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Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) president Kristen Waggoner said pro-DEI officials like Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken need to be opposed in order to revitalize once great universities in America.
"It's time for the public and donors of these universities to insist that their leadership are committed to principles that have made the nation great," Waggoner told Fox News Digital in an interview. "And those principles include free speech, civil reasoned debate, ideological diversity, intellectual curiosity, critical thinking."
"Instead," Waggoner said, top schools are "peddling a destructive ideology, DEI, in the school systems that actually undermine the things that have made the nation great and that have made our educational system work so well."
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) president Kristen Waggoner said that pro-DEI officials like Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken need to be opposed in order to revitalize once great universities in America. (Getty Images)
Waggoner, a graduate from Regent University of Law, said that Yale Law School dean Heather Gerken has been a longtime supporter of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies.
Gerken has been rumored as one of the possible candidates to replace the current president of Yale, Peter Salovey, once he steps down at the end of the 2023-24 academic year.
Waggoner said that Yale "has been notorious" for enforcing DEI policies on campus, with Dean Gerken in particular having a reputation "for pushing DEI into every nook and cranny of the classroom."
Waggoner explained that while DEI polices sound good in theory, they actually undermine the "concept that we're all created with dignity, and we should all have respect in how we're treated" that underlies the Constitution. "It also teaches that if power is even more preferable than persuasion, that the more rights you have, the more rights you can assert. And that actually allows you to shut down debate, to censor other people, to bully them, and in some cases even use physical intimidation to stop viewpoints from being expressed that you don't agree with."
When asked about the importance of institutions like Yale in shaping the future of the country, Waggoner said that Yale's power comes from its ability to place its graduates in positions of influence.
"Yale, as well as some of the other elite institutions, are producing the next generation of leaders," she said. "[A Yale degree] enables you to assume certain positions, generally speaking, and those positions lead to power. And when you've taught students that they can use that power to silence, suppress, bully, and physically intimidate others, when you've taught them that the rule of law doesn't necessarily matter to get to the end that you're working for, and when you've taught them that they don't need to engage in reasoned debate or listen to views that oppose them, you fundamentally undermine the system of government that we have in the United States."
(As a result of Yale's outsized influence on the rest of the country, Waggoner suggested that the public and donors both have an interest in insisting on change at the school. )
As a result of Yale's outsized influence on the rest of the country, Waggoner suggested that the public and donors both have an interest in insisting on change at the school.
"People should insist that things change," she said, recommending that Americans ask for transparency about what is being taught in Yale Law School and in other elite institutions. Yale in particular, however, has been the focus of a series of scandals around free speech.
"Unfortunately, at Yale Law School in particular, we've seen scandal after scandal where conservative students and speakers have been targeted, where censorship has occurred, bullying and even physical intimidation, unlike what we've seen permitted even in the past, where school policies are violated and not even enforced, where there's no punishment at all," she said. "So I think that the public, and in particular those who have graduated from these institutions, those who would give to these institutions because they are reliant on donations, need to step up to the plate and insist that these things change and have responsible leadership in place."
Despite Yale's many scandals in recent years, Waggoner said she was hopeful that the institution could be set on a better path.
"My hope is that things are getting better at Yale," she said. "I think that if they are getting better, it's because we've insisted that they get better. It's because we've gone into those places and made very clear how hostile the policies are and how hostile the administration is. And, I don't know if it's been a true heart change, but particularly with Dean Gerken, our hope is that she'll discover a newfound commitment to free speech and to civil and reasoned debate," Waggoner said.
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