The Origins of Woke

Richard Hanania's argument that 'wokeness' is primarily a product of civil rights law and bureaucratic incentives — not cultural Marxism or campus ideology — originating in Title VII litigation and EEOC enforcement.

The institutional origins thesis: Hanania argues that what people call 'woke' policies (DEI programs, diversity training, equity initiatives) were not primarily driven by academic ideology spreading into corporations — they were driven by legal compliance. Title VII and EEOC enforcement created incentives for companies to adopt proactive diversity programs as legal protection against discrimination claims. The bureaucratic machinery of civil rights enforcement produced 'woke' corporate policy regardless of the ideological convictions of managers. If true, the policy implication differs sharply from cultural-origin accounts: deregulate Title VII enforcement rather than fighting culture war.