A nonprofit fencing organization penned an open letter to USA Fencing Board Members this week, urging the national governing body for the sport to re-evaluate its stance on several issues, including tournament site selection criteria, as it relates to individual states' abortion policies, transgender inclusion and DEI.  

The Fair Fencing Organization (FFO), which describes itself as a nationwide nonprofit organization, raised concerns over several issues in an open letter to USFA board members on Tuesday. In the letter, the group calls on the governing body to make decisions not on "political correctness" but rather in the interest of its members.

"Your personal political stand or preference should not, and cannot take precedence over the will of majority of the members. Specifically, your decision on issues cannot only satisfy your own feeling of moral superiority or be obsessed with political correctness, while ignoring the interest of members."

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The issues raised in the letter are outlined in three parts. 

FFO’s letter alleged that USA Fencing "has a policy of prioritizing the States that support women’s abortion rights" when selecting sites for national tournaments. The group argued that doing so "is a political choice without a common consensus of the members," and called on USA Fencing board members to instead prioritize "safety, accessibility, and financials."

"Nothing else matters more than these three factors. In USFA’s prior site selections, our fencers were harassed by hooligans on the street, heard gunshots outside of their hotels, while some families hid for safety in a restaurant's kitchen. It only takes one crime against our members to cause irreparable harm to the fencing community and USFA."

According to USA Fencing policy, the criteria for site selection include but are not limited to:

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FFO separately called on the board members to consider forming an "all-women task force" to understand the impact that transgender athletes have on female competitors. The letter acknowledges that the proposal was motioned by one of the board members, but added that while they do not oppose transgender athletes, they will consider taking legal action if the issue is not further considered. 

"Politics aside, it is a reasonable request to form a task force to do a deeper dive on this issue in fencing and create a safe space where the voices of all women are heard without ridicule and abuse."

USA Fencing’s current policy states that it will "not discriminate on the basis of gender identity, regardless of sex assigned at birth, or any other form of gender expression for participation in any division." Athletes are able to compete "in a manner consistent with their gender identity/ expression, regardless of the gender associated with the sex they were assigned at birth." 

For some categories, there are guidelines regarding testosterone suppression treatment.

In a recent instance, a student who had previously competed for the Wagner College men’s fencing team before switching to the women’s team this season won gold in the junior women’s foil at the Connecticut Division Junior Olympic Qualifiers earlier this month. 

The final issue raised in the letter is USA Fencing’s stance on DEI positions. The FFO specifically called on the sport’s governing body to not use "members’ funds for a paid position for a DEI role." 

"In principle, USFA should not use members’ funds to create any ideologically or politically motivated positions ever unless it is authorized by the majority of the members."  

In an email to Fox News Digital, USA Fencing said it would be "inappropriate and against protocol to publicly comment" on any motions or proposals before the board meeting, which is scheduled for Saturday. 

"These matters will be thoroughly discussed and deliberated upon during the meeting, ensuring that decisions are made in accordance with the organization’s governance procedures," the email read. 

USA Fencing noted that its board members "are elected by our members and are entrusted to represent their interests and make decisions they believe are in the best interest of the fencing community as a whole." 

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The University of Michigan is the latest public university to dismantle its Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) as part of its faculty requirements, making it one of several universities this year to roll back DEI initiatives.

"The University of Michigan will no longer solicit diversity statements as part of faculty hiring, promotion and tenure," the school said in a news release Thursday.

University of Michigan Provost Laurie McCauley announced the decision to stop using the diversity statements following an Oct. 31 recommendation from a faculty working group, the university said. The group reportedly criticized the statements "for their potential to limit freedom of expression and diversity of thought on campus."

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"As we pursue this challenging and complex work, we will continuously refine our approach," McCauley said.

The university chose not to implement two other recommendations from the working group: integrating DEI content into teaching, research and service statements, and enhancing training on how to write and assess them.

Several other public universities this year have also rolled back their DEI initiatives and requirements. 

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Following Senate Bill 17 being signed into law this year, Texas public universities eliminated DEI offices, DEI-related positions and mandatory DEI training. This included layoffs and restructuring at institutions like the University of Texas at Austin and Texas A&M. 

The University of North Carolina system redirected millions from DEI initiatives to public safety and discontinued DEI programs on campuses in May. The state also prohibited mandatory diversity statements for job applications in academia​.

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Iowa's three public universities — the University of Iowa, Iowa State University and the University of Northern Iowa — began eliminating DEI offices and reallocating funds after a state law was passed earlier this year.

Last year, Florida's restrictions on DEI in public universities were part of a broader set of education reforms implemented under Gov. Ron DeSantis, following the passage of legislation targeting DEI programs.

Universities aren't the only institutions rolling back DEI initiatives, and during his campaign, President-elect Trump vowed to eliminate DEI programs in federal agencies. In 2020, then-President Trump issued an executive order to ban "divisive" training for federal contractors. And the House Oversight Committee held a hearing last month about dismantling DEI policies. 

