The Right-Wing War on Solidarity Comes to Campus

A recent civil rights complaint against the University of Connecticut is the latest in a long line of attempts to dismantle the ability of ordinary people to manifest collective political power.

On July 13, a conservative legal organization, the Legal Insurrection Foundation, filed a civil rights complaint against the University of Connecticut claiming that providing Black and Latino residential learning communities amounts to unconstitutional racial preferences.

The filing is the latest front in the right’s ever-expanding campaign against diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. What began as a challenge to affirmative action in college admissions has grown into a sweeping effort to dismantle diversity offices, race-conscious scholarships, employee affinity groups, and educational programs that acknowledge the continuing significance of race in American life. At every turn, it seems like the mere presence of a Black person or a woman or someone from any number of other identities in a position of authority is “illegal DEI.” It is no longer enough to prohibit universities from making admissions decisions on the basis of race. Now, even voluntary communities that students create for themselves are supposedly suspect.

The fact that these voluntary affinity spaces are the only ones being targeted is telling. Universities are full of affinity spaces. It’s fairly typical for honors students to choose to live with other honors students. Some students join language houses to provide second-language immersion. Others enjoy a range of themed residential communities organized around academic interests, service, religion, or shared hobbies. Fraternities, athletic communities, and countless informal networks built around common experiences are accepted as ordinary features of campus life.

The UConn programs at issue do not assign students to housing based on race, nor do they exclude anyone from participating in university life. They are voluntary residential learning communities that students opt into because they believe they would benefit from living among peers with shared experiences. But the complaint effectively argues that students cannot be trusted to make that determination for themselves. A group of honors students may decide that living together would foster their academic development. French speakers may conclude that a shared living arrangement would deepen their cultural and........

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