Declare your pronouns: EDI and compelled speech

Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Sunday 20 October at Church House, Westminster.

ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI, or DEI in America) measures have become an important organisational framework for governments, universities, quangos and businesses across the English-speaking world. While some believe our institutions have an important role to play in shaping public opinion and leading the conversation around issues of ‘social justice’, others argue such agendas play an unhelpful role in fuelling the culture wars. For many people, these three letters (in whatever order) signify illiberalism – and a dread of being compelled to repeat EDI mantras on pain of ostracism, re-education or even job loss.

Institutions from corporate banks to galleries, from streaming networks like Netflix to the most prestigious universities, now organise around EDI targets. Everything from employment practices – such as recruitment and promotion, advertising, branding and customer relations – are getting the EDI treatment. Advocates argue that these policies ensure progressive language and an inclusive civility that allows everyone to feel part of organisations. Opponents complain that they are a top-down imposition of political criteria or language codes – such as using ‘preferred pronouns’ – on our speech and behaviour.

Some in higher education worry that EDI policies not only impact on free speech, but also distort academic judgement. In the US, materials from the University of Colorado Boulder’s DEI programme have come under fire for suggesting ethnic-minority students are failing because of a ‘white supremacy culture’ that includes ‘individualism, perfectionism, a sense of urgency’ and ‘worship of the written word’. St Andrews University in Scotland requires all matriculating students to sign a form confessing their privilege and promising to address their ‘unconscious bias’.

Those who favour such measures, suggest that EDI policies can right historical wrongs and encourage greater representation across many sectors. Advocates are determined to fight prejudice in the present by righting the wrongs of the past and enhancing opportunities for those groups who have been historically marginalised. However, critics claim that the opposite is true, pointing out, for example, that ethnic minorities are subjected to the ‘bigotry of low expectations’. They also argue that promotion of group identity fosters division, rather than inclusion, and undermines a social contract that depends on equality of opportunity and universal treatment. In workplaces, there are concerns that hiring practices are no longer equal but differential, treating people according to their skin colour, impeding meritocracy and reinforcing racial thinking.

What is the impact of EDI on our institutions? Do such policies promote social justice and enhance opportunities for underrepresented groups? Or are these policies playing a divisive role in public life, to the detriment of free speech and free inquiry – imposing values on students, employees and customers by compelling the majority to think and speak only in officially approved ways? Is EDI/DEI here to stay or might it DIE in the future under the weight of popular revolt?

SPEAKERS
Dr John Armstrong
reader in financial mathematics, King’s College London; founding member, London Universities’ Council for Academic Freedom

Eric Kaufmann
professor of politics, University of Buckingham; advisory council member, Free Speech Union; author, Taboo: How Making Race Sacred Led to a Cultural Revolution

Connor Murnane
campus advocacy chief of staff, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE)

Dr Joanna Williams
author, How Woke Won and Women vs Feminism

CHAIR
Jacob Reynolds
head of policy, MCC Brussels; associate fellow, Academy of Ideas