"It is a multibillion-dollar industry that pushes a left-wing, far-left ideological orthodoxy in essentially every area of American life, which is why I've begun to call it the ‘DEI enterprise,’ instead of just DEI, so that people have a sense of what I'm talking about," Devon Westhill, a constitutional and civil rights attorney, told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

Over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration has encouraged DEI initiatives across several sectors of the federal government. In 2021, President Biden widened an executive order directing agencies to assess and "remove barriers" to equal opportunity through DEI policies. Another executive order signed that year was a government-wide initiative to embed DEI principles in federal hiring.

New research from the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and Rutgers University reveals that some diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training methods may cause psychological harm.

The study, released on Monday, shows significant increases in hostility and punitive attitudes among participants exposed to DEI pedagogy covering subjects like race, religion and caste.

This hostile attribution bias may contribute to increased intergroup hostility and authoritarian behavior in the long run, according to study co-author and NCRI Chief Science Officer Joel Finkelstein.

"What we did was we took a lot of these ideas that were found to still be very prominent in a lot of these DEI lectures and interventions and training," said Finkelstein in an interview with Fox News Digital. "And we said, ‘Well, how is this going to affect people?’ What we found is that when people are exposed to this ideology, what happens is they become hostile without any indication that anything racist has happened."

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A Pew Research Center study from 2023 found that 52% of American workers have DEI training events or meetings at work and, according to Professor Iris Bohnet with the Harvard Kennedy School, $8 billion is spent annually on such programs.

As DEI programs have become a major area of investment in recent years, their actual effectiveness remains a topic of debate, with NCRI's study suggesting they may exacerbate tensions rather than alleviate them. The study measured "explicit bias, social distancing, demonization, and authoritarian tendencies" with both the DEI materials and control materials.

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Their study included sharing anti-racist DEI materials from thought leaders like Ibram X. Kendi and "White Fragility" author Robin DiAngelo with participants involved. Specifically, the NCRI focused on materials which emphasized awareness of and opposition to "systemic oppression," popularized by texts such as Kendi’s "How to Be an Antiracist."

Those exposed to anti-racist materials were linked to heightened perceptions of racial bias in the study. Participants were also more likely to support punitive measures against perceived offenders of so-called "microaggressions," even in the absence of evidence.

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"And when people are supposed to see anti-racist material in the ideology, it looks like what happens is that they become more likely to punish for any evidence of wrongdoing," said Finkelstein. "That includes protesting people, calling for dismissal, demanding public apologies, receiving people calling for their relocation. These punitive measures are, in some cases, costing people their jobs."

DEI programming psychological harms go beyond race according to NCRI's study, spanning to religious identities as well. According to the study, anti-Islamophobia training led participants to detect bias against Muslims in neutral scenarios.

The NCRI used materials from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU), which "provides objective research and education about American Muslims to support well-informed dialogue and decision-making," according to its website.

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These results suggest that anti-Islamophobia training inspired by ISPU materials may cause individuals to assume unfair treatment of Muslim people, even when no evidence of bias or unfairness is present. This effect highlights a broader issue: DEI narratives that focus heavily on victimization and systemic oppression can foster unwarranted distrust and suspicions of institutions and alter subjective assessments of events.

One key takeaway from Finkelstein in the NCRI study is that the authoritarianism that comes from hostile attribution bias looks different in the 21st century. 

According to Finkelstein, those who are likely to carry hostilities are "people who are higher in what's called left-wing authoritarianism. This is now a steady phenomenon. We the people have been studying right-wing authoritarianism since World War II. It's really only in the past 10 or 15 years that people have started saying, 'Wait a minute, this is on the left, too."

Across all groupings, instead of DEI materials reducing bias, the study discovered they engendered a hostile attribution bias amplifying perceptions of prejudicial hostility where none was present.

"They're bad ideas, because they're hurting people; and that appears from research and appears to be far more prevalent and is shockingly public, these harms can be extremely widespread," said Finkelstein. "So I think that is grounds to believe that from this research, and it suggests that we need to be focused on this data, and we need more data like it. [But we can] start evaluating what's happening here, and I don't think this is about speech. I certainly think it's about people's civil rights."

Representatives DiAngelo did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.

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When reached for comment, Kendi slammed both Fox News and the study, calling it "pseudoscience." 

"It comes as no surprise that Fox News would broadcast this pseudoscience that isn’t peer-reviewed, misrepresents my work, and is based on anchoring bias," Kendi said. "This so-called study will end up in the historic landfill of pseudoscience alongside other attempts to bring scientific legitimacy to racist propaganda that anti-slavery and civil rights then, and DEI and antiracism now have been harmful."

Fox News' Bradford Betz contributed to this report.

EXCLUSIVE: Some state lawmakers and companies will be preparing to roll back major Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies that are present in nearly every major U.S. industry, including the military, according to experts and a Republican attorney general.

