00:11:55.320It is being extended beyond Harvard to general members of the public.
00:12:00.520Right. This is how bestcolleges.com describes it.
00:12:03.480Quote, Harvard College, the undergraduate school at Harvard University, can be difficult to get into, to say the least.
00:12:09.520For the class of 2027, Harvard received almost 57,000 applications and accepted 3.5%.
00:12:16.520Admissions to the undergrad extension program is dot, dot, dot, less stringent.
00:12:22.860Anyone can sign up for a course at any time.
00:12:25.140So the fact that anyone can sign up for a course at any time of the Harvard Extension School should probably be a giveaway that it is not real Harvard, where famously not everyone can just decide to go and then go at any time.
00:12:39.980Yeah. And to be clear, extensions are great. Lots of universities have them. That's not what this is about. We won't get into it. But just to be clear, we're not dunking on extension schools. What we're pointing out is that he is claiming that he has a degree from Harvard when he does not.
00:12:56.940So, side note, do you know who else did the very same thing also at Harvard?
00:34:41.500So y'all might recall that after the October 7th attack in Israel, the Harvard Undergraduate
00:34:46.760Palestine Solidarity Committee published an open letter in which they said that they hold,
00:34:51.640quote, the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence, declaring that
00:34:56.660millions of Palestinians in Gaza have been forced to live in an open-air prison and called on Harvard
00:35:01.720to take action to stop the ongoing annihilation of Palestinians. After they published this letter,
00:35:07.740Ackman called for the publication of the names of all the students involved in signing the letter
00:35:12.120so that he could ensure that his company and others do not inadvertently hire any of the
00:35:17.100people who signed the letter. Ackman posted, one should not be able to hide behind a corporate
00:35:21.820shield when issuing statements supporting the actions of terrorists, and the name should be
00:35:26.220made public so that their views are publicly known. Keep in mind, we are talking about
00:35:30.940undergraduate students here. Now, this is my thing. Whether or not you think that these
00:35:36.600undergrads should have written this letter or not, I'm not saying that's what I think,
00:35:40.980but let's say for the sake of argument, that's what somebody thought. I can tell you having an
00:35:45.800aggrieved 60-year-old billionaire donor to the school who has his own unrelated gripe against
00:35:52.120the university, litigating what should happen to a bunch of undergrads is not good. Issues of
00:35:58.240campus protest and speech are, I guess they're important in a kind of sense. This is a whole
00:36:03.780other episode. And this is my opinion. Even if you think that these undergrads should not have
00:36:08.960written this letter, they are in college. They are undergraduates. Where else are you meant to
00:36:14.420be working out your political and social opinions as a young person, if not in college? I don't
00:36:20.400even want to get into some of the stuff I believed and publicly said when I was an undergrad. I was
00:36:26.820walking around identifying as a libertarian, thinking that that sounded cool and smart.
00:36:33.020But in reality, I was 19 and I was just like stoned all the time. And I didn't know what I
00:36:36.820was saying because I was young. So I just don't think a dynamic where a billionaire who thinks
00:36:42.360everybody should be kowtowing to him, injecting himself into what is happening on a college
00:36:47.340campus with undergrads is going to be good for anybody. I listen to a lot of the podcast
00:36:52.500You're Wrong About, and Michael Hobbs, friend of the show, talks about this a lot when he covers
00:36:57.860issues about campus culture wars, where he says when stuff happens on a college campus,
00:37:04.480outside forces with an ax to grind, swooping in and pouring gasoline on the fire is not making
00:37:10.960things any better, especially at a time when you had trucks displaying the names and faces of
00:37:17.300undergraduates who were supportive of Palestine on campus. Like, this is not a safe or reasonable
00:37:23.260college campus climate for anyone. So the day after Gay resigned, Ackman published a 4,000-word
00:37:30.840screed against DEI on Twitter, where he says that DEI is, quote, the root cause of anti-Semitism
00:37:38.620at Harvard. Which, like, think about that, right? Because Harvard is almost 400 years old. DEI wasn't
00:37:46.080even a thing until like around the 60s. So he is saying that, say, back in 1922, when Harvard's
00:37:52.780then president, A. Lawrence Lowell, was doing all kinds of stuff, like proposing a quota on the
00:37:58.540number of Jewish students that Harvard should allow. Well, it turns out that was actually
00:38:02.240because of DEI, a school of thought that would not even exist for another 40 years. And it's
00:38:07.420such a rewriting of history. Like, I do think an honest assessment of anti-Semitism in institutions
00:38:14.400is a worthwhile practice, but pointing to DEI as your starting point is ridiculous when history
00:38:21.100exists. But, you know, why look at the rot in our institutions when you can just blame Black people0.99
00:38:27.040and blame wokeness and call it a day? Ackman writes, under DEI, one's degree of oppression
00:38:33.040is determined based upon where one resides on a so-called intersectional pyramid of oppression
00:38:38.460where whites, Jews, and Asians are deemed oppressors, and a subset of people of color,
00:38:44.260LGBTQ people, and or women are deemed to be oppressed. DEI is racist because reverse racism0.83
00:38:50.680is racism, even if it is against white people, and it is remarkable that I even need to point
00:38:55.520this out. This country has seen burgeoning resentment and anger grow materially over
00:39:00.100the last few years, and the DEI movement is an important contributor to our growing divisiveness.
