The chief DEI official at one of the East Coast’s most elite colleges was forced to retract a woke email that largely bashed middle-aged white men after conservatives highlighted it on social media.
The controversy began on Wednesday when the conservative X account End Wokeness posted part of a monthly newsletter from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.
In the newsletter, dubbed the “Diversity Digest,” JHU’s Chief Diversity Officer Sherita Golden spotlighted “privilege” as her office’s “Diversity Word of the Month.”
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Golden, who is black, wrote that privilege is defined as “a set of unearned benefits to people who are in a specific social group,” which then gains “advantages and favors … at the expense of members of other groups.”
While many conservatives would argue that the primary beneficiaries of privilege these days are women, racial minorities, and members of the LGBTQ community, Golden claimed privilege is “granted” to people belong to “one or more” of the following groups:
- Males
- Whites
- Christians
- “Mid-aged” people
- Able-bodied people
- Middle & “owning” class
- English-speaking people
She further noted that privilege is “characteristically invisible to people who have it.”
“People in dominant groups often believe they have earned the privileges they enjoy or that everyone could have access to these privileges if they only worked to earn them,” she added.
“In fact, privileges are unearned and are granted to people in the dominant groups whether they want those privileges or not, and regardless of their stated intent.”
In the post on X, End Wokeness called Golden’s roster a “hit list.” The post had drawn 30.4 million views by mid-afternoon on Wednesday.
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Among the critics who chimed in about it were Tesla and X CEO Elon Musk, who simply observed: “This must end.”
Conservative commentator Mercedes Schlapp added, “This message is toxic. And divisive. We need to push back against the identity targeting and appreciate each individual for their own character. God made us all uniquely special.”
The reaction was so heated that even JHU backed away from its own staffer.
In a statement to the Sinclair Broadcast Group, the school noted, “The January edition of the monthly newsletter from the Johns Hopkins Medicine Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity used language that contradicts the values of Johns Hopkins as an institution.”
“Dr. Sherita Golden, Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Chief Diversity Officer, has sincerely acknowledged this mistake and retracted the language used in the message.”
On Thursday afternoon, End Wokeness offered an update with a post that included Golden’s apology.
“The newsletter included a definition of the word ‘privilege’ which, upon reflection, I deeply regret,” she wrote. “I retract and disavow the definition I shared, and I am sorry,”
“The intent of the newsletter is to inform and support an inclusive community at Hopkins, but the language of this definition clearly did not meet that goal,” Golden continued. “In fact, because it was overly simplistic and poorly worded, it had the opposite effect of being exclusionary and hurtful to members of our community.”
“I will work to ensure that future messages better reflect our organizational values.”
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