This week, my guest is Tabia Lee, the now former assistant professor and director of the Office of Equity, Social Justice, and Multicultural Education at De Anza Community College. Shortly after being hired by De Anza, Tabia found that her expansive view of diversity, equity, and inclusion was not welcome at the school, where a narrow and divisive conception of DEI held sway. After facing pushback and outright hostility from her colleagues, she was unceremoniously fired. Tabia’s experience demonstrates the grimly ironic results of a small-minded, intolerant, and fanatical concept of DEI that has actually committed itself to uniformity, inequality, and exclusion.
There are 22 Jewish hospitals in America with a Jewish population of only 2.5 million. How many black hospitals for 60 million blacks? Black inappropriate behavior?
Finally had a chance to hear this one. What can I say?
Dr. Tabia summed it up in two words: moral courage. Without that, what do we have?
Not a lot.
As Tabia described the rigid culture she experienced on her job, I could not help but think of McWhorter's constant refrain about wokeness: "It's a religion!"
Which is a quote that occasionally reminds me of Christopher Hitchens, speaking of religion: "It's whatever you want it to be."
The kind of campus culture Dr. Lee is describing is truly disturbing. It's doctrine; and far too many people of influence have surrendered to it, even though a lot of it is clearly gibberish.
We can't call it out without consequences; sometimes painful economic consequences. How backwards is that?
Not everybody wants to fall on a sword like Dr. Tabia. But in this environment, we could use a lot more Dr. Tabia's.
A week ago I had a question answered on this show about DEI; I didn’t know this interview was coming. I feel like I missed an opportunity as I was sitting near Tabia Lee at a conference recently but I didn’t speak to her, and particularly if I’d known she was involved with Do No Harm in medicine, who I went to a meeting for the following week, I wish I’d have talked with her about medicine specifically since we share some similar affiliations.
She is such an interesting character in that while I suspect many of us are cynics when it comes to DEI, she seems like the rare person who actually just took it seriously. Like every other DEI administrator knows that they’re hypocrites and it’s a farce, but this person is actually trying to intellectualize diversity.
I do want to raise one medicine-related point:
Many of the white coats for black lives protestors are actually medical students (meaning that they have not yet graduated and taken a professional oath). However, even when they do, it is likely not to be the Hippocratic Oath. The original Hippocratic Oath contains a lot of references to Greek gods and some other items that don’t make sense today, so it has been revised many times. However, most medical schools have their own oaths, and the content is different at every school. Many of them are not based on the Hippocratic Oath at all, and they may not include elements like a commitment to do no harm. Conversely, there various “social justice” invocations in some of the oaths.
Obviously, an oath to uphold “health equity” or “racial justice” is not what most people listening to this show (or not listening, for that matter) think they’re getting when they go to the doctor.
Thank you Tabia your work is so needed. I have seen this same ideological bullying play out in the tech industry. It claims to help build healthy business cultures but does quite the opposite. If people don’t speak up and push back next it will destroy the American culture.
In my district, we are required to participate in DEI discussions and inservices. Being Jewish, after October 7 I asked my administration to include anti-Semitic education as a part of the DEI curriculum. I was instructed to do whatever my director required as a part of my contract.
This was a most interesting and quite frankly terrifying conversation. I have to say she is got a taste of what it's like to be a white male in today's society.
Tabia, I don't think you have much to worry about re ruining your career prospects in DEI, I think Hamas just f**ked the entire industry for you. At least I can only hope. Maybe with a reboot and a rebrand and a focus on ALL racism, not just white racism, as America clearly as a racist problem far beyond white on black. I've been frankly sick of the blind one-trick pony for about 25 years. I find it interesting that Unherd reports 1 in 8 black Americans think the Holocaust never happened. I wonder where they got THAT shit from? Not just their families but maybe DEI with its blindness to anti-Semitism (huh? Everyone missed Jewish marginalization throughout the centuries?) but maybe DEI pushed it too, I don't know. I wonder if DEI contributed to this current mess with its willful blindness to black anti-Semitism (you sound like you were possibly an outlier here, since being a one-track-minded 'white decentering' ideology seems to be a requirement for DEI consultant.
I find the current anti-Semitism on campus to be not just anti-Semitic but highlighting a growing anti-white sentiment as well. I wonder if there will be hate crimes against white people now. And before anyone jumps in to justify that, take the Kendi krap elsewhere. I'm a Kingist myself.
So great to find someone so intelligent and courageous! Thank you Tabia!
Reliable references?
