Dui will not die. Dui will not die. Dui will not die.

That was the scene outside of hedge fund giant and Harvard alum, Bill Ackman's office, a protest, if you can even call it that, for the preservation of DEI, courtesy of none other than Reverend Al Sharpton. Ackman, of course, has been one of the most vocal critics speaking out against his alma mater's response Hamas's October seventh terrorist attack. But it was his pressure campaign against disgraced plagiarist Claudine Gay and her DEI agenda that really got under Sharpton's skin.

We would not have to have DEI if we didn't have DEI, we were denied. Dei was to make up for the denial historically of blacks. Dei is something we must to equalize the claims here. We were able to get the affirmative action. This is a war on civil rights.

Joining me with his response to the Reverend Shelby Steele, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Shelby, thanks for being here tonight. How does it make you feel, given your own personal journey in history and all that you've accomplished, to hear Al Sharpe and say DEI, diversity, equity, inclusion, is something we must have to equalize the playing field?

Well, it's painful to hear that. I can't tell you how sad that makes me feel. It's so sad that what he is really preaching is dependency. He's saying to black America, particularly, we can't make it without dependency on a larger society. We don't have what it takes to do that. And so our protests, our trying to move forward and advance in society is based on our faith on dependency to white Americans and to institutions. What's heartbreaking, specifically, is Reverend Al's refusal to acknowledge the power within black America that has lifted us, sustained us to this point. To ignore that and talk about what some white man with a lot of money did, breaks my heart. He should be ashamed of himself.

Black Americans need to understand the day is over for this indulgence in a fantasy that dependency is our way ahead. Well, and specifically, all of this is centering on Claudine Gay's resignation yesterday as President of Harvard. But Claudine Gay, in terms of her having that position, has never written a book. She's written, I guess, only 11 journal articles. Even yesterday, when she resigned, it was all about her. The truth is that, I think it was McGill who resigned her presidency at the University of Pennsylvania. That had nothing to do with color. And yet Claudine Gay had the additional problem of 50 credible plagiarism allegations. Don't they see that? Does DEI withstand logical scrutiny?

Well, this is one of the things that fascinates me. Dei would not exist were it not for white America, white America feeling so threatened by the charge, the accusation of racism, that they're willing to hire people like Claudine Gay, even though it's obvious that she's not qualified. But she's black, She's a woman, and thus redounds to white America a certain innocence, a weapon with which to combat the charge of racism. She's there because Whites are have given in to the stigma that they're all racist, that the country is racist. I want to shift gears for a second.

I apologize. I don't have a lot of time. In political news, USA Today kicked off election year with this headline, noting that a fraying coalition of Black, Hispanic, and young voters is actually abandoning Joe Biden and pointing out that Biden now claims to support of just 63% of Black voters, a precipitous decline from the 87% he carried in 2020. Shelby, what is your reaction to that?

I'm happy. We're slowly beginning to see the light of how we've been played. We've been exploited, and we've been used over and over again. Affirmative Action uses Blacks as ponds of white innocence. We've had 70 years of affirmative action now, and blacks are farther behind than they were back in 1964 when the Civil Rights Bill was passed. It is a humongous failure of public policy, the greatest one, I think the greatest in American history, next to the Civil War and so forth. But it is profound.

Well, Shelby, you are profound in what you say, and I wish you had more time, but thank you so much for being with us tonight.

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