00:39:05.960Resentment is one of the most important drivers of racism, and it is the lack of equity, i.e.
00:39:10.920fairness, in how DEI operates that contributes to this resentment, he continued.
00:39:15.060So what he is actually saying, in my opinion, is that it is not about anti-Semitism, it
00:39:19.360is not about plagiarism, and they are saying that out loud and in print.
00:39:23.900It is this attitude that says that Black people and people of color have gotten too much handed
00:39:29.400to us because we are Black or because we are women or because we are Black women.
00:39:33.060And honestly, I agree with him that it is about resentment, white resentment and white grievance and white anxiety that people like him are stoking.
00:39:42.400And this anti-DEI campaign is about stoking those white grievances and resentment and saying, hey, look, those freeloaders get everything and it's gotten out of hand.
00:39:53.440To put a point on the argument that I think he's making, Ackman and Rufo see a Black woman at the helm of an elite institution like Harvard and say, she could have only gotten there because she's an affirmative action hire, and she took that job from a more qualified white person, and that needs to end.
00:40:10.400Vivek Ramaswamy, current Republican presidential candidate, tweeted after Gay's resignation,
00:41:34.900But if that's not happening, why are we only talking about it with regards to Gay?0.67
00:41:39.220And this is what really pisses me off and where I kind of get into my feelings about the whole thing, because when this happens to qualified Black women, what they are really saying is that none of us deserve to be anywhere or have power over anything.0.83
00:41:54.740If you're Vice President Harris, you got power because you slept your way to the top. Or if you're Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, it's because of affirmative action.
00:42:04.380Like, it doesn't matter if you have a PhD from Harvard, which gay has.0.97
00:42:08.520It doesn't matter if you've gone to the best schools and been at the top of your class1.00
00:46:54.960Take a look at those numbers and then tell me, Jason,
00:46:58.140with a straight face that we are in a performance-based,
00:47:03.020colorblind society here in the tech space that we're both in.
00:47:06.980Look how few of us there are in this space
00:47:09.660and tell me with a straight face that you think that I got here because they are handing out
00:47:15.600positions and jobs and funding and podcasts and support to Black women because of our identities.
00:47:22.080I am not saying that I am the only one of us out here. Thank God I am not the only one of us out
00:47:27.160here. I would not want to be in this space if I was the only Black woman out here doing this.
00:47:31.000However, if what Jason is saying is true and we're all just getting whatever thrown at us
00:47:37.700because we're Black women, then where are the rest of us? Why is this space so white and male?
00:47:43.700Why does this space feel so lonely sometimes? When I look at the All In podcast, why does your0.83
00:47:51.420podcast have no Black women? Why do y'all almost never spotlight Black women? Our research,
00:47:57.580our commentary, our analysis, where is it? If we have just been being forced into these spaces,
00:48:04.300not because we deserve it, not because of merit, but because they're just giving them away because
00:48:08.580we're Black women and so we're just getting everything. Where are the rest of us? Where are
00:48:12.820we? I would love to know. If what he is saying is true and that people are just being given things,
00:48:20.920when it comes to VC funding, why is it that Black women get less than 1% of all VC funding?
