College diversity programs can actually end up shutting people out because they don't have the same accountability rules as real companies.
April 2, 2026
Original Paper
Exclusive Inclusion: How University Governance Produces the Discrimination It Promises to Prevent
SSRN · 6423378
The Takeaway
This paper argues that discrimination in modern universities is a structural failure of corporate governance rather than a clash of ideologies. Because stakeholders lack the right to sue leadership for mission failure, organized factions are able to hijack 'inclusion' policies to exclude disfavored groups.
From the abstract
Institutions publicly committed to "inclusive" can produce systematic identity-based <i>exclusion</i> as a structural output. This Essay introduces exclusive inclusion to name this condition: the governance state in which self-perpetuating boards, unenforceable fiduciary duties, and the absence of stakeholder standing create an accountability void that organized factions exploit to exclude disfavored identity groups. The mechanism is architectural, not attitudinal, and operates across identity c