The Review

When documents circulated showing that New York University students arrested for protesting were required by administrators to write “reflection papers” in order to avoid harsher discipline, the critic Sam Adler-Bell tweeted this: “I do think this stuff should force the left to rethink its hostility to the more sophisticated arguments against the DEI-ification of university administration.” In response, The New York Times’s Nikole Hannah-Jones asked Adler-Bell, “How is this DEI? Be specific.” (Adler-Bell didn’t respond.)

It’s a fair question, but I think an answerable one. Hannah-Jones is right to imply that nothing in the core goals of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts entails the punitive therapeutics of NYU’s coercive assignment (“What are your values? Did the decision you made align with your values?”), but as a matter of practice, DEI training in particular often encourages just such compelled introspection. “Privilege walks” are one of the most extreme and schematic versions of a more general imperative to look within oneself and root out one’s prejudices and biases. As the University of Colorado’s Office of Equity puts it in “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access 101”: “To be sure you do not tokenize someone or a group of persons ... it is important to constantly question and evaluate the ‘why’ behind every decision.”

Or, regarding cultural appropriation:

“When you are unsure whether something may or may not be culturally sacred, it is important to discover and unpack ‘the why’ of your uncertainty (is it warranted or is it not) in order to expand your level of cultural awareness. The key is reflection” (boldface and emphasis in original). And the Office of Equity offers a simple rule of thumb for whenever you’re worried about cultural appropriation: “Reflection: ‘When in doubt, back out.’”

(Incidentally, the office also warns against using the phrase “rule of thumb,” because, it says, “The use of the phrase lacks understanding of the origin; [the] phrase comes from an 18th century law that legally allowed men to physically assault their wife with a stick no thicker than their thumb.” This, in fact, is not true, although it has propagated across campus DEI websites and guides. Amusingly, the Office of Equity itself uses the phrase elsewhere in the same document: “As a general rule of thumb, if you are unsure of where to start, DO NOT immediately go to a friend or colleague that is part of (insert marginalized identity here) and ask them for suggestions.” The office should perhaps reflect.)

The reflection common to NYU’s “reflection papers” and the University of Colorado’s “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Access 101" is not open-ended. After sufficient reflection, you will always arrive at the same answer, the one prescribed by the authorities. “What have you done or need still to do to make things right?” NYU asks its protesters. “So, what can I do?” the University of Colorado asks its students and faculty members to ask themselves. “This work requires constant, consistent, and intentional engagement with yourself and others that you interact with on a daily basis.” After all, “Transformation is not easy.”

Recommended

• “My issues with noise pivot on the question of control. When the noise occurs on my own terms, I enjoy it; when it’s imposed on me, I recoil. This bifurcation is typical, even if I represent an extreme case.” In The New Yorker, Alex Ross writes about the history of noise.
• “Laura Riding gives us almost nothing to see, and this absence of imagery and sensuous detail, of any surface, is at first baffling. We feel as though we had been blinded.” In The New York Review of Books, Paul Auster, who died last month, explores the poetry and thought of Laura Riding. (From 1975.)
• “He finds himself as the ambassador of a schismatic king of England at the court of the most Catholic king of Spain.” That’s Susan Brigden discussing Thomas Wyatt’s diplomatic career with Melvyn Bragg for the BBC’s In Our Time. The other guests are Brian Cummings and Laura Ashe.

Write to me at len.gutkin@chronicle.com.

Yours,

Len Gutkin