The DEI topic was back in the news last week due to an intense exchange between lawmakers during a markup of the "Dismantle DEI" bill in the House. Progressive firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Tex., lambasted a Republican congressman who referred to DEI policies as "oppression."

"There has been no oppression for the white man in this country," Crockett said. "You tell me which white men were dragged out of their homes. You tell me which one of them got dragged all the way across an ocean and told that you are gonna go work, we are gonna steal your wives, we are gonna rape your wives. That didn’t happen. That is oppression."

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The incoming Trump administration will likely target many DEI initiatives. In 2020, then-President Trump issued an executive order to ban "divisive" training for federal contractors. And the House Oversight Committee held a hearing this week about dismantling DEI policies. 

"It is a multibillion-dollar industry that pushes a left-wing, far-left ideological orthodoxy in essentially every area of American life, which is why I've begun to call it the DEI enterprise, instead of just DEI, so that people have a sense of what I'm talking about," Devon Westhill, constitutional and civil rights attorney, told Fox News Digital in an interview. 

Westhill, who researches DEI policies at the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank, said DEI isn't interested in "diversity of thought, true diversity," but rather, it is "interested in racial quotas."

Over the last four years, the Biden-Harris administration has encouraged DEI initiatives across several sectors of the federal government.

In 2021, Biden widened an executive order directing agencies to assess and "remove barriers" to equal opportunity through DEI policies. Another executive order signed that year was a government-wide initiative to embed DEI principles in federal hiring.

The Department of Education has also released reports encouraging DEI on public university campuses. The Biden-Harris administration also invested in DEI programs within the U.S. military.

Large corporations across the U.S. have also adopted DEI workplace policies, including Accenture, Johnson & Johnson, Mastercard, Marriott International, Kaiser Permanente, EY (Ernst & Young), Target, Google, Bank of America and American Express.

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"It wasn't so much a dollars and cents motivation [for corporations]," Will Hild, executive director of Consumer's Research, told Fox News Digital in an interview. "You had it coming from the federal government, where if you wouldn't go along with under the Biden administration, with the DEI regime, they were threatening to sue you, or to claim that you're violating civil rights of minorities. So, it was more a combination of the threat of bad press or government action against these corporations."

Hild said he expected to see over the next year many red state attorneys general "start suing these corporations" for hiring based on racial quotas. Consumers have also suffered as a result of DEI policies, he said, arguing that it shifted companies' focus away from the quality of goods.

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The integration of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and DEI benchmarks has also influenced investment decisions and pension fund strategies. Pension funds have been increasingly incorporating ESG and DEI considerations into their investment processes over the last four years. 

Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird said this will be one area of focus her office will examine. 

"We want to make sure that we are protecting people's pensions, because no one's retirement and life savings should be gambled for these woke ESG and DEI goals," Bird said. "And so that means that our work with that issue will continue, whether it's the investment managers or the proxy advisers, you know, making sure that these pensions are being invested, so that it's there for people when they need it, and not for any kind of social engineering or other types of woke political goals."

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment.

FIRST ON FOX: Conservative watchdog group, America First Legal (AFL) launched a new initiative Thursday to help parents protect their children from what it describes as "woke leftist teachings in K-12 schools, colleges, and universities."

"For the past four years, public schools have been indoctrinating children with radical racist, antisemitic, and transgender ideologies," Ian Prior, AFL's senior advisor said in a statement. "As these schools have blatantly violated civil rights law, the Biden Administration worked hand in glove to federalize the illegal practices. That ends in 2025, as the incoming administration has made clear that it will crack down on these woke schools that abuse their federal funds to implement insane ideologies that hurt children." 

The newly unveiled "Parents’ Rights Toolkit" provides resources and guidance for families looking to challenge policies they believe are discriminatory or harmful, including those that involve race and gender issues, AFL said in a news release.

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The toolkit offers template letters to help parents file complaints with the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, addressing potential violations of civil rights protections under Title IX, Title VI, and the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment (PPRA). 

AFL, which was founded by Stephen Miller and other former Trump administration officials, intends for the toolkit to also serve as a roadmap for action for the incoming Trump administration.

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"AFL’s toolkit was created to help parents speak up for civil rights," AFL's news release said. "Now is the time for them to do — these claims will provide the incoming Trump administration with a critical roadmap for ending woke indoctrination and discrimination in our schools and colleges."

The toolkit comes amid a conservative wave of pushback against DEI policies. At a House Oversight Committee hearing on Wednesday, the "Dismantle DEI Act" was under discussion, a session during which Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, expressed her frustration.

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She concluded her remarks by claiming "companies with more diverse workforces are more likely to outperform their competitors." 

"Diversity works, and until you can show me data that says otherwise, I think that we need to go back to being a country that listens to experts and gets out of our feelings and recognizes again that racism is real in this country, and until we stop pretending that it's not, we will not solve the problems that we are consistently facing. And that will bring real unity that we seek when we're looking for a more perfect union," she said. 

Fox News Digital's Alexander Hall contributed to this report.