NEH introduces new prohibited categories to comply with executive orders. This is an infringement of academic freedom plain and simple, and also nonsense: what is “discriminatory equity ideology”
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Guidelines written by someone who doesn't understand the concepts of "ideology," "gender," or "equity." Perhaps a person in need of an education in the humanities.
You’re so right. I’ll give them this: they’re really good at rebranding a totally positive thing into a totally negative thing… without engaging with the actual substance of it at all.
They could’ve come up with any new backronym to make DEI sound terrible and they settled on something completely contradictory. Equity is antithetical to discrimination. It’s not just oxymoronic…it’s moronic.
I'm so naive. When I imagined Fascism taking over an old friend I expected rallies and concrete. I should have realised it would just be banal sour pettiness.
Sounds like department chairs and research deans should be calling and emailing to protest this. Even when people don't win NEH grants, they learn a lot through these webinars abt grants-person-ship (I sure did: help from my dept chair w NEH Summer Grant App changed my research life!)
We've gotten used to the ridiculous "gender ideology" term as well. What in the world does that mean? Gender is of course an "idea" and thus a set of thoughts about how people should behave. What else could it be? The whole (somewhat problematic) sex/gender distinction is built on this.
put more succinctly, for me, even to try to do the same good work under these new guidelines entails being complicit, feeling complicit, feeling terrible . . . not quite knowing how to proceed and wondering if political protests and refusals to conform can be managed or succeed . . . .
Even if you were the most rabidly right wing, racist person how could you be against accessibility? I'm assuming that covers making it so disabled people can attend, or blind people can have a version in Braille?
Watching this from a grants office (also supporting proposals to NEA, NSF, NIH, Dept of Ed, etc), the NEH opportunities seems to be the least impacted (no programs cancelled, less chaos). I’m hoping that burying the nonsense prohibitions (but keeping the terms) means the NEH doesn’t get defunded.
I'm so sick of everyone giving these agency heads the benefit of the doubt that they must be coerced or they're afraid or they're trying to prevent more chaos. No! They want this! They never liked these laws that limited their power & now they're very happy to have permission to ignore them!
I also think they're worried about their funding. However, their compliance probably won't guarantee a think. President Musk will cut everything regardless of what BS they put on their website. I'm sure they'd be told to put it there eventually.
I guess they’re hoping this will all blow over, like the Democrats will finally wake up and rude to the rescue, or maybe Trumpelon will get bored and go do something else, but I can see the New Normal from ten miles away so I wouldn’t count in it.
well I do actually hate the gender ideology that says there are only two sexes and they are determined at or before birth but I'm not sure we can ban it even though it's just wrong....
Wonder if someone clever will find a way to use "promotion of gender ideology" when some prominent right-winger says shit like "man will no longer be discriminated against in the Trump era". Find some gov statement about men being as capable as , and file a claim of gender ideology.
Hear me out: fuck 'em. Do the shit anyway. Make 'em angry, and when they come to make a stink about your environmental justice project, trap'em under a heavy glass dome that you will eventually take outside to release. That's what I do with bugs in my bathroom... Get to watch 'em for a little bit...
Every agency should be responding to something like this with we are ready to comply with the new EO once the terms are defined so that we can know what we are enforcing.
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Because, y'know, calls for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sound kinda reasonable
If you want to be helpful, you need patience and perseverance—maybe even talent. If you want to feel powerful, you can simply destroy.
Um, okay.
🤷♀️
Anything that takes money away from rich people, of course.
They would have done all of this a long time ago if there hadn't been a law against it.
What do you think those laws were for?!
They do not.
See
Timothy Synder
On Tyranny
1. Do not comply in advance
Compliance. In. Advance.
Big opening to circumvent these bozos.