"Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion" Was Revealed as Cultural Marxism, So Indiana University Has Relabelled "DEI" as "AESI"

"Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion"—commonly abbreviated as DEI— has become unfashionable after the excesses of the woke era in promoting cultural marxism, teaching that racism is the central force in American life, and discriminating against disfavored groups such as whites and Asians in admissions and hiring. U.S. President Trump didn’t issue an executive order telling federal agencies to stop spending money on mandatory diversity training until the last months of his first term in 2020 because it flew under his radar. Imagine that— a Republican U.S. President not realizing that he was spending large amounts of money subsidizing identity politics and racial division! But he has come out swinging against it in his second term in 2025, notably in his January 20 executive order. Michael Braun, the new Governor of Indiana, beat him to it with a similar executive order January 17, and in turn was preceded by West Virginia January 15.

But how do you implement such an order? It’s tricky because the movement known as DEI has never been pinned down exactly. This is not like getting the Communist Party out of government. Rather, it is the removal of an ideology with various names such as cultural marxism, marxism, identitarianism, progressivism, and wokeness. Braun ordered the closure of the gubernatorial Office of the Chief Equity, Opportunity and Inclusion Officer that had been created in 2020 under his Republican-but-not-really predecessor, Governor Eric Holcomb. But what if agencies just change the name away from DEI but keep the concept of a horde of employees that try to impose radical leftwing mandates to keep race, homosexuality, sex, and sex changes at the center of attention for other employees who might just want to do their state jobs?

A prime example is at the university I retired from Indiana University. I hear that the employees in the DEI office are being redeployed to the “cultural centers”— the black center, the Asian center, the GLBTQ+++ center, and so forth. The business school was ahead of the game, sensing the winds of fashion as usual. Indiana’s Kelley School of Business changed the name of its DEI office to Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact (AESI) in August 2024. Here is the memo announcing it.

From: Foster, Amy E <aefoster@iu.edu> On Behalf Of Soni, Ashok
Sent: Wednesday, August 28, 2024 9:06 AM
Subject: Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact (AESI)

Dear Faculty and Staff,

After months of discussion and preparation, we are pleased to announce Kelley Bloomington’s new Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact (AESI) framework for programming and initiatives that ensure all students are supported and that our societal impact work delivers positive change in the state of Indiana and the world. The newly created Office of Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact (OAESI) is an umbrella organization responsible for implementing the AESI framework.

The memo follows this with some explanation of what this means. Business schools are accredited by private organizations that are generally leftwing. They don’t just want to check how many professors have PhD’s and how large the class sizes are; they want to change the world. Thus, the Kelley School has to “navigate a heightened focus on societal impact by our accrediting body, AACSB.” And the goal is “access”, not “excellence”. From the phrasing below in the memo, you might think Kelly is going to start admitting lots of farm boys with low grades and test scores, but I’d bet against it— and be against it, too. The word “access” is code for racial discrimination— a dogwhistle, if you like, that passes by unnoticed by ordinary people but whose meaning is well known on the Left.

The AESI framework was created as a “tipping point” of ideas. Robert Thomas, Kelley’s inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), sought a broader landscape around inclusion and access. At the same time, LaVonn Schlegel, new in her role as Executive Director of Accreditation and Strategic Initiatives had begun helping the Dean’s Office align the school’s strategic goals to the IU 2030 strategic plan and also navigate a heightened focus on societal impact by our accrediting body, AACSB. During discussions on capturing and quantifying the many ways Kelley contributes to society, a broader mission became apparent.

A key component of the framework is “access.” We have something very special here at the Kelley School, and we want to make sure we are getting our message of opportunity out to all potential students, especially in Indiana. To that end, AESI embraces communities that we currently serve, should serve, and could serve. We will increase our efforts in rural areas and pockets of the state with low-income families. We will also increase our efforts to make sure all students have the resources they need and know where to find them. “Access” also means sharing our expertise and resources to make an impact on society through consulting programs, field study courses, and work with small businesses and emerging markets.

