Dutch publication forced to remove diversity chapter over Trump's anti-DEI policy
The long arm of Donald Trump’s anti-diversity policy has reached the Netherlands. A Dutch-published book looking at how diplomacy works had to remove a chapter on how a U.S. government institution implemented diversity, equality, and inclusion under former President Joe Biden. It was that or face years of litigation, Jan Melissen, who co-edited the book, told Trouw.
The book is titled Home Engagement in Diplomacy: Global Affairs and Domestic Publics. In it, young academics write about contemporary diplomacy and the role that ordinary citizens play in their country’s international diplomacy. Among other things, the work explores how youth movements can get things on the diplomatic agenda, and how South Korea tries to involve citizens in diplomacy with North Korea.
It also discussed how a U.S. government diplomatic institution implemented diversity, equality, and inclusion policy under Biden. But that chapter, although done and ready before Trump took office again, never made it to publication. “Things are happening in the U.S. now that I experienced earlier in China,” Melissen told Trouw. He is happy to explain what happened, but would not mention the U.S. institution involved or the author of the chapter in order not to harm those involved.
According to Melissen, the institution had fully cooperated with the author. But once Trump took office and immediately started railing against “DEI,” the abbreviation given to the pursuit of diversity, equality, and inclusion in the United States, the institution suddenly backed down. “They no longer wanted anything written about their work during the Biden presidency,” Melissen explained. “Their lawyer was instructed to ‘do whatever it takes to stop it.’”
That led to fierce legal wrangling, but it quickly became clear that they either had to pull the chapter or leave the book unpublished. Melissen speaks of a painful dilemma. “Several young academics were involved in this book, including some from the Global South. Getting published is enormously important for their careers. So we chose to go without it.”
Melissen, who conducts research into diplomacy at the universities of Leiden and Antwerp, called it painful that academic freedom is coming under pressure precisely on this theme. “You can already see that it is a very difficult subject ot discuss in the United States. If this continues, the academic community will be caught in a stranglehold by the state.”
