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Law in Contemporary Society
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It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.
On "Beyond DEI: Rescuing the Human Person from Inhuman Law" by Jonathan Berry-- By ElijahPitt - 20 Feb 2025 On November 18th, Columbia Law School’s Federalist Society hosted a lecture by Jonathan Berry, best known for co-authoring Project 2025. His talk, titled “Beyond DEI: Rescuing the Human Person from Inhuman Law,” aimed to tackle what he deemed a pressing issue in modern legal governance: the rising influence of large, anti-majoritarian corporations. This phenomenon, according to Berry, has two damaging implications: first, because high-ranking corporate officials skew left politically, liberal ideologies have an undue influence on policy. Second, large companies commodify identity and culture by selling the idea of “limitlessness” to brand products. As he described it, limitlessness encourages people to seek opportunities beyond their capabilities, presuming that their identity will compensate for their lack of qualifications. Berry forwarded various solutions to the issue – from government regulation prohibiting companies from enacting DEI quotas to beginning board meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance – that echoed policies proposed in his “Mandate for Leadership.” His advice to lecturees was a rejection of limitlessness in favor of recognizing the constraints on their potential. In practice, this looks like only applying for summer positions that one believes she is actually qualified for rather than applying broadly. On its face, Berry’s message of accepting one’s limits doesn’t seem problematic. The lecture began to unravel when Berry applied this argument to minority groups. Berry’s example of the corporatization of black identity was a bus advertisement that read “Wakanda Forever.” When prompted to explain the connection between “Wakanda Forever” and limitlessness, Berry simply repeated his earlier assertion without justifying how the advertisement targeted or commodified black identity. Seemingly, Berry made the assumption that an advertising campaign for the most widely-watched media franchise aimed to promote false courage in black people, solely because it featured a majority-black cast. To Berry’s credit, there is merit to his claim about the commodification of identity by large corporations. LGBT+ advocates have long critiqued “corporate pride” for exploiting the queer community for profit rather than meaningfully supporting queer rights. Where Berry errs is his assertion that this trend is unique to minority groups like queer and black people, ignoring that nearly every holiday is commodified. Pharmacies stock up on cards and flowers for Mother’s Day, department stores sell deer ears and stockings near Christmas, and Peeps make their annual appearance every Easter. Is CVS Pharmacy trying to sell the idea that motherhood has no constraints? Or, the more likely answer: corporations capitalize on trends because they want to make money. Berry’s argument has little to do with liberal corporations forcing identity politics down America’s throats, and much more to do with them trying to maximize profits. It may seem like Berry’s claims are simply misled, but analyzing the framing of the lecture reveals something more insidious. Although Berry spends most of his time critiquing large corporations generally, he chose to title his speech “Beyond DEI,” centering a particularly inflammatory, yet underdeveloped, theme of his talk. He cherry-picked examples of corporate identitarianism that focused on minority groups while glossing over ways in which every identity is commodified. For every Black Panther that chants “Wakanda Forever,” there are five Interstellars that say “Our destiny lies above us.” Berry’s choice to highlight minorities shows more of a commitment to dissolving DEI initiatives than critiquing corporatism. Why wouldn’t starting board meetings with the Pledge of Allegiance lead to the commodification of “American” identity? Why are “DEI hires” examples of corporate limitlessness, but nepotism hires are not? These glaring contradictions aren’t an issue to Berry. The only laws he views as “inhuman” are those that aim to benefit historically marginalized groups. Berry’s speech is indicative of the modern conservative political strategy: create a bogeyman and garner support from fear. While the myth of all-powerful woke corporations drives his argument, he provides little convincing evidence that DEI initiatives are uniquely harmful. Instead, he relies on buzz words to inflame a non-issue, a tactic that has proven successful for many conservative thinkers. Most prominent among these is President Donald Trump, whose campaign boiled down to a politics of blame. Trump galvanized his base by targeting groups that posed some manufactured threat to civil society. Your neighborhoods are crime-riddled because of Mexicans illegally crossing the border. Your kids are unsafe because the liberals are doing transgender operations in grade school. Not even your pets are secure; Haitians in Springfield are eating the dogs and eating the cats. Where Trump and Berry align is the assertion of life-altering problems absent evidence of their existence or severity. Anyone with Google and basic discernment skills would realize that none of Trump’s threats are rooted in reality. The success of Trump’s campaign revealed that empirics-based argument is much less effective than fear-mongering. Although Trump and Berry’s weaponization of lies seems novel to those versed in modern American politics, there are clear analogies between this political strategy and the strategies of authoritarian rulers. In a 2024 article for the New Yorker, historian Timothy Snyder compared Trump’s disavowal of facts to the political strategies of fascist leaders like Putin, Mussolini, and Hitler. Everything that Trump says is the truth, and everyone that disagrees is the true dictator. This is particularly alarming when the “truth” justifies harming politically-vulnerable groups. Berry’s speech should not be viewed as a fringe conservative viewpoint, but an integral part of Trump-era fascism. As law students, we have an obligation to fight back against dangerous narratives and hold speakers accountable for unfounded claims. Instead of prima facie dismissing beliefs like Berry’s as ridiculous, we have to critically engage with them to point out their contradictions and holes in logic. Only by remaining vigilant in our critical thinking can we resist a political schema adamant to crush it.You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. 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