It's more complicated than you describe. Like, these bureaucrat's hearts are in the right place, they just lack focus, and are ineffective and solving the problems that they see. They see large-scale social problems of inequity, but are trying to solve it with equity-focused policy at universities, which most folks would already consider "the top."
They aren't just for show, but the optics of a well-funded diversity departments is irresistably good.
> these bureaucrat's hearts are in the right place
I don't think they are, in most instances. I try never to attribute to malice, but it has been years of giving them undue, novel power. This is corruptive and they demonstrate this corruption in every case.
Any normal person would be corrupted given the same power, all of a sudden, and a mandate to use it.
To a diversity hammer everything looks like a seminar / written statement / fired for cause nail.
> Like, these bureaucrat's hearts are in the right place
That makes them even worse, even more dangerous.
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Off-topic, but I found this quote hilarious specifically because it's author is C. S. Lewis since apparently he didn't realise this quote applies to the Christian God too.
Well I'm certainly not a christian but I find the quote poignant. If the man who said it had a blind-spot for his own ideology, that doesn't refute the sentiment. If anything, that reinforces his point.
Except the Christian God ostensibly does allow for people to make their own choices, rather than be micromanaged for their own good? Jehovah apparently guides with such a gentle hand there is debate about whether he even exists.
Epidemies, lightning strikes, floods, crop failures, sudden demolitions, unexpected illnesses — all that stuff has been described as "wrath of god/god's punishments" until very, very recent times. So yeah, he does allow people make their own choice but he also punishes wrong choices amply, not to mention putting people into all kinds of "trials and tribulations".
And I am not making any of that stuff up, that used to be (and "the god tries you" still is) part of generally accepted theology; C. S. Lewis definitely subscribed to "the god sends you trials" part of it which does make that quote hilariously blind-spotted.
Equity is not a social problem. Do you think African women with five children would rather work 60 hrs a week in a cubicle and have .8 kids like Korean women?
> these bureaucrat's hearts are in the right place
I disagree. While there are certainly some people with honestly good intentions in these departments, they are also lairs of Marxist-types that would gladly march others into death camps if given the chance to do so.
We cannot be naive about this. For every social justice movement with good intentions, there are evil people willing to use it as a trojan horse to carry out an awful agenda.
