The University of Michigan has proudly announced the creation of the Equity, Civil Rights and Title IX Office (ECRT). First of all, the name seriously mixes apples and oranges. Equity and civil rights are broad ideas, concepts, or goals, entirely unlike Title IX, which is the name of a specific piece of federal legislation designed to prevent and to remedy sexual discrimination.
The acronym itself totally sucks! ECRT? “E” stands for Equity. “CR” stands for Civil Rights. And “T” stands for Title IX? No, it doesn’t! At most, it stands for Title. Instead, they could have called it “ECRT9,” which at least would have told us that it has something to do with Title IX.
But beyond the ill-advised acronym, there are far larger issues at stake. Does American academia really need an ever-expanding bureaucracy to address ever-lengthening lists of campus no-no’s?
It used to be that we were not supposed to discriminate based on “race, creed, or color.” How old-fashioned! Check out the new ECRT list: “race, color, national origin, age, marital status, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, disability, religion, height, weight, or veteran status in employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions.”
The lists grow ever longer. The distinctions become more opaque. Yet we are all supposed to recognize and understand these arcane distinctions, which are unclear to most people: equity vs. equality; sex vs. sexual orientation vs. gender identity vs. gender expression.
And, of course, the list can easily continue to grow even longer. It is not limited to immutable physical characteristics or inherent qualities. After all, people can change their religion, their weight, their military status, their sexual activities (if not their sexual preferences).
We could add even more categories to the list of those people whom we are forbidden to discriminate against, based on diet (meat-eaters); substance use (smokers, drinkers, tokers); communication style (shouters, swearers, verbal abusers); or other currently unpopular beliefs and practices.
Ambitious campus administrators will find that there is no obvious limit to the list of those we are not supposed to or allowed to disparage.