“Gee willikers,” said the former Assistant Dean of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the world’s leading STEM university, the paint still wet on her door displaying her new title: Assistant Dean of Community, Wellbeing, and Engagement. “President Kornbluth banned the use of DEI statements in faculty hiring. What can we do to make sure we only interview candidates who espouse the values and beliefs we on the right side of history hold dear?”

“I know, I know!” offered the former DEI Program Director, now the Outreach & Community Engagement Program Director. “If we change the name of our DEI statements to mimic the NSF’s Broader Impacts statements, we really don’t have to change anything when it comes to screening out undesirable faculty hires. And who will be the wiser?”

And so it goes, both at MIT and across America’s higher education system, as the maxim “personnel is policy” once again proves itself.

“Pay no attention to reports that we are trying to hide the ball,” advised MIT spokesperson Kimberly Allen in response to a College Fix article breaking the story. “As you can see, we have pivoted our verbiage to headline Merit in all our public-facing communications.”

Never mind the infamous Abbot cancellation over the physics professor’s blasphemy in arguing that affirmative action should be replaced by color‑blind, merit‑based selection. That unpleasantness has been flushed down the memory hole alongside censorship initiatives by far-left humanities professors—until they woke up on October 8th and demanded free speech protections for rioting Hamas supporters.

MIT has apparently achieved quantum rebranding: DEI Statements that are simultaneously banned and mandatory, depending on who’s observing.