Trump’s Justice Department is shining a light on woke universities — finally



The Department of Justice has now launched an investigation into Arizona State University over its “diversity, equity, and inclusion” practices. The probe will examine whether ASU has subjected students to illegal discrimination on the basis of race, color, or national origin through its DEI policies in admissions, recruitment, scholarships, tutoring, and educational support.

That news did not surprise me.

Universities constantly speak the language of ‘inclusion,’ but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.

For years, many of us who work inside higher education have watched American universities become captive to a worldview that divides human beings into permanent categories of oppressor and oppressed. These ideologies present themselves as enlightened and compassionate, but underneath the slogans is something much uglier.

They claim to fight racism, in effect, by being racist.

That is not rhetorical excess. It is the actual logic of these programs. If you are told that your moral standing is shaped by your race, if students are sorted into categories of guilt and grievance based on ancestry, if “equity” means treating people differently because of their race, then the old evil has simply been repackaged in new academic language.

I know this from experience.

The Arizona Supreme Court has now agreed to hear my case against Arizona State University and the Arizona Board of Regents over ASU’s required DEI training. My challenge began because ASU forced employees to take its “inclusive communities” training.

The training, in some cases produced by Starbucks (I kid you not), told employees how to think about race, guilt, power, and identity, and it required assent to predetermined “correct” answers. I could not in good conscience affirm teachings that judged people by skin color, ethnic identity, gender, religion, and geography.

The Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case goes to the heart of whether state universities can force employees into ideological training that violates state law and basic principles of equal treatment. Arizona law prohibits public schools, including universities, from using curriculum that engages in race blame.

The issue is technical in legal form, but simple in moral substance: When a public university imposes unlawful race-based ideology, does anyone have the right to challenge it?

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That question should never have had to be asked. But that is where our universities are.

The takeover has been so comprehensive that many campuses no longer even recognize dissent as legitimate. Faculty culture is overwhelmingly leftist (97% at ASU identify as left-wing). The ideological imbalance among professors is staggering. Conservatives, Christians, and others who reject the reigning orthodoxy are rarely hired, and when they are hired, they are often isolated or pressured into silence.

Universities constantly speak the language of “inclusion,” but they do not want disagreement. They want compliance.

When someone objects, the mask slips. The same faculty and administrators who preach compassion suddenly become contemptuous when the dissenter is someone outside the progressive fold. The slogans about empathy disappear and the sneering begins.

That is because DEI is not really about inclusion. It is about power.

Its basic framework is the old Marxist oppressor-oppressed dialectic, merely translated into race, gender, and sexuality categories. Students are taught to see the world through this lens from their first days on campus. The university no longer helps students pursue truth. It trains them to become activists for a ready-made ideology.

The ugly irony at the center of it all is that students are charged tens of thousands of dollars in tuition to sit in classrooms where they are instructed by self-appointed champions of the oppressed, many of whom enjoy comfortable salaries and taxpayer support while lecturing others about systems of injustice.

The university administrator or professor who denounces oppression does so while cashing a government-backed paycheck and enforcing ideological conformity inside a vast institutional bureaucracy.

That is not liberation. It is a racket.

The federal investigation into ASU is important not only for Arizona but for the whole country. The era of automatic deference to DEI bureaucracies may be ending.

If government investigators are asking whether ASU’s programs have crossed the line into unlawful discrimination, then other universities should be asking themselves the same question. How many scholarships, support programs, admissions initiatives, and training sessions around the country are doing precisely what civil-rights law was supposed to forbid?

The answer, I suspect, is many.

American universities have largely abandoned the idea that education is the pursuit of truth, beauty, and goodness. In its place they have installed a therapeutic political religion in which redemption comes through identity confession, public denunciation, and endless activism.

The categories of the system are fixed: Someone must be blamed, someone must be oppressed, and the institution itself must always pose as the righteous mediator.

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Jeffrey Greenberg/Universal Images Group/Getty Images

The ideology has spread far beyond the office door. It lives in the curriculum, in hiring, in faculty trainings, and in the language administrators use to describe their mission. It is the very institutionalized bigotry that it claims to oppose.

What is needed now is moral reform and clarity.

Public universities should not be in the business of teaching students or employees to judge one another by race. They should not use tax dollars to promote theories that blame individuals for the sins of categories. And they certainly should not punish or marginalize those who object.

The Justice Department’s investigation into ASU and the Arizona Supreme Court’s decision to hear my case are both signs that resistance is possible. But much more is needed.

