WATCH: 'Self-inflicted wounds': SUNY introduces new DEI requirements

Campus Reform Higher Education Fellow Nicholas Giordano appeared on “Fox and Friends” with Brian Kilmeade to discuss the new Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice (DEISJ) graduation requirements for State Universities of New York System (SUNY).

The DEISJ requirement will be necessary for all incoming students starting in Fall 2023 for students entering any of the 64 colleges and universities that comprise the SUNY System, as Campus Reform has previously reported.

Giordano, who is tenured faculty at a SUNY institution, highlights that DEI and social justice issues are “extremely divisive” and are hurting higher education as a whole.

“Enrollment is down, companies are dropping degree requirements, and it’s all through self-inflicted wounds like this,” he said. 

[RELATED: ANALYSIS: $1.7 trillion spending bill prioritizes DEI]

Giordano also highlights the more pernicious problems of DEISJ initiatives than the productivity of colleges and universities.

“When you start changing student learning objectives to meet these requirements,” Giordano observes, “there’s no debate or discussion of whether institutional racism still exists and in what agencies or departments and how does it affect everyone.”

DEI becomes, as Giordano contends, a categorization: “You are either part of the oppressed or you are the oppressor.”

Both Giordano and Kilmeade see this as contradictory to the idea of the American “melting pot.”

“The United States is one of the few nations that has been able to achieve this idea that we can all coexist together,” Girodano notes, and putting “identity above the American identity” is detrimental to preserving what makes our society exceptional.

Watch the full video above or on YouTube.

Follow Nicholas Giordano and Gabrielle M. Etzel on Twitter.