New reports finds DEI presence at three technical universities

The National Association of Scholars published three reports this month documenting the continued presence of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) at technical schools nationwide. At least one university contests its report as inaccurate.

In the Oct. 2 and 3 reports, the association examines DEI at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Georgia Tech University in Atlanta, and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

[RELATED: University of Southern Indiana removes DEI references amid state crackdown]

The association argues that the school’s support for DEI is tied to an anti-science, anti-intellectual ideology that values identity over merit. The reports find DEI manifesting in identity-based courses and programs such as “Queer Theory” and “Anti-Racism.”

The association’s report on Georgia Tech details the evolution of DEI at the school from the civil rights era to the present, noting a significant growth in the ideology following the George Floyd riots of summer 2020.

In response to the riots, the School of History and Sociology formed an “Anti-Racism Action Committee,” which sought to “decolonize curriculum” and “contribute to anti-racism work” outside the school. From 2021–2022, the university began to hire more DEI employees and required faculty members to participate in an “implicit bias workshop.”

The report documents many DEI-themed courses at the university, including “Sociology of Gender,” “Sociology of Race and Ethnicity,” “Science, Technology, and Gender,” and “Science, Technology, and Race.”

In a statement to Campus Reform on Tuesday, a Georgia Tech spokesman criticized the report for being outdated, calling it “filled with inaccurate statements and misrepresentations of publicly available facts.”

The spokesman pointed to many actions the school has recently taken to remove DEI programs, including eliminating its DEI office in 2023. Additionally, in response to the Department of Education’s Dear Colleague letter from February, the university ended identity-based offices, including the Women’s Resource Center, LGBTQIA Resource Center, and Black Culture, Innovation & Technology.

“Georgia Tech has taken extensive actions over time to eliminate any programs, positions, or activities that could be perceived as DEI in nature,” the spokesman said.

For its part, the report acknowledges that the university dissolved the identity-based offices, but accuses the school of allowing DEI to continue existing underground. 

“Not a single DEI administrator was dismissed, however, indicating Georgia Tech’s ongoing appeasement of DEI,” the report says.

The association’s report on Caltech criticizes the school for changing academic standards to advance its DEI agenda. In 2023, the school dropped the requirement for incoming students to take prerequisites in calculus, chemistry, and physics, because some high schools don’t offer such courses.

MIT’s report details association researchers experiencing an art exhibit at the school’s museum in April 2024 titled “In Posse: ‘Female’ Semen and Other Acts of Resistance.”

[RELATED: GWU editorial board calls for school to defy Trump DEI crackdown]

The exhibit’s authors claimed to engage in “performative research,” which is “neither true nor false” and “ultimately queer.” According to the report, a blurred video of a masturbating man plays in the background of the exhibit.

“In Posse is but one data point in a well-documented trend of an authoritarian, censorious, and anti-scientific ideology’s imposition upon American higher education,” the report states.

As Campus Reform has reported, many universities continue to promote DEI practices, despite state and federal crackdowns.