Americans must recover the courage to say plainly what too many in higher education have forgotten: Racism does not become justice when wrapped in the language of equity, and discrimination does not become virtue when blessed by a university bureaucracy.

Is it finally time to abandon my ultra-liberal hometown?



I’m looking at new apartments this week here in Portland, Oregon. It’s time for an upgrade.

This has triggered a debate I often have with myself: If I’m going to move, why not leave dysfunctional, far-left Portland altogether?

Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

This is my chance to move to a different city. Or another state. Somewhere with fewer drug addicts and criminals roaming the streets and fewer democratic socialists roaming city hall.

I grew up in Portland. I have lived here off and on throughout my life. During my most productive years as a writer, I lived in bigger, more media-oriented cities, mainly New York and Los Angeles.

But I’ve always loved coming back to Oregon and assumed I would settle here when I retire. Portland always felt like my place. I love the tall trees, the gentle rain, the misty Oregon coast.

Free radicals

Unfortunately, over the last 15 years, Portland has become a hotbed of radicalism and political intolerance. So much so that it has affected my daily life.

I’ve always socialized with creative types. But in Portland, the artistic community is often more hysterical than the violent protesters in the street.

Once it became known I was conservative, I lost about 80% of my writer friends. And maybe half of my other friends. This social exclusion was especially bad during the years around #MeToo, and then COVID, and of course the constant presence of Trump derangement syndrome.

Un-friendzoned

The result is that living here has been like living on a desert island. I feel unwelcome at art events. I avoid literary parties and gallery openings.

One egregious example: I didn’t attend the celebration of life for one of my most important literary mentors, a beloved Portland poet who encouraged me as a young writer and helped advance my career.

I owed so much to this man, and I couldn’t go to his funeral!

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Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Tiny bubbles

Recently, I saw a TikTok video by a woman whose family had moved from Seattle to Wyoming.

Her message was simple: “No matter how much you think you are aware of the bubble you live in, when you get out of these far-left cities, a whole new world opens up to you.”

This hit me hard. Had I become so comfortable with the bad vibes of Portland that I would stay here indefinitely, out of inertia or laziness or not wanting to start over?

My own private Idaho

One reason I’m reluctant to move to a red state is I’m not sure I would fit in.

Take for example, Boise, Idaho, the closest red city to Portland. I’ve visited there many times. It’s clean. There are no homeless. The people are super nice. It’s very “churchy” and family-oriented. There’s a large Mormon population.

But could I adapt to such a place? I’ve lived in liberal cities MY ENTIRE LIFE. I have never lived in a place like Boise. Would I find people who understand my sense of humor? People who like the obscure music I listen to? Or read the books I read?

Yes, the people of Boise would share my core values. But would they share my urban tastes?

Go east, young man

I had a Republican friend here in Portland who moved to Florida during Trump’s first term. At the time, that seemed like a drastic change.

For a couple of years, I emailed him every few months to ask how he was doing. He had settled right in. Florida was great. He loved it there.

As he grew more comfortable in Florida, I grew less comfortable in Portland. Now, in 2026, moving to Florida 10 years ago seems like a genius move. I am humbled by his foresight.

The great escape?

So what should I do? Be the latecomer, arriving in Tampa or Austin or Nashville a decade after all the smart people already moved there?

I guess it’s never too late. I could still escape.

But what about the tall trees, the gentle rain, and the misty coastline I love so much? What about my roots in the place where I grew up?

Robert E. Lee didn’t abandon his home state of Virginia in the face of a civil war. But Virginia was famous for its proud history and strong cultural heritage.

I’m from Portland, famous for people with orange hair who don’t know what gender they are.

Fall into the gap

I’ve always assumed Portland’s current political extremism would fade over time. Sooner or later, people would calm down and return to some form of normalcy.

But whenever I try to connect with my former liberal friends, I quickly learn that the derangement is stronger than ever.

So, should I stay or should I go?

These are the decisions we have to make during these difficult times — as we struggle to maintain our sense of ourselves and of where we came from.

"This is TRASH!" - Why the Oscars Ratings COLLAPSE is a Massive Win for America
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"This is TRASH!" - Why the Oscars Ratings COLLAPSE is a Massive Win for America

'Every White American' Spreads the 'Virus' of Racism: Talarico Tweets Resurface After Primary Win

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A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms Might Be ‘Non-Woke,’ But It’s Not The Conservative Triumph We Need

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Defending Education gives parents tools to fight leftist indoctrination



Many parents assume the battles over “woke” education are largely settled — that whatever excesses defined the last few years have been corrected and that schools have moved on.

