which, by itself, amounts to a creedal or notional definition of citizenship.

However, in his first inaugural address, in 1861, Lincoln also speaks about the “mystic chords of memory.” He appeals to the very real sentiments that unite Americans as Americans, north and south. The sacrifice made by the Founders, he reminds us, should be a source of strength and comfort to a beleaguered nation during a time of a political disruption and a national identity crisis. The principles and way of life animated by the spirit of 1776 is both felt and believed.

Today we are undergoing a similar period of national identity crisis and are in need of similar chords of memory to unite us as Americans. The formation of an American national identity does not begin with creedal or notional ideas only. It begins in a particular geographic location, among a particular culture, and among a particular people — a core. David Hackett Fischer in Albion’s Seed convincingly shows that the American identity was formed from a core of English-speaking settlers across the eastern United States from 1629 to 1775. These immigrants and their British folkways account for the various regional cultures that endure today. Taken as a whole, it was these British cultures that Publius (John Jay) seems to have in mind in Federalist No. 2. when he wrote that “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people — a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs.”

Americans no longer have a common ancestry, but we certainly have a common Judeo-Christian culture that goes beyond mere ideas. America consists of a core culture, animated by ideas, and communicated through the English language. It has a civic national and cultural identity. The overriding feature of the core American culture is its Anglo-Protestant disposition: individualism (not excessive nor expressive), moral reform, religiosity, and a robust work ethic. The promotion of this core culture — its values and beliefs — amounts to a robust American identity. Such an identity tacks between the Scylla of a specific American racial identity and the Charybdis of a feeble notional, creedal, or civic American identity. Embracing an American identity of this type does give, as the political scientist Samuel Goldman puts it, “constitutive status” to Anglo-Protestant culture. My argument, however, doesn’t entail giving such status to white Anglo-Saxon Protestants as an ethnic group (WASPs). Culture can certainly be separated from ethnicity.

In other words, creedalism coupled with specific cultural practices defines America and what it means to be an American. The particularities, the preferences, the ascriptive qualities of one’s identity are secondary, or should be secondary, if we are to take the American identity seriously. The creedalist’s conception in isolation grounds the American identity solely in propositional or notional ideas: constitutionalism, rule of law, and human equality. Creedalism without a cultural putsch is especially ineffective against racial identity politics. What I have in mind when I speak of a cultural putsch are benign cultural practices that make concrete the rhetoric often associated with creedalism. There are two such possible practices that I’ll briefly mention as instrumental means to shoring up America’s core culture: Make English the official language of the United States, and implement some version of a national-service program nationwide. Each of these practices would be enacted at the federal level.

Neither of these practices are foreign to American soil. In 1780, John Adams proposed that English be made the official language of the United States, but for various reasons the proposal was rejected. Since then, there have been several unsuccessful federal attempts to elevate the status of the English language in America. (Some states have declared English their official language.) America is in a radically different place today from where it was in the past, and change in this area is desperately needed to confront the present. Demographically, making English our official language would, at minimum, complement the argument that we’re not a nation of immigrants but rather a settler nation. More importantly, elevating the status of the English language on the federal level would play an important symbolic role by serving as a proxy for many of the unifying, core cultural features that we, as Americans, have rallied around historically.

Implementing a national-service program based on the core cultural features I’ve mentioned would contribute to the formation of a national American identity. The program would be directed mainly toward young adults and would be modeled on the integrative procedures currently used by the armed services to instill a sense of esprit de corps and belonging among its enlistees. Aside from our all-volunteer military force, there are few places or institutions where young adults socialize with those who are of a different social class or race or from a different region of America. When young adults do come into contact with one another, it is often on a college campus with other middle- and upper-middle-class students. A national-service program would, hopefully, motivate Americans to think more sympathetically about their fellow citizens when sorting themselves along the lines of class, race, region, or other sub-national identities.

In addition to the need for a broad American national identity that’s more integrative than self-regarding identities based on race, gender, or religion, we need a positive, compelling American narrative in the public square that’s more effective at promoting integration and rootedness. This is the only way to counteract the ever-proliferating anti-American ideas that are tearing us apart, especially in our institutions of higher education. Narratives are supposed to glue a people together, so to speak. New immigrants to America, for example, exchange their old narratives and identities that once defined them in their old countries for a new, American identity and narrative. Except for learning a few facts about American history and how the government functions, it’s not clear at all today what narrative or narratives new immigrants to America adopt. Given the feeble patriotism expressed by America’s young, I’m doubtful that whatever narrative new immigrants to America adopt is compelling enough to win their complete allegiance over the long term. The more positive American narrative would tell a story about the role that faith, family, and tradition have played and continue to play in the evolution of the country, both politically and culturally. That story would celebrate what were once widely agreed upon cultural precepts of upward mobility: that you should, for example, speak English competently, finish high school, complete college, get married before having children, and respect the laws.

That uniquely American narrative, and the story that it tells, should be top of mind this Fourth of July. No other narrative, especially weird racial narratives, is equipped to address the psychological and existential needs of alienation among a sizeable group of Americans. As we witness the gradual decline of the DEI regime, we can take solace in knowing what precisely should take its place.