PRESS RELEASE: New Report Warns of Rising Dangerous and Violent “Intersectional” Ideology

WASHINGTON—The Defense of Freedom Institute for Policy Studies (DFI) and the Legal Insurrection Foundation (LIF) today released Intersectionality: The Rise of a Dangerous Anti-American Ideology and How to Stop It, an in-depth report explaining the urgent threats posed by intersectional ideology and recommending measures the administration and Congress can take to stop institutions from using it to justify unlawful discrimination and to release its grip on the culture.

Intersectionality, the dominant ideology in higher education for decades, is the anti-Western, group-identity-based intellectual foundation for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives embedded in the curriculum, admissions, and other policies in our educational institutions and adopted by many of our governments, corporations, and criminal justice and judicial systems.

Intersectionality uses a framework of systems of privilege and oppression to assign status based on perceived victimhood categories with the ostensible goal to remedy past oppression and discrimination. In practice, it justifies unlawful discrimination in such areas as school admissions, hiring activity, and, dangerously, in the criminal justice system. For example, until an investigation by the DOJ, the county containing Minneapolis had a plea agreement policy that instructed prosecutors to consider racial identity,  which violates the foundational principle of equal protection under law.

This ideology opens the door to violent action, as can be seen in the indictment of members of the Turtle Island Liberation Front (TILF), an “anti-capitalist, anti-government movement” calling for “decolonization” of America, who declare, “From Turtle Island to Palestine, occupation is a crime.” Its members allegedly planned to bomb multiple buildings and target ICE agents. Their name is itself an intersectional, anti-colonial coded term for North America and, as their social media and terroristic plans indicate, they are serious about forcing “revolutionary change.”

The Trump administration has taken laudable, concrete steps to address discriminatory ideologies, including Executive Orders (EO), agency guidance and litigation. Unfortunately, multiple institutions receiving federal funds have been flouting the administration’s actions. These include:

• a DACA program operating at 138 colleges and universities in the California system, discriminating against American-born students, and
  
• a fellowship program excluding white faculty members at twenty New England universities.

Staff at some institutions have admitted on camera that DEI instruction and initiatives are continuing, but are being concealed through rebranding.

“While we were asleep as a society the illegitimate and malignant intersectionality ideology captured our educational institutions, academia, and many of our children,” says William A. Jacobson, President of LIF and founder of the Equal Protection Project. “It’s time to disinfect society by shining a bright light on Intersectionality to expose the dangers it poses and the damage it is causing.”

“Federal tax dollars shouldn’t go to schools or universities that discriminate in violation of civil rights law,” said Robert S. Eitel, President and Co-Founder of DFI. “This report serves as an urgent reminder that renaming a DEI office or program is irrelevant if an institution is still engaging in discrimination. Colleges, universities, and schools cannot allow identity politics to displace merit and equal treatment.”

To address institutions’ flouting of the law, ensure future compliance, and substantively address the harms of intersectionality, LIF and DFI call for additional actions: 

• A White House Executive Order defining and exposing the destructive nature of intersectional ideology, identifying it as a threat to American civil rights, values, security, and social cohesion
  
• Federal agency guidance articulating how intersectionality-based discrimination is violative of anti-discrimination laws and the expectation of compliance and intention to enforce the law, including withholding government funding
  
• Congress codifying Executive Orders which protect against intersectional discrimination; passing legislation addressing funding/defunding criteria; and holding hearings to educate the public, lawmakers and policymakers on the unlawfulness and harms of intersectionality to American institutions and values

According to Professor Jacobson, “If it is not stopped, intersectional ideology threatens to become ever more entrenched, extreme, and violent.”

To read the report, click here.