The change from DEI is that a lot of nameplates will be different:

In concert with this expanded initiative, some offices and titles are changing, effective today:

• The undergraduate Kelley Office of Diversity Initiatives (KODI), will now be called the Undergraduate Office of Access & Community Enhancement

• On the graduate side, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion will now be the Graduate Office of Access & Community Enhancement

• Titles of staff members working in those offices will change accordingly

• Robert Thomas, Associate Dean for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB), will now be Associate Dean for Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact

• Carmund White, Executive Director of DEIB, will now be Executive Director of Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact

The memo ends, “Please begin using the new office names and titles. We are not sending out general announcements to students or alumni, but we are informing key corporate partners, individual donors, and other stakeholders of the change.”¹ Big corporations’ human relations departments have been infiltrated by DEI, and they are one of the reasons business schools have DEI too. Recruiting is part of the HR department, and unchecked by the CEO, HR cares about political ideology more than talent. As with academic middle administration, corporate HR does not draw people from the top drawer, and does not pay well in money, but it has surprising influence. One reason to get rid of administrative bloat is to save the salaries, but a more important one is that many of these administrators are actually corrosive to the organization, subverting merit with the power they have over mundane details such as recruiting.

I highly recommend the article, “How Gulenists infiltrated Turkey's bureaucracy,” by Mehmet Sobaci. It describes how Gulen’s FETO organization used its schools and government employees in new recruitment to where they had operatives all over Turkey’s executive agencies and armed forces. Our present wokeists are not an organized political movement, but in a fascinating way they imitate one.²

Within individual institutions, FETO operatives typically targeted strategically-important departments such as human resources, personnel affairs, intelligence and IT to be able to gain access to classified information and to handpick committees for job interviews with prospective civil servants. In doing so, the Gulenists were able to ensure that job candidates who had been trained by FETO were hired, while others were prevented from entering public service. . . . In an effort to maximise group interests, FETO operatives inside the bureaucracy not only fast-tracked the careers of fellow Gulenists but also targeted their rivals by either preventing their career progress altogether or forcing them to join the organisation.

Name changes are occurring all over America now, in a rush to get away from DEI. The Babbling Beaver has a great list from sources all across America:

• Belonging, Achievement, and Composition

• Inclusive Excellence

• Office of Collaboration

• Organizational Culture Office

• Ice Cream, Hugs, and Puppy Dogs

• Community, Engagement, and Effectiveness

• Equity, Access, and Inclusion

• Cultural Rights and Responsibilities

• Division of Multicultural Affairs

• Equal Employment Opportunity and Accessibility

How can Governor Braun, or the Indiana University Board of Trustees, deal with covert resistance? Maybe we need to look to history. Surely there was some internal resistance to racial integration in southern universities in the 1960’s (there certainly was resistance by governors). How did the university leadership deal with that? For now, though, the only solution may be to cut universities’ administrative budgets. Faced with the choice between firing computer staff and DEI staff, can we hope college presidents, provosts, and deans would relinquish their DEI staff? They, after all, do know which staff do what tasks, which are essential and which are political.³

But of course there are no DEI staff left to fire— so fire Access, Empowerment, & Societal Impact. Quick, before the name changes again!

1. In full, the end of the memo is:

Other names of programs, events, centers, and initiatives will not change. For example, the National Diversity Case Competition will remain as is.

Robert and LaVonn have been working on a framework for AESI that includes joining the United Nations-supported initiative of Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) and assembling a larger project team to create a strategic roadmap for the office, including taking inventory of focus areas, creating a network, setting goals, and developing reporting structures. We’ll have more details in the coming weeks.

Until then, please begin using the new office names and titles. We are not sending out general announcements to students or alumni, but we are informing key corporate partners, individual donors, and other stakeholders of the change. Any questions can be referred to me, Robert, Carmund, or LaVonn.

Thank you.

Ash

Ash Soni

Dean and The Sungkyunkwan Professor

Indiana University

Kelley School of Business

2. Or perhaps the wokeists are organized?

3. The Seinfeld clip at the start is a nod towards how obvious are some subterfuges such as keys in the tennis shoe. Why do we use something obvious like changing labels, then? Because often it works, and it tempts fate to leave your keys on top of your shoes or your DEI label on top of your organization chart. And in the case of employees, the people at the top—trustees, legislature, and governor— above all need information in order to reform, and mislabelling can be enough to stop them.