Recently uncovered internal curriculum guidance from Maryland’s largest school district suggests otherwise.

Eighth-grade students were shown graphic, politically charged material about Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a geography lesson.

The documents reveal that Montgomery County Public Schools encourage teachers to center lessons on white supremacy, racial and gender identity, and the need for students to engage in “resistance to and liberation from” existing social structures. These guidelines were discussed at a recent PTA meeting and outline what the district calls the “Characteristics of Anti-Bias/Antiracist Curriculum.”

Teachers are instructed to emphasize themes of injustice, racism, oppression, implicit bias, and inequity across subject areas — an approach that reframes education not simply as the transmission of knowledge, but as a moral project aimed at reshaping how students understand society and their place within it.

Left alone, this might have remained a quiet local issue — noticed by a handful of parents, discussed briefly, and eventually absorbed into the bureaucratic background noise of a large school system. Instead, the documents became public.

That’s because of Defending Education, a national grassroots nonprofit that helps parents and communities understand what is being taught in schools — and advises them on coordinating a local response when academic instruction drifts into political or ideological advocacy.

Founded in 2021 by free speech advocate Nicole Neily, Defending Education operates according to a model of indirect activism, emphasizing transparency, documentation, and resources over directives. Parents, Defending Education argues, know their schools better than any national group ever could. What they often lack is access to internal materials, legal context, and a sense of whether what they’re seeing is isolated — or part of a broader pattern.

As the organization puts it in its Empower resources:

Knowledge is power. If you walk into a meeting confident that you know what you’re talking about, you’ll be more effective.

That principle underlies most of Defending Education’s work: Collect primary documents, explain what they mean in plain language, and allow families to decide for themselves how — and whether — to act.

Why the Montgomery County case matters

According to Defending Education, the Montgomery County guidance reflects a broader trend: Controversial frameworks are often introduced not as standalone courses, but as values meant to permeate instruction across subjects, grade levels, and disciplines.

In a press release, Paul Runko, senior director of strategic initiatives at Defending Education, said the language in the MCPS materials should concern parents who were told such frameworks were not entering K-12 classrooms:

This internal guidance from Montgomery County Public Schools looks and sounds a lot like Critical Race Theory, despite repeated assurances to parents nationwide that CRT is not in K-12 schools.

Lessons framed around “resistance to and liberation from white supremacy” — and that ask students to “challenge the current social order” — risk dividing students and indoctrinating them into far-left ideology rather than upholding the American ideal that individuals are judged by their character and achievements, not the color of their skin.

Not an isolated case

The Montgomery County documents are not an anomaly. They are one of many examples Defending Education has uncovered across the country in recent months, spanning classroom instruction, curriculum design, and civil rights enforcement.

Recent cases include:

  • Minnesota (Hermantown Middle School):
    Eighth-grade students were shown graphic, politically charged material about Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a geography lesson, including claims of people being “dragged, beaten, tased, and shot.” The lesson asked students to consider whether ICE had “gone too far” and tied immigration enforcement to President Trump’s campaign promises. School officials defended the material as aligned with state standards.
  • Portland, Oregon:
    The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into Portland Public Schools following a Title VI complaint filed by Defending Education. The complaint alleges millions in taxpayer dollars were diverted to race-exclusive programs associated with the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence, potentially violating federal civil rights law.

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Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

Across these cases, Defending Education functions less as a protest group and more as an institutional clearinghouse. Its work includes:

  • Collecting internal documents and guidance through parent tips and public-records requests;
  • Publishing primary materials so parents can judge content for themselves;
  • Explaining education law, civil rights rules, and parental rights in accessible language; and
  • Providing tools for local engagement with school boards and administrators.

In practice, Defending Education operates as a kind of relay between local parents and a national platform. It gathers tips from families, obtains internal materials through public-records requests, and publishes primary documents so parents can see exactly what schools are saying and doing — often in their own words.

The organization then provides legal and policy context around those materials, helping families understand whether what they’re seeing is routine, questionable, or potentially unlawful.

How to get involved

Parents can explore Defending Education’s Empower resources to understand basic education law, parental rights, and common curriculum frameworks; follow the organization’s reporting to see whether local concerns mirror national trends; or submit tips and documents when something doesn’t seem to align with what schools have publicly promised.

Some parents go further — connecting with others in their district, attending school board meetings more prepared than before, or using Defending Education’s materials to frame questions in ways administrators are more likely to answer. Others simply want reassurance that they’re not imagining patterns that feel hard to name. In either case, the organization’s premise is the same: You know your school best — but you shouldn’t have to navigate it blind.

