Shortly after his inauguration, United States President Trump issued an executive order that ordered the dismantling of “radical and wasteful government DEI programs and preferencing.” This order terminated federal diversity, equity and inclusion-related “mandates, policies, programs, preferences and activities.”

Within days, a wave, indeed more like a tsunami, overwhelmed government agencies, and much of academia, washing away decades of bureaucratic infrastructure, expenditures and programming that has done little or nothing to address any real inequities that might exist in the U.S., and has instead interfered with scientific and scholarly progress.