Jennifer Berkshire explains that the real target isn’t ‘DEI’ but equality. After recapping the last time a department of education was under attack (1867), she brings us to the present.
Should the federal government be involved in education at all or is that a job for the states? What do we owe the students with the least? And is using state power to further equality the goal, or the problem? It’s this last question that, IMHO, is at the heart of everything that Trump and Musk are up to right now. When you hear Trump’s allies rail against the “administrative state,” pay attention to how often they invoke the New Deal. There’s a reason for that.
The 1930’s was the key moment when the government put it’s thumb on the scale in the interest of furthering equality. This is when we got the welfare state, such as it is, unionization, and the modern version of public education. It’s not a coincidence that all are now on the chopping block.
There’s another reason why Trump/Musk seem to be taking aim at both the Department of Education and public schools more broadly. As I argue, the fact that so many of these guys are race scientists is hugely consequential.
Hanging over all of these claims, of course, is the putrescence of race science, and the belief, shared by Musk and his fellow oligarchs, along with many Trumpian intellectuals, that hierarchy is both good and natural. In this view, a cognitive elite with the highest of the high IQs deserves to rule over the rest of us, all in our natural places. In this fixed economy of spoils, there is little point to an institution whose goal is “equalizing.” It can’t be done.