00:48:28.280Not even like less than one, not even one. One is the smallest amount of a number that something can be and still be a number. And we don't even get that. Why? If what you are saying is true, how can that be possible?1.00
00:48:40.600And I think hearing comments like that from people like Jason, against the backdrop where we already get so few of anything, so little of anything, we already get the crumbs, the scraps, the less than one, and to have people say, well, what little you do have, you don't even really deserve that, it was handed to you.
00:49:02.420It's just such a slap in the face. And what upsets me about this is that it negates the reality that people on the outside don't always see. And I honestly work very hard to not get down on it and not focus on it.
00:49:17.700But the reality is that we are dealing with so much just to be in these spaces.
00:49:25.680Like, I had to fight to have shows on the same chart as Jason's, albeit a hundred slots
00:49:42.600I would, if that were the case, I would be the first person to be like, oh my God, like,0.99
00:49:47.700can you believe I got this? How cushy. And this assumption that it is about merit for him and
00:49:55.000not about merit for me on the basis of me being a Black woman, it's not just wrong. It's offensive.
00:50:03.880Like, it's a lie. It is hurtful because these are my colleagues and this is how they really see me.
00:50:10.660This is what they really actually think about me. And yeah, I do take it personally to have someone say like, oh, well, for him, it's about merit. But for me, I got to be the diversity hire. And so we have to work very hard to fight for what we get. And what we get is not often a lot and not often what we deserve. And we kind of have to like make a meal of that.
00:50:34.200But then on top of it, to have people like them who set the agenda, set the tone and be like, oh, well, you don't even deserve what you have.
00:50:42.960Meanwhile, if they knew the stuff that I have to smile through, the amounts of shit I have to eat regularly, the kind of responses that we get from people who don't think that we deserve to be where we are, just to have the opportunity to work and make less, it would shock him.0.98
00:51:00.340Y'all remember, they had to have public campaigns to remind white people not to touch Black people's hair in public places. This has happened to me before in a professional context. Jason, has it ever happened to you? Have you ever had to experience that in front of your colleagues and then just smile through it and brush it off and keep going and do your job because that's just how it is?0.98
00:51:24.060we just did an ad for the service Delete Me. And when I got the ad, I was like, oh, I know exactly
00:51:29.920what I'll say, which is that even before the podcast started, when I was just working out
00:51:34.660what we were going to be talking about, one of the first things I did was sign up for Delete Me
00:51:38.920because I was afraid that people were going to come after me and come after my family and come
00:51:44.680after my loved ones because of the things that I was saying on here. And those fears are not
00:51:49.540unfounded. They are actually very reasonable. People like Jason have no idea what people like
00:51:57.500me have to go through just to be here and get less. He could not be me for one second.
00:52:05.220Again, it just upsets me to hear what you always suspect, to hear what you really know deep down.
00:52:13.580It just really hurts. And yeah, I mean, I'm hurt. Like it's upsetting to me. And I think it goes for women. It goes for black women. It goes for other people of color. It goes for trans folks. It goes for queer folks. Like if people really knew how hard it is to do what we do to have to show up in some of these spaces, how much of ourselves we have to like cut and cut off and cut out to be in these spaces.
00:52:38.580Like we know, we feel it every day. We deal with that reality every day, but they don't know. And then on top of it, they get to go out in public and say shit like this and not just say it, but have what they say, set the agenda, set the tone, establish the conversation, be accepted as truth.