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NA-NUKE OF THE NORTH: Former top general says Canada needs nuclear weapons



Former Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre (Ret.) suggested Monday that Canada can only be a truly sovereign nation if it possesses nuclear weapons.

The declaration might ordinarily be dismissed as the reckless words of a retired soldier nostalgic for the day-to-day military operations he once commanded. But Eyre was the highest-ranking member of the Canadian armed forces, a position roughly equivalent to chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the United States.

The suggestion that Canada should pursue nuclear weapons amounts to a massive repudiation of its defense relationship with the United States, its closest ally.

Eyre made the comments at a conference hosted by the Conference of Defense Associations Institute, an organization largely run by former generals and admirals that lobbies the government for increased defense procurement spending.

“I would argue that we will never have true strategic independence absent our own nuclear deterrent,” he told the event, according to the Globe and Mail. Minister of National Defense David McGuinty was quick to reiterate the Canadian government’s long-standing commitment to nuclear non-proliferation, emphasizing that Canada should remain a purely conventional power operating within the nuclear capabilities of NATO and NORAD.

Nuclear 'options'

But Eyre appears to be operating from his own defense doctrine.

“Here in Canada, let’s keep our options open,” he said.

“We’ve got a good nuclear enterprise here,” he added. “If conditions change, we’ve got the civilian infrastructure. We’ve got the scientists.”

Eyre’s remarks have not drawn any response from the U.S. military or from War Secretary Pete Hegseth. But the suggestion that Canada should pursue nuclear weapons amounts to a massive repudiation of its defense relationship with the United States, its closest ally.

Although Canada contributed scientists and researchers to the Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic bomb, it did not develop its own nuclear arsenal during the Cold War, choosing instead to remain under the American nuclear umbrella.

While Eyre’s cavalier attitude toward nuclear weapons may evoke comparisons to the right-wing hawks lampooned in Stanley Kubrick’s "Dr. Strangelove," Eyre was, in practice, a viscerally woke military leader. He was appointed by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and appeared to draw inspiration from Trudeau’s ideological priorities.

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Win McNamee/Getty Images

Dressing down

Under Eyre’s leadership, the CAF strictly adhered to DEI policies that produced some of the most liberal dress and deportment standards of any modern military. Mandatory haircuts were eliminated. Both men and women were permitted to grow their hair to any length, dye it any color, and wear nail polish. Uniform requirements were loosened to the point that the “dress of the day” could effectively be whatever a service member chose.

Public backlash followed. So many objections were posted to the CDS’ X account that Eyre shut down the comments section entirely.

“In recent months, we observed a concerning increase in malicious and misinformative engagements that proved detrimental to the Canadian Armed Forces’ ethics, values, and communication objectives,” National Defence spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin explained in an email. “Considering this, we made the decision back in January to close the comments section on the CDS X account.”

Bombs away

What many Canadians may not realize is that three Canadian military bases hosted nuclear weapons owned by the United States Air Force between roughly 1965 and 1984. Air Force wings at Comox, B.C., and Bagotville, Que., had access to American Genie missiles that could be loaded onto CF-101 Voodoo fighter jets operated by the CAF.

Yet unlike today’s tendency among politicians such as British Prime Minister Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron to speak about war with Russia as though it would not risk catastrophic nuclear consequences, Cold War-era military and political leadership largely agreed on one essential point: A nuclear conflict would be unwinnable for all sides and therefore had to remain unthinkable.

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Did feminism create wokeness?



Helen Andrews recently revived discussion of what she calls the great feminization — the idea that as women come to numerically dominate institutions, those institutions begin to function differently, often badly. Her observations are important and largely correct. What follows is a friendly amendment to her thesis. I agree with much of what she sees, but I think an essential part of the story still needs to be named.

Let’s begin by laying out her argument clearly.

The psychological feminization of institutions preceded the numerical one. Men in power enabled it.

The great feminization thesis

Men and women, on average, tend to behave differently. For our purposes, the key distinction is this: Women tend to prioritize relationships and consensus-building, while men tend to prioritize rules, justice, and abstract principles.

Helen Andrews puts it this way: Women ask, "How do we make everyone feel okay?" Men ask, "What are the rules, and what is just?"

If we borrow a familiar parental analogy: Mothers want children to be happy; fathers want children to behave.