There are 22 Jewish hospitals in America with a Jewish population of only 2.5 million. How many black hospitals for 60 million blacks? Black inappropriate behavior?
Finally had a chance to hear this one. What can I say?
Dr. Tabia summed it up in two words: moral courage. Without that, what do we have?
Not a lot.
As Tabia described the rigid culture she experienced on her job, I could not help but think of McWhorter's constant refrain about wokeness: "It's a religion!"
Which is a quote that occasionally reminds me of Christopher Hitchens, speaking of religion: "It's whatever you want it to be."
The kind of campus culture Dr. Lee is describing is truly disturbing. It's doctrine; and far too many people of influence have surrendered to it, even though a lot of it is clearly gibberish.
We can't call it out without consequences; sometimes painful economic consequences. How backwards is that?
Not everybody wants to fall on a sword like Dr. Tabia. But in this environment, we could use a lot more Dr. Tabia's.
A black woman is a white supremacist now? The white supremacists are getting more diverse and inclusive I guess.
A week ago I had a question answered on this show about DEI; I didn’t know this interview was coming. I feel like I missed an opportunity as I was sitting near Tabia Lee at a conference recently but I didn’t speak to her, and particularly if I’d known she was involved with Do No Harm in medicine, who I went to a meeting for the following week, I wish I’d have talked with her about medicine specifically since we share some similar affiliations.
She is such an interesting character in that while I suspect many of us are cynics when it comes to DEI, she seems like the rare person who actually just took it seriously. Like every other DEI administrator knows that they’re hypocrites and it’s a farce, but this person is actually trying to intellectualize diversity.
I do want to raise one medicine-related point:
Many of the white coats for black lives protestors are actually medical students (meaning that they have not yet graduated and taken a professional oath). However, even when they do, it is likely not to be the Hippocratic Oath. The original Hippocratic Oath contains a lot of references to Greek gods and some other items that don’t make sense today, so it has been revised many times. However, most medical schools have their own oaths, and the content is different at every school. Many of them are not based on the Hippocratic Oath at all, and they may not include elements like a commitment to do no harm. Conversely, there various “social justice” invocations in some of the oaths.
Obviously, an oath to uphold “health equity” or “racial justice” is not what most people listening to this show (or not listening, for that matter) think they’re getting when they go to the doctor.
https://www.aamc.org/news/solemn-truth-about-medical-oaths
https://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/Fulltext/2018/09000/Oath_Taking_at_U_S__and_Canadian_Medical_School.19.aspx
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8368262/
Thank you Tabia your work is so needed. I have seen this same ideological bullying play out in the tech industry. It claims to help build healthy business cultures but does quite the opposite. If people don’t speak up and push back next it will destroy the American culture.
43:51 Amen!
In my district, we are required to participate in DEI discussions and inservices. Being Jewish, after October 7 I asked my administration to include anti-Semitic education as a part of the DEI curriculum. I was instructed to do whatever my director required as a part of my contract.
FYI , I recently read that the DEI national organization has had a 300% increase in membership in the last 5 years.
This was a most interesting and quite frankly terrifying conversation. I have to say she is got a taste of what it's like to be a white male in today's society.
Tabia, I don't think you have much to worry about re ruining your career prospects in DEI, I think Hamas just f**ked the entire industry for you. At least I can only hope. Maybe with a reboot and a rebrand and a focus on ALL racism, not just white racism, as America clearly as a racist problem far beyond white on black. I've been frankly sick of the blind one-trick pony for about 25 years. I find it interesting that Unherd reports 1 in 8 black Americans think the Holocaust never happened. I wonder where they got THAT shit from? Not just their families but maybe DEI with its blindness to anti-Semitism (huh? Everyone missed Jewish marginalization throughout the centuries?) but maybe DEI pushed it too, I don't know. I wonder if DEI contributed to this current mess with its willful blindness to black anti-Semitism (you sound like you were possibly an outlier here, since being a one-track-minded 'white decentering' ideology seems to be a requirement for DEI consultant.
I find the current anti-Semitism on campus to be not just anti-Semitic but highlighting a growing anti-white sentiment as well. I wonder if there will be hate crimes against white people now. And before anyone jumps in to justify that, take the Kendi krap elsewhere. I'm a Kingist myself.
Thank you Glenn. I belong to Do No Harm. I am grateful that Dr. Tabia is a member.
Word. Dr. Tabia Lee is an example of what it takes to stand up for what is right.
So, I hear Claudine Gay, Harvard President, is staying..no resignation no firing.
So, so glad you got Tabia on your show! She is indeed brave. Thank you, Tabia!