Whatever happened to freedom of association?

Voluntary affinity groups are an American tradition, not a form of DEI discrimination

The Trump administration is trying its darndest to decimate DEI.¹ One of the many problems with the federal government’s anti-DEI crusade is that Trump and co. will categorize pretty much anything they don’t like as DEI, even if the connections are more imagined than real. Take campus affinity groups and houses, which have been around for much longer than DEI (as a concept or acronym). Nonetheless, these particular groups and houses have become key targets for the anti-DEI brigade. Jeff explains why it’s so misguided for the federal government to take aim at campus affinity groups below. (This post is adapted from an article that was originally published in the Chronicle Review.)

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President Trump’s unrelenting campaign against DEI is threatening one of our country’s most sacred rights, the freedom of association. Consider, for instance, the University of Iowa’s decision to shutter its Latinx, LGBTQ+, and “Young, Gifted, and Black” residential communities in the wake of Trump’s barrage of anti-DEI executive orders. Or West Point’s resolution to disband a dozen different campus affinity groups, including the Vietnamese-American Cadet Association, Spectrum (a social club that provided support for the military’s LGBTQ+ cadets), and the Society of Women Engineers.

Nearly 200 years ago, Alexis de Tocqueville marveled at the propensity of Americans “of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions” to form voluntary associations. Indeed, he regarded the free pursuit of a common interest among like-minded citizens as key to the survival of our democracy. Today, there are countless voluntary associations across the United States, including temples, mosques, churches, charities, scholarly societies, trade unions, parent-teacher associations, sports leagues, and community choirs.

The purpose of voluntary associations runs the gamut, from banding together to promote social justice (think organizations like the NAACP) to convening for fun and recreation (think of your local bowling club). “By associating with one another,” political scientist Amy Gutmann explains, “we engage in camaraderie, cooperation, dialogue, deliberation, negotiation, competition, creativity, and the kinds of self-expression and self-sacrifice that are possible only in association with others.”

Trump’s anti-DEI directives not only fail to consider the many benefits of free association; they also advance a profoundly misguided view of what constitutes discrimination.

A February 14 “Dear Colleague” letter warns colleges that their DEI programs may fall afoul of civil-rights laws. “In a shameful echo of a darker period in this country’s history,” the letter reads, “many American schools and universities even encourage segregation by race at graduation ceremonies and in dormitories and other facilities.”

This sentence is nothing short of Orwellian. From the 1896 “separate but equal” Plessy v. Ferguson decision to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, de jure segregation followed many Black Americans from the cradle to the grave. “Jim Crow was everywhere,” in historian Leon Litwack’s words, dictating to Black Americans “where they could legally reside, walk, sit, rest, eat, drink, work, seek entertainment, be hospitalized, and be buried.” Black civil-rights activists fought to end state-sanctioned segregation because it relegated them to second-class citizenship. At the same time, they well understood there was a crucial difference between being forced to attend a segregated, poorly funded Black school and voluntarily attending the Black church across the street.

Writing in 1965, as the United States was grappling with school desegregation, civil-rights activist James Farmer drew a sharp distinction between “segregation” and “separation” or “independence.” Farmer said that the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision had ratified what every Black American already knew, “that the system of segregation was mounted and perpetuated for the purpose of keeping the black man down.” “Segregation means inferiority,” he wrote, “as indelibly as the scarlet letter meant adulteress to the New England Puritans.”

“Separation” or “independence,” in contrast, were about “freedom of choice” in a “free society.” “Jim Brown, a thoughtful man and pretty good fullback,” Farmer wrote, “offended some people when he said that he personally wouldn’t want to live with whites but that he damned well wanted to know that he could if he did want to.” As the director of the Congress of Racial Equality and the leader of the first Freedom Ride in 1961, Farmer himself was committed to interracial activism and brotherhood, but he insisted that Black people had the right to “build a community life and a community spirit” in their own neighborhoods and institutions. “What we wish,” he said, “is the freedom of choice which will cause any choice we make to seem truly our own.”

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Many conservatives are unequivocally opposed to any identity-based campus groups, arguing that they stoke division by encouraging members of minority groups to isolate themselves in their own little enclaves. This position fails to take into account two crucial facts: first, that student affinity clubs and houses are open to everyone (you don’t have to be Black to join the Black Student Alliance); second, that individual students freely choose whether they want to affiliate with a particular club or house.

We can debate the merits and wisdom of specific clubs and houses, but taking an uncompromising stance against all identity-themed affinity groups is foolish — even un-American. In a pluralistic, democratic society, people will sort themselves into different groups as a matter of course. Students who join organizations like La Casa Latina, Indigenous Student Alliance, or Women in STEM bear no more responsibility for campus “segregation” than those who are members of fraternities, sports teams, or a cappella groups. The fact that students voluntarily congregate in groups based on their common interests is a healthy sign that they are not living in an authoritarian society.

Conservatives should take heed. Freedom of association is closely aligned with individual freedom, which has been one of the central causes of American conservatism, even appearing first in House Speaker Mike Johnson’s list of conservatism’s “Seven Core Principles.”

Freedom of association, political theorist George Kateb wrote, is “integral … to being a free person”: “Picking one’s company is part of living as one likes,” and “living as one likes (provided one does not injure the vital claims of others) is what being free means.”

Banning voluntary affinity groups upends the bedrock conservative conviction that, in Speaker Johnson’s words, “our individual, God-given liberties should be preserved against government intrusion.” If the federal government outlaws campus affinity groups for their real or imagined connection to DEI, it will have effectively rejected the principle of free association. In that case, the College Republicans, Students for Life, the NRA Collegiate Coalition, and any other conservative organizations have no more claims to legitimacy than any other college affinity group.

The wide array of student organizations on our campuses is a testament to the spectacular diversity of collegiate life, reflecting the varied backgrounds and interests of students from across the United States and across the globe. It is likewise a testament to the power of the freedom of association, which opens up exceptional opportunities for students to pursue — and to discover — their passions.

The charge that affinity clubs and houses resurrect the invidious discrimination of “colored” water fountains rests on a faulty understanding of the nature of discrimination. The allegation that they are uniquely responsible for the self-sorting of students into different groups is plain wrong. This phenomenon has been a perennial feature of campus life.

Several years back, the editorial board of the The Williams Record made a compelling case for affinity housing: “We believe … that allowing for a space where students can express their identities without fear of tokenization or marginalization will encourage students to exist more freely in the broader campus community, rather than recede from it.” Freedom of association is a core American value that empowers individuals to make their own choices. Any executive actions that erode this freedom should be fiercely contested.

1. Regular listeners & readers of Banished will know that we are critical of conventional, campus DEI programs (what we call DEI, Inc.). They will also know that we are opposed to any government interventions that erode the autonomy of colleges and universities. In virtually all cases, including attempts to get rid of DEI offices and programs by government fiat, the cure is far worse than the disease.