A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond. I hope you’ll read and share the piece. stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/w... - ThreadSky

hakeemjefferson.bsky.social • 6 hours ago

A colleague at Stanford’s business school used The Stanford Daily to argue—poorly—against DEI. The piece was riddled with historical errors and left one searching for fact, so I broke my public writing hiatus to respond.

I hope you’ll read and share the piece.

https://stanforddaily.com/2025/04/22/what-dei-threatens-isnt-merit-its-monopoly/

Comments

prmalone.bsky.social•2 hours ago

Thank you so much for writing this, and for not holding back in spots. Berk's piece was so clueless and disingenuous and, mostly, downright intellectually dishonest.

prmalone.bsky.social•2 hours ago

The part that most pushed me over the edge was, "I challenge you to ask yourself the following question: Do you really want to live in a world where people are treated differently based on the race they belong to?" He clearly thinks we don't live in such a world, and haven't since WWII. Ugh.

tiffanyito.bsky.social•5 hours ago

An excellent, fact-based piece.

natekruger.bsky.social•3 hours ago

Pretty jaw-dropping that he cited the GI Bill like that

barbara-waxer.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Last fall, didn't he also slam Stanford grad students for wanting a living wage? He seems like yet another entitled South African native.

olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social•6 hours ago

"But the argument descends further. Berk asserts — without irony — that in contrast to today, “After WWII and the GI Bill, private universities like Stanford became places that provided opportunities to bright young minds from all strata in society.”

this is wild! I'm glad you responded

hakeemjefferson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

That’s the part that got me out of bed at 630 am to start writing!

palapid.bsky.social•3 hours ago

🫡 (and bonus props for the Filipino reference)

catherineboyle1.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Thanks for putting the truth out there.

emmanuel-mauleon.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Merit, you say? Okay, given this public display of absolutely fatuous opinion masquerading as fact, and your deep commitment to rooting out ideology for academic rigor, you won’t mind if we start an investigation into your tenure file? Or is that only for the Black Women you attack?

emmanuel-mauleon.bsky.social•5 hours ago

(Hakeem you are the pass-through vector of this message, not its target!)

hakeemjefferson.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Hah. Oh, I understood that!

rlarochelle.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Hell fucking yeah. Terrific rejoinder, Dr. Jefferson.

arghavansallesmd.medsky.social•6 hours ago

Berk’s piece was embarrassing (for him). Thank you for this rejoinder.

prisonrodeo.bsky.social•4 hours ago

Business school professors are by construction incapable of embarrassment.

deborahahrens.bsky.social•4 hours ago

I’m a white first-gen college student who understands both that I had better credentials than most of my classmates *and* that I benefitted from DEI aimed at students like me and would not otherwise have been admitted. This should not be rocket science.

hakeemjefferson.bsky.social•6 hours ago

And I’ll just say, I am grateful for a partner who pulled me back in some places, but few pieces get me out of bed to write immediately. Berk’s piece did that. And whatever shade is evident in the piece of mine you read here, know there was more.

janavs.bsky.social•6 hours ago

SO MUCH THIS.
Beautifully written. Thank you for writing it.

profclbrown.bsky.social•5 hours ago

Stanford gsb is my alma mater but yikes may that guy take a long walk off a short pier

profclbrown.bsky.social•5 hours ago

When I was a student there (marketing) my sweetheart (management, economic sociology) and I used to dream of a whole business school devoid of people we didn’t like, until we realized this meant “no finance department.” Now, of course, I realize that was insufficient 😢🙄😡. Thank you again, Hakeem.

tagerai.bsky.social•3 hours ago

The great white privilege is ignorance, usually of white privilege itself, but in this case it was ignorance that he would raise the ire of Hakeem! Had he realized what he was about to find out he wouldn’t have written in the first place!

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