Universities, businesses… what if wokeism was at the end of its life?

Morgane Daury-Fauveau is a professor of private law, general secretary of UNI and president of the Centre for University Studies and Research (Ceru).

In both the United States and France, campuses were set ablaze after the October 7 pogrom to justify the atrocities committed by terrorists and were the scene of numerous anti-Semitic acts. The universities concerned in both countries have many common points that must be examined in order to fully understand the phenomenon.

First of all, these are very prestigious institutions: Penn (University of Pennsylvania), Harvard, Cornell University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States belong to the Ivy League, which includes the largest universities in the Northeast of the United States. In France, the most serious disturbances took place in the Institutes of Political Studies (IEP, Sciences Po), the Écoles Normales Supérieures (ENS) and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS). We must add to this list, which does not claim to be exhaustive, the famous English Cambridge and Oxford.

Then, the students who attend these establishments claim to be overwhelmingly left-wing. For example, at Harvard, 77% of students say they are left-wing compared to 71% of Sciences Po students.

Finally, these establishments are the most woke. They want to be “awake”, that is to say in a state of constant hypervigilance and overreaction to the slightest word, the slightest act that could be interpreted, from near or far, as a questioning of a doxa according to which minorities (sexual and racial) are ontologically victims and the white man, the executioner.

The struggles waged by each minority converge in a large intersectional movement which allows the amplifying addition of victim feelings, against a perfect scapegoat, the Jew.

Morgane Daury-Fauveau

Some examples: In 2023, biology professor Carole Hooven was forced to leave her position at Harvard after being accused by students of making “transphobic and harmful“for recalling that there were indeed two biologically distinct, determined sexes”by the gametes we produce” Shortly before, in 2022, a ballroom dance teacher at Sciences Po Paris was not reappointed to her position because of her attitude deemed sexist because she had refused to replace the terms “man-woman” in her course with “leader-follower”.

All of these institutions host research laboratories serving woke propaganda. Thus, Harvard GenderSci is conducting work on “intersectional feminist theories and methods dedicated to combating gender and sex bias in scientific research»; at Sciences Po, the Center for Research on Social Inequalities (CRIS) works on urban, educational and gender inequalities as well as on the phenomena of social and ethno-racial segregation.

The teachings are obviously also in the service of woke propaganda. At Cornell University, “The Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies program offers students the opportunity to study a broad range of fields from the perspective of critical feminist and LGBT analysis, in a global context and with the aim of promoting social justice.“At Sciences Po and EHESS, there are countless seminars on postcolonial approaches.

Also read“They think of the world through the prism of minorities. It’s not even ideology anymore, it’s morality”: these French universities under American influence

All these schools also host many ultra-feminist, indigenous, racialist and decolonialist associations. For example, at Sciences Po Bordeaux, the Sexprimonsnous association displays a “intersectional, antifa, and anticarceral vocation“. At ENS Lyon, Les Salopettes defend “an intersectional, inclusive and radical feminism“At Sciences Po Paris, the feminist collective, the GARÇ.ES (Action and Reflection Group Against the Sexist Environment) denounces “all sexist, LGBT-phobic, racist excesses and fights against all forms of essentialization of gender, sex, race, class and sexuality».

We can therefore easily understand the ease with which anti-Semitic speech was able to be released: the struggles led by each minority converge in a large intersectional movement which allows the amplifying addition of victim feelings, against a perfect scapegoat, the Jew: he is white, he dearly and powerfully defends his country claimed by people “racialized” The rest is history: wealthy donors withdrew funding from the institutions concerned in the United States. The presidents of the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University resigned after failing to strongly condemn anti-Semitic acts committed on their campuses, responding to a senator who asked them whether such acts contravened their internal regulations during a congressional hearing: “It depends on the context” They were recently followed by the president of Cornell University and the president of Columbia University.

The latest blow to wokeness came on August 26 when the interim president of Cornell University declared: “Administrative actions must be consistent and neutral in terms of content. In the interest of institutional neutrality and deference to the many and diverse views of the Cornell community, the president and provost will refrain from opining on national or world events that do not directly impact the university.».

By constantly communicating about the well-being at work of employees from various minorities, companies have at the very least irritated their customers whose concerns are often light years away from woke themes.

Morgane Daury-Fauveau

This trend of ebbing wokeness extends beyond academia. In the United States, we are witnessing a paradigm shift in businesses. Years of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies in American companies have had an impact on their bottom lines. And if there is one language that Americans understand, it is the language of money. However, by dint of communicating about the well-being at work of employees from various minorities, companies have at the very least annoyed their customers whose concerns are often light years away from woke themes.

It must be said that some of these companies did not go about it half-heartedly. We learn from reading theWokeness Index in Business (published by the Observatory of Wokism), that in France, there are many that provide training in order to “raise awareness among all employees about stereotypes and unconscious biases» (for example, Air France, Danone, Pernod Ricard, Michelin, Orange) or ask them not to use the word “Christmas” but to prefer the term “holidays” and there are many LGBTQI+ associations. The CEO of Carrefour regrets not being able to discriminate in hiring in order to promote the diversity of origin of its employees.

In the United States, legislation permitting it, the practice of quotas is applied by many companies. They sometimes impose such a practice on their suppliers and boycott them if they do not meet it. The movement of the decline of wokeness in American companies has begun recently.

Also readWokeism, legislative elections, succession crises… At Sciences Po, a high-risk director position in a sensitive context

In May 2022, after losing 200,000 users, an internal Netflix memo reminded employees that their job was first and foremost to entertain and that if some of the content they had to work on bothered them, it was best to leave the company. A few months later, in April 2023, the brewer Anheuser-Busch (Budweiser) lost 5 billion on the stock market after a partnership with a trans influencer. The company’s president apologized in a tweet: “We never intended to take part in a debate that divides people. Our job is to bring people together around a beer.” At the end of November 2023, the president of Disney declared: “creators have lost sight of what their number one goal should be. We must entertain first. It’s not about sending messages».

Since 2024, statements have been followed by actions. Companies no longer hesitate to publicly declare that they are abandoning their woke policy in order to be more in line with the aspirations of their customers. For example, Tractor Supply, whose clientele is mainly made up of farmers, announced its decision to end its diversity and inclusion policy. Another giant in the agricultural market, Deere & Co, is adopting the same approach in the process. Very recently, one after the other, Jack Daniels (Whiskey), Harley Davidson (motorcycles) and Ford (automobiles) have declared that they are refocusing on customer needs and are announcing that they are ending their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion policy. The movement is therefore clearly underway in the United States. We will therefore probably have to wait a few years for it to arrive in France…