Parents are increasingly pushing back against the insane ‘wokeness’ sweeping through American higher education as more refuse just to sit idly by and watch academia be hijacked by left-wing culture warriors who put activism above learning.

According to Fox News, some colleges and universities around the country are requiring that faculty comply with diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts by signing affidavits declaring their support — or so-called “DEI statements” — as a condition of receiving tenure or getting a promotion. These institutions argue that getting DEI compliance is a top priority.

But, the network adds, there is growing pushback from an increasing number of parents as well as faculty members, all of whom say that the woke DEI agenda actually poses a challenge to the stated objective of promoting diversity of viewpoints and opinions of students within the environment of higher learning. They also say that the DEI demands promote a culture of intimidation and fear.

Fox News added:

In the city of Seattle, for example, roughly 40 percent of the University of Washington’s faculty recently rejected — or abstained from voting on — a measure that would have required faculty members seeking advancement to provide a statement demonstrating their support of DEI.

“The fact that [the vote] was stopped is unprecedented,” Cliff Mass, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the university and an advocate for viewpoint diversity, told Fox News Digital.

According to Victor Balta, the senior director of media relations at the school, “My understanding is that the legislation failed despite earning over 63 ‘yes’ votes among those cast, which was a margin of 26 points over the ‘no’ votes.”

Balta went on to say that faculty code requires “Class A legislation earn a two-thirds supermajority of votes in instances where fewer than 50 percent of the faculty actually cast ballots.”

“Viewpoint diversity is part of diversity, equity and inclusion, and we don’t believe they are in conflict,” he also told the outlet. “Our campuses should be, and are, places for thoughtful and rigorous exchanges of ideas.

“Placing value on diversity, equity and inclusion introduces more perspectives to these discussions, not fewer,” Balta went on.

That said, according to Mass, the fact that the vote failed was actually a victory for true diversity of thought and viewpoint.

“One political viewpoint is being pushed very hard by the administration and by a number of others,” said Mass, who is also a meteorologist.

He went on to say he considers the “diversity statements” to appear very much like “the anti-communist loyalty oaths of the late 1940s and early 1050s,” or the loyalty oaths of any left-wing cult-like organization as well.

He added that even students who hold only moderate viewpoints are often scared to speak up.

“Requiring all faculty members to support a social/political agenda favored by one segment of society not only politicizes the university, but represents ‘compelled speech,’” he noted recently in a blog post.

It’s “a violation of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution at a public university,” he noted further.

“They believe that the university should be biased in its admissions and resources to ensure equal outcomes for all groups, with particular attention to a small number of favored ‘unrepresented’ groups,” Mass continued.

“I suspect most parents don’t understand what’s happening here,” he said. “Parents that we serve are from the whole state. There’s a wide variety of political views from people who send their kids here.”

“Then there’s people from outside. We have a lot of foreign students,” he added. “They’re coming here to get a good education.”

He told Fox News as well that he thinks parents have a very large role to play in limiting the DEI agenda on campus.

“There’s a lot that parents can do,” Mass said, noting that parents can decide not to make contributions to their child’s college.

“There are a lot of tools to pressure the university — and if they did, it would have an impact,” Mass said.

One parent, Rebecca Friedrichs of California, who has two grown sons, told Fox News that parents may be “unaware of the destructive nature of DEI.”

“DEI proponents (and their allies) use linguistic gymnastics to change the very meaning of words, in order to manipulate the masses into believing propaganda,” she told the outlet.

“We collectively understand the word ‘diversity’ to include respectful debate of diverse opinions, open and honest discussion, respect for others, even when we disagree,” said Friedrichs, co-founder of the group Kids and Country, a national coalition of parents, teachers, and citizens.

“So, when the university announces it is ‘diverse,’ we think, ‘That’s positive,'” she said. “Their definition of ‘diversity’ is twisted and is the exact opposite of our understanding. Their ‘diversity’ accepts only their group-think opinions, their stifling of true debate, their silencing of diverse ideas and their tyrannical control of all content.”

“DEI is dangerous” in her opinion, she said, “and many parents don’t discover this destructive agenda until it’s too late.”