MAGA Kills DEI, Gets Schooled in College Admissions

MAGA got its dream: DEI stripped, identity banned, and “merit” restored. And within minutes, the data made one thing embarrassingly clear: The kids who lose first in a meritocracy aren’t the ones MAGA loves to demonize. They’re the ones MAGA raised.

The biggest beneficiaries of identity-based admissions weren’t students of color or first-gen kids. They were boys. More specifically, white boys with mid-range GPAs and “my-dad-said-I’m-destined-for-greatness” energy.

For decades, colleges quietly used gender balancing to avoid enrolling freshman classes that were 65–70 percent women. Investigations show men were admitted at higher rates purely to keep the gender ratio comfortable for donors and fraternity houses. Somewhere, a legacy dad had to confront the possibility that Becky the AP Scholar outperformed Brock the Occasional Homework Completer.

Now some colleges treated this as “sex balancing,” a polite way of saying that men received a boost when they fell behind women academically. And because the male applicant pool skews heavily white, it was white boys getting the quiet advantage.

Then came the anti-DEI crusade, which banned using any identity category in admissions — race, gender, first-gen status, socioeconomic context, all of it.

The Washington Post reports conservative states now forbid considering gender at all. Without the gender bump boys relied on, the first group to take a hit is white male applicants. It started in conservative states, but the chilling effect hit admissions offices everywhere. Colleges pulled back even where it wasn’t banned, because in this political climate every identity category looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Here’s the unavoidable truth: Girls have been outperforming boys for years. GPA, course rigor, attendance, reading, graduation, college completion; women dominate every metric. Remove gender balancing and the numbers rise even higher.

MAGA’s “merit only” fantasy didn’t level the field; it removed the safety net.

Meritocracy favors the students who show up, do the work, and deliver. And for years, that hasn’t been the boys.

The Cultural Subplot

And here’s what no one wants to admit: This isn’t just an admissions problem. It’s a masculinity problem. Or dare I say, mediocre man problem.

Point out that women outperform men academically, and the Brock Brigade immediately pivots to TikTok to complain that “women don’t want to get married anymore.” or “Where are all the good women?”

Let’s cut the nonsense.

Women aren’t refusing marriage because they’re picky. They’re refusing marriage because the average man brings less to the table. Mediocre men have less education, less earning power, less initiative, less emotional intelligence, and far more expectations of free labor.

Phyllis Schlafly — the proto–trad wife of the 60s and 70s — spent years telling Boomer women college wasn’t for building a future, it was for securing a husband before ambition “ruined” them. That picket-fence fantasy lingered, but younger generations aren’t signing up to repeat their mothers’ and grandmothers’ regrets.

And I’ve felt the echo of that pressure myself. Every time I completed a degree, my female colleagues celebrated. The men? They didn’t congratulate me. They asked what my husband thought, as if ambition required a permission slip. That was the lesson Schlafly left behind: women shouldn’t outgrow the men they marry. Today’s women have rejected that trap completely.

Why would any woman pour years into her education and financial independence only to give it up so she can take on a second unpaid job at home, dim her ambitions to protect his pride, and risk her stability because Brock insists “that’s what real marriage is”?

That’s not a marriage. That’s being an unpaid domestic servant with sh!tty benefits.

Once the gender bump collapses, the marriage-market illusion collapses with it.

Women are not “too picky.” Men are too entitled, too coddled, and too used to being told they’re exceptional when they aren’t.

Final Kicker

So here we are. DEI is gone. Identity considerations are banned. The gender bump is dead.

And the first group getting squeezed is the exact group that believed they were the rightful heirs of academia.

Turns out the real affirmative action program wasn’t for Black kids or first-gen students. It was for Brock. And when MAGA demanded its destruction, they didn’t slay their imaginary monster. They cut their own safety line. And that’s a prime example of F.A.F.O.

Welcome to meritocracy, dumbass. Turns out MAGA kids aren’t its chosen ones.

Recommended Reading

• Marcus, Jon. “An Unexpected Target of Federal College Admissions Scrutiny: Men.” The Hechinger Report, 7 Feb. 2023.

• Medley, Amanda. “‘Gender Balancing’ as Sex Discrimination in College Admissions.” Harvard Civil Rights–Civil Liberties Law Review, vol. 51, 2016.

• Nietzel, Michael T. “Women Continue to Outpace Men in College Enrollment and Graduation.” Forbes, 7 Aug. 2024.

• Strauss, Valerie. “Trump’s Attack on DEI May Hurt College Men, Particularly White Men.” The Washington Post, 4 Dec. 2025.