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Is the young, white male being pushed out? A new article is latest lightning rod in US culture wars

'The Lost Generation', an article published in Compact magazine last week, alleges that DEI practices have squeezed young, white men out of prestige jobs in sectors such as media and television. It has reignited the debate on representation as the Trump administration goes after DEI programmes

Major figures on the American Right cited the article as a validation of the current administration’s stance against DEI. Wikimedia Commons

Last week, an article by Jacob Savage in Compact magazine reignited that quintessential American cultural debate over representation, framing it this time in the following terms — diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices, institutionalised in the US in 2014, have systematically excluded young-ish, white American males from academia and jobs.

The debate over the alienation of young men, not just in the US but worldwide, is not new. Savage’s ‘The Lost Generation’ cites a number of percentage figures, along with anecdotes, to underscore the argument of exclusion in the context of a few specific “prestige” sectors such as journalism, academia, and television and film.

But he goes beyond this to make his larger, central claim: “Abandoning meritocracy” has accelerated the “decline” of such industries.

In the aftermath of the publication, major figures on the American Right cited the article as a validation of the current administration’s stance against DEI.

US Vice President J D Vance posted on X: “A lot of people think ‘DEI’ is lame diversity seminars or racial slogans at NFL games. In reality, it was a deliberate program of discrimination primarily against white men. This is an incredible piece that describes the evil of DEI and its consequences.”

Donald Trump Jr, the son of the US president, reposted this with emojis indicating his support for Vance’s sentiment.

Here’s a look at some of the key numbers the article cites for the industries it touches upon:

US newsrooms

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Savage says major news outlets, including The Washington Post and The New York Times, became majority female by 2019. And, after 2020, he says, hiring practices continued to favour women and people of colour. Some examples he cites: The Atlantic’s staff went from 53% male and 89% white in 2013 to 36% male and 66% white in 2024; ProPublica hired 66% women and 58% people of color in 2021; 78% of NPR’s new hires in 2021 were people of colour.

Academia

Savage says academia pipelines have excluded white male millennials. He says that despite stable or only slightly declining PhD production, tenure-track hiring of white men fell sharply after 2014. At several elite universities, DEI statements were used as screening tools. One of the many examples he cites: White men fell from 39% of tenure-track positions in humanities at Harvard in 2014 to 18% in 2023.

Television

Savage cites data to show that white men made up around 60% of television writers in 2011. By 2024–25, he says, white men accounted for 12% of lower-level TV writers. He also cites some anecdotes of discouraged white men leaving the industry.

White men in Tech

In Google, white men fell from nearly half the workforce in 2014 to less than a third by 2024. Amazon mid-level managers dropped from 55.8% white males in 2014 to 33.8% in 2024, says the article.

Other sectors

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“White men dropped from 31.2% of law school matriculants in 2016 to 25.7% in 2024. In 2014, white men were 31% of American medical students. By 2025, they were just 20.5%,” says the article.

Also Read | The US should learn from India’s affirmative action policies

Reigniting the debate

Savage says DEI practices have left old, white men at the top untouched while hurting young white men seeking entry-level positions. He insists that he does not blame women and people of colour who got opportunities, and that it is the old-white-male group which is responsible for the state of affairs.

This is not the first time Savage has written about the “vanishing” of a certain cohort. Two of his previous articles, one for Compact magazine and the other for Tablet magazine, argue that male white writers and Jewish people, respectively, are disappearing from public life.

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Critics have raised questions over the data Savage cites, especially with regard to his focus areas of arts and media. An article by People’s Policy Project, a US-based think tank, uses census data to show that the percentage of white men employed in “arts, design, entertainment, sports and media” was higher than other groups. It also said, citing census data, that overall employment of white men in their thirties is up during the 2014-2024 period. At both Amazon and Google, white males make up the biggest cohort in the overall workforce, according to their diversity reports from 2024.

Savage’s invocation of the term “discrimination” comes amid the backdrop of a history of slavery, segregation and discrimination against Black people, in a country where the white majority has long held the keys to power and racism continues to play out across society.

Savage’s central argument is that DEI “gutted” American “meritocracy” and has led to institutional declines — of trust in the media, quality in film and television, and respect for academia. The article comes at a time when US President Donald Trump has issued a series of executive orders targeting DEI programmes in the public and private sectors. ‘The Lost Generation’ has become the latest lightning rod for the fractious debate in the US over diversity, a debate that appears far from over.