To the Editor:
Re “Inside the Crusade Against D.E.I.” (entrance web page, Jan. 21):
The conservative activists featured on this article goal to eradicate equality of alternative for almost all of Individuals. These ideologues are making a dangerously false and very slender view of variety, fairness and inclusion — one which equates the “D” in D.E.I. virtually solely with problems with race and sexual orientation.
Assaults on D.E.I. represent a strike in opposition to equality for many Individuals.
Within the U.S., variety is extensively acknowledged to embody quite a few communities, which collectively represent nearly all of our nation. D.E.I. applications advance concerns regarding ladies; Black, Indigenous and other people of coloration communities; veterans; individuals with disabilities; L.G.B.T.Q. individuals; and a multigenerational work power.
D.E.I. seeks to make sure that people embodying these intersecting identities are supplied with equal alternatives to reach all walks of life, together with in our training system and workplaces.
D.E.I. applications are about realizing the hallowed American dream. It’s a disgrace that conservative activists search to shatter a bedrock precept of our nation: equality.
Anika Rahman
New York
The author is C.E.O. of the Nationwide Variety Council.
To the Editor:
Your in-depth report “Contained in the Campaign Towards D.E.I.” sheds mild on the Republican coverage objective of rolling again the social and financial progress of contemporary American historical past from the New Deal on, together with the historic laws to battle racial and gender discrimination and the safety of voting rights.
As we watch Donald Trump attempt to claw his manner again to the White Home together with his plan to make use of the Structure as a doormat, I hold hoping to get up from this dystopian story that might have been written by Margaret Atwood.
Bob Salzman
New York
To the Editor:
Re “Critics of D.E.I. Forget That It Works,” by Caroline Elkins, Frances Frei and Anne Morriss (Opinion visitor essay, Jan. 27):
As a lifelong leftist and social activist, I applaud the writers for his or her eloquent protection of D.E.I. Nevertheless, as an advocate of educational and mental freedom, I additionally adamantly oppose something having to do with loyalty oaths or ideological litmus assessments, which sadly have turn into parts of D.E.I. initiatives on too many U.S. campuses. I’m sorry the authors didn’t acknowledge this critical and ominous growth.
Historical past has proven us all too plainly the hurt that well-meaning zealots can do after they fail to take into accounts the doable penalties — unintended and in any other case — of their efforts to retool and reshape the world.
Our campuses have to be proactive in recruiting and supporting various college, college students and others in precisely the methods, and for the precise causes, that the authors talk about. They have to additionally, nevertheless, stay havens of free mental inquiry and alternate. In spite of everything, that is what “variety” and “inclusion” are alleged to be about.
David G. Whiteis
Chicago
To the Editor:
For corporations and organizations that need to keep the course relating to D.E.I. (as really helpful in your visitor essay), there’s an necessary, scientifically confirmed software: unconscious bias coaching.
A lot controversy has swirled round such a coaching, however the scientific consensus — as reported in 2023 in The Harvard Negotiation Legislation Assessment — is that many methods exist for the discount of our biases, particularly if the trainings are voluntary.
The principle drawback with unconscious bias coaching seems to be that its results abate if they don’t seem to be strengthened. It’s unrealistic to anticipate transformative results from a single coaching, however trainings can present members with instruments, akin to perspective taking, contact and publicity to counter-stereotypic photos, that may chip away at ingrained attitudes and produce extra various, equitable and inclusive outcomes in corporations and organizations.
David Hoffman
Boston
The author is a lecturer at Harvard Legislation Faculty.
To the Editor:
Critics of D.E.I. don’t forget that it really works, however fairly they’re afraid that it does work. D.E.I. is simply too profitable left unchallenged to stay in its supposed type!
Mark J. Kropf
Port Jefferson, N.Y.
Abolish the Federal Demise Penalty
To the Editor:
Re “Execution in Alabama Leaves Sides Divided” (information article, Jan. 27):
In November 2022 Kenneth Smith was taken off demise row, strapped to a gurney and jabbed repeatedly with needles. The execution team failed to deliver its poison, and a punctured Mr. Smith was returned to his cell.
Final week Mr. Smith was strapped to the gurney as soon as once more. A masks was clamped to his face, his lungs have been full of nitrogen fuel, and this time his life was extinguished.
We’re advised that the Biden administration was “deeply troubled” by accounts of Mr. Smith’s demise. Does this imply that the president will now ship on his promise to abolish the federal death penalty?
It’s inside his reward to spare the lives of the 40 men held on federal demise row. All that’s required is a couple of strokes of the presidential pen to signal the required orders. Why not, Mr. Biden?
Ian O’Donnell
Greystones, Eire
The author is a professor of criminology at College Faculty Dublin and the writer of “Justice, Mercy and Caprice: Clemency and the Demise Penalty in Eire.”
To the Editor:
Re “A River Ran Through It Before Farms Took Their Share” (information article, Jan. 20):
Thanks for reporting on the drying of the Merced River in California. Sadly, it’s not simply the Merced. Our scientists estimate that 96 percent of California’s rivers do not have flow protections, that means that water might be diverted to be used till they go dry. Folks lose protected ingesting water, downstream farms lose income, and 50 p.c of freshwater species in California are on a trajectory to be misplaced in my son’s lifetime.
Customers have the suitable to take extra water annually in California than really flows in our state. We’re perpetually overdrawing our water sources, and have to stability our water use as we face larger drought and flood cycles from local weather change.
However, how a lot water needs to be in a river to make sure that it’s wholesome? With collaborators, our scientists have developed a “purposeful flows” method defining the quantity of water wanted to help ecological perform, which acknowledges that we will’t return all our rivers to historic situations.
Utilizing these instruments, the state ought to set flows requirements and commonly monitor situations. Then we will all begin planning how finest to make use of water. It’s an enormous change, however crucial for our future — one during which we hold rivers just like the Merced flowing.
Sandi Matsumoto
Sacramento
The author is director of the California water program on the Nature Conservancy.
Movie star Sells
To the Editor:
Your columnists continuously surprise what retains Donald Trump afloat within the presidential marketing campaign. The reply is within the air throughout us: celeb. Donald Trump acts like a star. Joe Biden doesn’t act like a star.
And the way do you act like a star? You’re defiant — similar to Oscar Wilde, Sarah Bernhardt, Boy George and Madonna. Defiance attracts public consideration and provides celeb and success to the loudest voices within the room.
Landon Y. Jones
Princeton, N.J.
The author is the writer of “Movie star Nation: How America Developed Right into a Tradition of Followers and Followers.”