Sen. J.D. Vance blasts DEI initiatives at his alma mater Ohio State, calls it ‘racial hatred’

Sen. J.D. Vance pressed the incoming president of his alma mater, Ohio State University, to take action against diversity, equity and inclusion practices that the lawmaker says have been “infused into the university’s hiring practices and curricula.”

Mr. Vance, Ohio Republican, accused the college of using “diversity considerations” in some hiring practices and said the “DEI dogma” has invaded undergraduate courses.

“If universities keep pushing racial hatred, euphemistically called DEI, we need to look at their funding,” Mr. Vance posted Friday on X.

Today I wrote to the leadership of Ohio State, a university I love, to ask about the troubling rise of racial prejudice on campus. If universities keep pushing racial hatred, euphemistically called DEI, we need to look at their funding. pic.twitter.com/fvYojXAwsi

— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) December 8, 2023

Mr. Vance urged new Ohio State President Walter Carter Jr. in a letter to “right the ship” at the school. The senator pointed to a Wall Street Journal analysis published in November that showed diversity considerations, like race, ethnicity, sex and views on diversity, were factors taken into account when hiring faculty at the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.

He said Ohio State administrators assured him that the practices would come to an end and be replaced with more standardized hiring practices.

However, Mr. Vance said he recently learned that undergraduate students were being asked to participate in DEI-infused coursework. He pointed to course material that “encouraged white students to confess that ‘whiteness … subtly trained [them] to visit hostility, distress and violence … upon people of color.’”

“In other words, students in this course were being taught to traffic in various race- and identity-based stereotypes, including the stereotype that white people are inherently wicked and oppressive,” Mr. Vance said.
 
He continued in the letter, “It seems that the rot of DEI — a modern gloss on racism, antisemitism and other ancient prejudices — is pervasive at Ohio State. Your presidency is the kind of change in leadership that I hope will occasion a serious review of these ideas, their legality and their role on campus.”