Anonymous

Dear Editors-in-Chief,

110 days. That was how long it took my writing to be mutilated and published in the Maroon. As a long-time editor for our paper, I thought I was well-acquainted with the Maroon’s values before I set out to write this piece. I was mistaken. In the five months that I fought to publish my work, I learned a great deal about the Maroon’s priorities. Alarmingly, I found they are dictated by an enigmatic, unelected, and unaccountable body: the DEI Board (DEIB). I write to express my concern that the DEIB jeopardizes the Maroon’s integrity in two ways: (1) by wielding unchecked authority over the Maroon’s operations and (2) by enforcing a culture of secrecy in our paper that punishes dissent from the dogma of social justice.

Per the Maroon’s bylaws, the DEIB has two “missions”—one of which is dubious. The first is to create “equity” within our paper by ensuring “transparent and fair promotions,” handling discrimination complaints, and “strengthening outreach practices” to form a “more diverse” staff. These objectives are unambiguous and relatively uncontroversial. The same cannot be said for the second mission of the DEIB: to manage the Maroon’s reporting on issues “directly or indirectly relating to social justice.” The board partially achieves this by acting as a censor, that is, scrutinizing work through the lens of social justice ideals. This may entail issuing edits to content before it can be published. Naturally, the DEIB’s social justice efforts, as defined in our bylaws, present a tension between (1) the Maroon’s “commitment to truth” and (2) a pursuit of equitable reporting.   

I argue this tension is not merely theoretical but actively harmful; that is, the DEIB’s social justice agenda already undermines our paper’s credibility. Social justice is an ethos of sanitization; it is characterized by trigger warnings, politically correct language policing, and other mechanisms to neuter reality. Therefore, it is at odds with two of the Maroon’s functions: (1) to approach the truth “from as many perspectives as possible,” and (2) to act as an “equitable paper of record” for the University and the South Side. Our bylaws mandate that the DEIB filters content based on social justice ideals. As a result, perspectives that disagree with them are necessarily stifled. While potentially unpopular, such views are nevertheless necessary for conveying the full truth and ensuring our paper is an “equitable” platform representing diverse voices in our community. Ultimately, for the Maroon to be a credible “paper of record,” it must present facts as they are—not as they ought to be. The DEIB’s social justice agenda undermines this mission by compelling the board to prioritize narrative over reality.

These ideas raise the issue of the DEIB’s transparency or lack thereof. One can reasonably dismiss the aforementioned characterizations of social justice as unfounded. It may well be that the Maroon has enacted social justice in a way that is impartial and otherwise in keeping with our paper’s core values. However, this begs the question: What constitutes social justice in the DEIB’s view? That is a mystery. The bylaws employ the term but do not provide a definition. The DEI Writing Guidelines mention that indirect instances of social justice are “socioeconomic, racial,” and “gender-based” but do not actually define social justice either. Does “social justice” only entail content warnings for material that may “traumatiz[e the Maroon’s] copy editors”? Is it political? If so, how does the DEIB reconcile its commitment to social justice with impartiality? These questions go unanswered in the bylaws and other resources available to writers and editors.

This is to say that “social justice” is inherently subjective. Even if one does not conceive of it as an ethos of sanitization, it is problematic because it is ill-defined in our bylaws. As a consequence, it can be molded to fit the views of those in power—namely, members of the DEIB. This biases the Maroon’s content; it means decisions made under the banner of social justice (e.g. how content is scrutinized and edited) reflect the personal beliefs of DEIB members rather than a fixed standard of equity and fairness.

 This pertains to the DEIB’s arbitrary authority. The board’s jurisdiction borders on absolute; aside from social justice, editors must submit any content to the DEIB that pertains to race, gender/sexuality, religion, or other “sensitive” topics. As a result, the DEIB wields enough power to rival that of the Editors in Chief. Moreover, in addition to being unelected, the DEIB is also unaccountable; the Maroon’s bylaws make no mention of how board members can be removed. The limitations of the DEIB are also unclear. To what extent can the DEIB censor viewpoints that defy its conception of “social justice”? Can editors dispute or override content edits it makes? This is all to suggest that our bylaws place no checks on the DEIB’s power, which allows it to define standards as it pleases. 

My personal experience with the DEIB confirms it wields excessive power and has created a culture of secrecy within the Maroon with deleterious consequences. Not once in the past five months did I directly interact with any of its members; the DEIB’s structure is such that writers communicate with it via an intermediary. I submitted my first draft to slate in November. What followed were five months of stonewalling, broken promises, and ignored messages to both the Executive Board and the Viewpoints (VP) editor I was assigned to. At first, I held them responsible for my ordeal because they were the only ones I interfaced with. Eventually, I came to suspect that the DEIB was primarily to blame, not least because I was repeatedly told delays in publishing my piece were due to that board.

Put another way, I was stuck in a vicious cycle for the past five months: namely, submitting a draft to the Executive Board or VP, waiting weeks (if not months) for the DEIB to review my piece, receiving often vague demands about content that had to be censored, and starting the cycle over again. All the while, I witnessed other op-eds submitted, reviewed, and edited within a matter of days. I was also hopelessly confused about what powers I was entitled to over the DEIB. My complaints to the DEIB’s Secure Form—seemingly my only recourse against it—went unanswered. The disrespect I endured became so absurd that I was convinced the DEIB had conspired with the Maroon’s leadership to neutralize my work. 

In March, having begged my VP editor for an update, I received a heavily redacted version of the first part of my submission that was sparsely populated with comments. I approved this draft for publication even though it had so distorted my voice that the DEIB might as well have claimed credit for writing it; the end result was not a critique but woke fodder. I was desperate; the alternative was to submit edits and fight against the DEIB to have them reviewed over several weeks, if not months—all the while having little understanding about the standards of social justice my piece was being held to or what recourse I had against them. Part of me suspected the DEIB sought this outcome all along, that it wanted to torment me until I agreed to neuter my work into compliance with its social justice agenda. What was I meant to think? I was undermined at every turn. 

Regardless of whether the DEIB had a vendetta against me, the outcome of its actions is pathetically ironic: for all its grandstanding about equity and diversity, the DEIB marginalized one of the few minorities in the Maroon’s ranks. 

Is it fair to entirely ascribe my ordeal to the DEIB? Perhaps not. I was told that other factors affected the timeline of my piece, including the length of my original submission and VP being stretched thin due to time- and content-sensitive op-eds regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. That said, the DEIB’s obscurity meant I could not know whether these explanations were genuine or merely excuses to shield it from accountability. What neither I nor anyone within the Maroon should tolerate is a culture of secrecy that (1) affords the DEIB unchecked authority to bowdlerize content under the veneer of “social justice” and (2) tortures contributors by obfuscating the motivations and mechanisms governing our work. Therefore, I call on the Executive Board to mandate that the DEIB be held accountable, that its editorial standards be made comprehensive and impartial, and that its purview is elucidated via amendments to the Maroon’s bylaws.