Yesterday, the Supreme Court issued a much-awaited ruling on universities’ use of affirmative action. But the admissions policies discussed in this decision have become only part of a broader regime on campus that goes by the label Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). Tal Fortgang explores the last element in the trio, and distinguishes between a salutary and a destructive interpretation of its meaning, and the latter’s effect on religious institutions:

Collaborative inclusion applies to all kinds of people who may lack access to education, jobs, or other goods, whether they face barriers because of their race, sex, disabilities, or something else. It encourages building ramps next to the stairs, letting Jews join the tennis club, and treating your gay colleagues as equals. Crucially, though, it does not ask institutions to change their most important constitutive characteristics.

Under the guise of collaborative inclusion, which is rooted in values of equality, opportunity, and dignity, a second model often sneaks by. Let us call this one imposed inclusion. . . . It subordinates the value of individual achievement to equality of outcome and fails to recognize the good in institutions that must exclude people or ideas that will not advance their mission. The core tenet of imposed inclusion is that if any kind of participation produces or perpetuates inequalities, it has not gone far enough.

It is the latter vision that has led a New York court to demand that Yeshiva University, an Orthodox school, give funding and status to a club for homosexual and transexual students:

YU would have been able to countenance a collaborative inclusion approach. It has affirmed its policy of welcoming gay students as equal members of its community. By all accounts, it is committed to treating all its students, no matter their identities, with respect, and providing access to its unique fusion of Jewish tradition and modern higher education. That is, unless you change the definition of “respect” and “access” to include a requirement that the school endorse ideas and behaviors it considers contrary to its mission of religious education. And YU insists that allowing the club would be doing just that.

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.