@arizonalumni: Good luck to former #UofA student and @NASCAR champ @KurtBusch as he attempts to race in both the Indy 500 and Coke 600. #BearDown! Efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) at universities in the United States have emerged as another contentious issue in an increasingly polarized political climate (Diep 2023, Kelderman 2023, Kumar 2023). Many of the DEI programs now under fire were actually mandated and implemented decades ago by congress with broad bipartisan support (Watts et al. 2015) in response to the dramatic lack of racial, ethnic, and gender parity in STEM disciplines (Palid et al. 2023). More recent ones have been motivated by increasing evidence that diverse teams are more creative or have a competitive advantage (Hong and Page 2004, Fenster 2014, Hundschell et al. 2022), as well as employer demands for a diverse and culturally competent STEM workforce. Despite this long history and the demonstrable impact of many DEI programs, however, individuals and organizations critical of DEI programs often claim that these initiatives have become increasingly pervasive and ideological (Iyer 2022). However, this assertion is rarely supported with empirical evidence.