00:52:56.620it is just like so wrong and so ignorant and it hurts like it hurts that these are the people that0.99
00:53:05.600I'm like in the same space with it it hurts that this is how they this is genuinely how they see
00:53:11.920us and I know I know this sounds like very well with me right now and I'm I am sorry uh but it
00:53:18.440it hurts me very personally very deeply and the reality is that it hurts all of us the data is
00:53:25.320super clear that these kinds of public conversations trickle down to other
00:53:29.840marginalized people. And it paints us all as unqualified and bad leaders. It was so easy
00:53:36.740for people to say Claudine Gay is unqualified. She has a PhD from Harvard. Do you know how many
00:53:41.820people have that? They are so quick to cut her down and tell us that she didn't deserve to get1.00
00:53:49.180where she is. And other people see that and it has a real impact. It makes it so easy to look
00:53:56.560at marginalized people in leadership positions and say, we don't belong there. We shouldn't be
00:54:01.800there. This stuff has real consequences. It keeps us out of rooms where decisions are being made,
00:54:06.560which makes us all worse off. It makes us all less safe. It makes technology worse because
00:54:12.080it's being designed by less people who are in more silos. Everybody suffers when this kind of stuff
00:54:16.840flourishes as it's flourishing right now. Other marginalized people see this and they think,
00:54:21.720well, it's not worth it to strive if this is going to be what it is. It prevents us from having a
00:54:28.620truly representative democracy, the democracy that we deserve, and keeps us from having civic and
00:54:34.360public spaces that look like the communities that they're supposed to be working for. And I think
00:54:39.500that that is what people like Rufo are saying, that we shouldn't be able to have any avenues
00:54:45.740to be in civic and public life and build power in those spaces. We shouldn't have any avenues to
00:54:52.260power. Black women who we already hold so little institutional power, and they want us to not have1.00
00:54:58.520that either. And honestly, the thing about Gay, it's not really about her as an individual, but1.00
00:55:04.880I do think I might have a little bit of an unpopular opinion about her, which is that
00:55:08.180I don't know Gay, but she is unquestionably qualified to be the president of Harvard.
00:55:12.840The question of whether she got there by merit or not, like, is laughable, does not deserve a response. But I think that maybe part of Gay maybe thought that, like, carrying weight for Harvard's status quo was going to be the answer for her. And that, like, maybe that would save her. Like, if she doesn't mix it up too much, the storm will pass. And in the end, it didn't save her.
00:55:34.900my friend tim put it really well on twitter her resignation is proof that you can be0.99
00:55:39.940middle of the road apolitical and innocuous and your black ass will still get clipped0.98
00:55:44.660so you might as well stand for something and fight back sorry i'm like genuinely upset0.97
00:55:51.820yeah that was a lot yeah thank you for that it it the emotion really came through so that was a lot
00:56:57.080your stuff is overpriced garbage anyway but trust and believe that my black ass never will1.00
00:57:02.320you will never get a dime my money can do don't gotta worry about me will never be buying another1.00
00:57:08.500lulu lemon item again in my life what a statement i had not seen that yeah and so i think that's
00:57:16.120going to be the next push getting brands and corporations to distance themselves and i think
00:57:21.480the bigger game is to make dei just like with critical race theory into a toxic brand you know
00:57:26.700where anything that right-wing culture warriors don't like can be labeled DEI and automatically
00:57:33.240conjure up negative association. So like a Black woman in a leadership position, DEI. A book written1.00
00:57:39.740by a Black person on a college syllabus, DEI. A Black woman in an ad campaign, DEI. And I think0.58
00:57:46.060the goal really is a society where marginalized people do not hold power in civic and public life
00:57:52.800And any avenues whereby we might have access to power or support toward power are obliterated.
00:57:58.420It's the same reason why, after gutting affirmative action, Edward Blum, that right-wing activist, went after funding fellowships that support Black women, like Fearless Fund.0.53
00:58:07.740And I think doing this via attacks on DEI as racist, or like reverse racist or whatever, just sets up this fictitious idea that we're living in a society where Black folks are being given everything, all the power.0.85
00:58:21.880It is the most callous, disingenuous way of stoking the fears and anxieties of the dominant group while they get to continue enjoy being the dominant group and also pretending to be underserved.0.71
00:58:34.340But as always, those attacks always end up hurting everyone, right?
00:58:39.180Like they end up making us all worse off.
00:58:41.860Rufo has said that one of his goals is to make DEI work at the professional level obsolete dead end jobs.
00:58:47.340He said, one goal for 2024, 50% net reduction of DEI jobs in corporate America, put the
00:58:53.240entire industry into chaos, make it a career path to nowhere.
00:58:56.940And do you know who has held the majority of DEI jobs in the United States?1.00
00:59:03.960Over the past 10 years, white women not only hold the majority of executive and consulting
00:59:08.460DEI roles, but are also the best compensated for this work with the longest tenured.
