Two legacy media outlets refused to publish stories covering a study that said diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) education “increased hostility” and made people more likely to agree with the modified statements of Adolf Hitler.
The Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) claimed The New York Times and Bloomberg informed them that they would not publish stories concerning their study, citing editorial concerns, according to communications obtained by the National Review. The study, titled “Instructing Animosity: How DEI Pedagogy Produces the Hostile Attribution Bias,” found that people who read material espousing left-wing ideas on race and identity often amplified “perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present, and punitive responses to the imaginary prejudice.”
“Unfortunately, both publications jumped on the story enthusiastically only for it to be inexplicably pulled at the highest editorial levels,” a NCRI researcher told National Review. “This has never happened to the NCRI in its 5-year history.”
A New York Times reporter told the NCRI that they would reconsider publishing the article on the study if the paper went under peer review, according to National Review.
“The piece was reported and ready for publication, but at the eleventh hour, the New York Times insisted the research undergo peer review after discussions with editorial staff — an unprecedented demand for our work,” a NCRI researcher told National Review. “The journalist involved had previously covered far more sensitive NCRI findings, such as our QAnon and January 6th studies, without any such request.”
The New York Times denied having an article ready to publish in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Our journalists are always considering potential topics for news coverage, evaluating them for newsworthiness, and often choose not to pursue further reporting for a variety of reasons,” a Times spokesperson told the DCNF. “Speculative claims from outside parties about The Times’s editorial process are just that. It’s not true that The Times had prepared a story ‘ready for publication’ on this topic.”
The two Bloomberg reporters had a piece ready to publish, but Nabila Ahmed, the team leader for Global Equality at Bloomberg News, informed the NCRI that they wouldn’t publish the article, saying it was an “editorial decision.” Ahmed’s responsibilities are to “elevate issues of race, gender, diversity and fairness within companies, governments and societies that Bloomberg News covers,” according to her LinkedIn.
The reporters previously communicated to the NCRI that the research would create “an important story” and they would’ve been “eager” to publish on it, according to National Review.
In the experiment, researchers took 850 participants and gave one group a neutral essay on the caste system in India, and gave the other caste-sensitivity-training material from Equality Labs, a left-wing human rights organization, according to the study.
When participants who read the DEI-inspired material viewed modified past statements from Hitler which replaced the word “Jew” with “Brahmin,” the upper class in the caste system, they were more likely to agree that Brahmins were “‘parasites’ (+35.4%), ‘viruses’ (+33.8%), and ‘the devil personified’ (+27.1%),” according to the study.
The DEI-charged material seemed to “engender a hostile attribution bias and heighten racial suspicion, prejudicial attitudes, authoritarian policing, and support for punitive behaviors in the absence of evidence for a transgression deserving punishment,” according to the study.
The NCRI and Bloomberg did not immediately respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Jon S via Flickr)
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