The great feminization thesis makes two claims:

  1. When women numerically dominate an institution — whether a profession, a university, or a bureaucracy — that institution will naturally drift toward more “feminine” priorities.
  2. What we now call “wokeness” is simply the institutionalization of those priorities.

From this, Andrews draws a sobering conclusion: If wokeness is driven by demographics rather than ideology, it will not simply burn itself out or be defeated by better arguments.

That observation is serious, largely correct, and incomplete.

Key takeaway #1: Wokeness is not the point — totalitarianism is the point

Anyone who thinks wokeness began in 2020 is already naïve. What we now call wokeness is simply a recycled version of an ideology that has been circulating since at least the 1930s. We have called it communism, socialism, political correctness, multiculturalism — and now wokeness. Same garbage, different label.

The label is not the point. The content is.

These ideologies all promise the impossible: the end of poverty, the end of discrimination, the end of pollution, even the end of viral disease. When people talk this way, look out. They are asking for a blank check — unlimited moral permission to acquire power in pursuit of an unattainable goal.

Doing the impossible requires enormous power. Convincing people that it is not only possible, but a moral duty, requires propaganda. These ideologies don’t work for you or for society as a whole. They work for the people who are trying to accumulate power, while endlessly moving the goalposts.

So worrying about where “wokeness” begins or ends is a distraction. Totalitarian aspiration is the point.

Key takeaway #2: The great feminization is more than numbers

The problems Helen Andrews identifies did not begin when women crossed the 50% mark in any institution. They began much earlier. Which means we cannot diagnose civilizational decline by counting heads alone.

The great feminization is not merely statistical. It is psychological and political.

Consider the case of Larry Summers, forced out as president of Harvard in 2006 after remarks about sex differences in aptitude at the extreme upper end of scientific fields. Importantly, Harvard was not majority-female at the time.

Several prominent women defended Summers. They noted that he was speaking off the record, citing substantial research, and had a long history of supporting women in academia. But those voices did not matter. What mattered were the women who expressed the greatest emotional distress — the ones who said they felt sick or faint.

Someone made a decision to elevate those reactions above truth-seeking and institutional integrity. Someone allowed the public to believe that “insensitivity” was the decisive issue. That decision mattered.

Key takeaway #3: Specific people made specific decisions

Treating wokeness or feminization as an automatic demographic process lets decision-makers off the hook. Institutions did not drift accidentally. People chose to reward grievance, punish dissent, and redefine excellence around emotional display.

Statistical generalizations obscure two crucial facts.

First, bell curves overlap. While men and women differ on average, individuals vary widely. Some women are more analytical than many men; some men more emotional than many women.

Second — and more importantly — no one’s behavior is predestined. The ability to regulate our emotions is a basic requirement of adulthood. Every functioning society expects adults to govern their reactions rather than demand that institutions reorganize themselves around tantrums.

The Yale moment

The 2015 Yale Halloween costume episode provides a clear example. A professor’s wife suggested students “be chill” about costumes. Students were outraged, with some of them having public meltdowns, demanding that Yale prioritize their emotional comfort over free inquiry.

Yale was not majority-female. Feminization alone cannot explain this behavior.

What we witnessed instead was a demand for paternal authority stripped of paternal discipline. “Make us feel safe,” the student insisted — while rejecting the professor’s insistence that other people have rights too.

When you smash the patriarchy, you don’t get freedom and justice. You get a spoiled 2-year-old running the place.

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Phillip Faraone/Getty Images

The sexual revolution and power

The psychological feminization of institutions preceded the numerical one. Men in power enabled it.

Businesses gained access to a new labor pool. Elite men rewrote workplace rules in ways that advantaged themselves while disadvantaging male competitors lower down the ladder. Universities institutionalized grievance disciplines. Contraceptive ideology separated sex from responsibility, granting men sexual access without paternal obligation.

Women did not enact these changes alone. Men cooperated — and benefited.

Key takeaway #4: Identity politics is a power-grab

Every wave of identity politics follows the same script: Emotional display replaces argument; disruption replaces persuasion; grievance replaces evidence.

“We are oppressed. You owe us.”

This is not really a moral argument at all. It is a power-grab.

Helen Andrews has done a real service by calling attention to the deep problems that majority-female professions and institutions may present. But we have to go deeper than demographics. We have to be willing to say — calmly, firmly, and without apology — "I don’t care how offended you say you are. You still have to behave."

Men and women alike benefit from that expectation. And the future of civilization and free institutions really does depend on it.

This essay is adapted from the following video, which originally appeared on the Ruth Institute's YouTube channel.