00:59:13.100This is according to a write-up by Aparna R. of Data for Inclusive Change, which we'll link to in the show notes. And so I say all of this to say, like, it is not just about Black women. These attacks, if left to fester, hurt all of us. And so women, white women, all women, all of us should be concerned about this.
00:59:31.860Because it's like Prince said, when you play me, you play yourself.0.52
00:59:35.640And if he succeeds at making DEI not tenable as a career, white women are the ones who are holding those jobs.0.99
00:59:45.140You could ask the question as to why that is.0.96
00:59:55.180Yeah. And more broadly, it harms all of us by excluding talented, insightful people with unique and valuable perspectives from conversations, from positions of authority. It hurts all of us.
01:00:12.740That's exactly right. That diversity and inclusion is what makes our country good. It's what makes our companies good. Not even from the level of it's nice to do, which it is. It makes our products better. It makes our businesses better. It makes people more money. It makes us more creative. It's a good thing.
01:00:33.200And so I think that we're just in this place where it's like people have to decide whether or not they agree.
01:00:38.820And Mark Cuban, he made the point that you made.
01:00:41.620He said, the loss of DEI phobic companies is my gain.
01:00:45.720Cuban went on to defend the core principles of DEI and saying having a workforce that is diverse and representative of your stakeholders is good for business.
01:00:53.180Yeah, it's like an obvious thing. Having employees who are representative of the stakeholders who you're trying to serve, who you're trying to sell products or services to is a good, smart thing.
01:01:10.180And I can't believe that that's not clear. And I guess the question is, like, do these people care more about grievance mongerings than they do about having successful companies and making money? Maybe they do.
01:01:22.260When we did our miniseries, Internet Hate Machine, last year, we broke down how right-wing grievances are weaponized into these kinds of attacks.
01:01:30.060Now, it is long past time for institutions like corporations, legacy media, universities, etc., to understand these kinds of attacks and how they work.
01:01:41.560It has been going on for so long, it is time to figure out the game and figure out what you are going to do.
01:01:47.080It is past time to figure out the game and figure out what you're going to do.
01:01:50.380These same disingenuous tactics have been used too many times for these institutions to continue to feign ignorance and powerlessness and not know how to respond when they happen and to not be anticipating them.
01:02:04.400One of the biggest takeaways that I had from that series is that you cannot capitulate to these people.
01:02:11.380If you give them an inch, they will smell blood in the water and they will know they can take a mile.
01:02:15.940Gay announced her resignation like a couple of days ago.
01:02:18.900Ackman has already called for the entire Board of Harvard to resign right after that, even after he got his way and she resigned.
01:02:26.540When trans influencer Dylan Mulvaney made that one video for Bud Light, the company apologized, basically threw her to the wolves, never called her, never even sent her an email like, how you doing?
01:02:39.040Let her have to deal with death threats, have to leave her home, all of that.
01:02:44.680They parted ways with employees who had been involved, and these people were still not
01:03:12.880And to legacy media, you do not have to be Chris Rufo's bitch. Like, you can make a different choice. Victor Ray, who wrote the book On Critical Race Theory, put it so beautifully. He said, accepting bad faith framing is a choice to ally oneself with bad faith actors. And that is absolutely the truth.1.00
01:03:31.700And, yeah, I guess that's really where we got to leave it. Like, I really hope that we see institutions who do have power really preparing for this and understanding this. And, yeah, I mean, it's not how I wanted to start my 2024 with a whole massive national conversation about how Black women are unqualified.
01:03:52.580um you know when this was all going down one of my mentors sabrina and i were talking0.93
01:03:57.220about like what we should be doing in this moment like should prominent visible black women be like
01:04:03.640publishing an open letter putting legacy media on blast and being like we see this happening we see
01:04:09.640you doing it we won't take it and i thought about this for a minute and i was like you know all i
01:04:16.440really want to do is like exist and do my work and do my job and that's it and just like live
01:04:22.360live our lot like live my life all I want to do is live my life the same as anyone else
01:04:26.380without these attacks when we get into leadership positions all I want to do is know that I'm not
01:04:32.480going to be tossed out like garbage as collateral damage when the attack comes right I just want
01:04:39.540my humanity recognized and so I don't know the idea of like putting out a letter saying this
01:04:46.100I just think in 2024, we should be done having to advocate for our humanity in this way, in public.