Other than style and tone, what is your issue with the content of this writer's position? What are your suggestions for how it could be amended?
It should not take a particularly sharp mind to identify the fallacy here: There are definitions other than X. Therefore the conclusion of the article is completely fallacious: we've only established that people aren't using definition X, not that they don't care about Diversity.
From any sort of intellectually engaged opponent, I would expect some attempt to try and work out "therefore, colleges must have some definition Y that they actually care about" and an understanding that words can have multiple definitions.
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In places, the article doesn't even bother to check if it's debunking of X is actually accurate, either: it should be obvious to anyone who looks that quite a few colleges actually do care about socio-economic diversity (Point 2.5 in the article), and make a point of extending extra support to ensure at least a few poor students can attend. We have visa programs specifically designed to allow students from other countries (Point 2.3).
Maybe it's not an explicit "Affirmative Action" program, but it should be obvious that colleges do care about these things. Yet the author insists "Of course, none of the above predictions are borne out" and "Conclusion: By and large, they don’t care about diversity. They’re just lying"
> it's all sort of comically smug
Tonal critique, valid but not worth much.
> everybody else in the entire world is wrong, and here is a 7-point axiomatic derivation proving it
What argument doesn't take this form? If you're making an argument you yourself agree with, then yeah, the implication is that you disagree with people who disagree with it. Axiomatic derivations will be involved, because... why wouldn't they be?
> much of it depending on specific definitions of specific words
I think what you must mean here is surprising definitions of certain words (otherwise, again, what argument doesn't have this characteristic?). I personally was not surprised by the usage of any of the major words in the article. Certainly some of the words are really "improper nouns", like "diversity", but it's clear from context what the different sorts of diversity being discussed are.
> Check-mate, atheists!
Maybe tonal critique?
Sure, it would have been a better article if they had done that. What are some good books covering that? I haven't really heard much of an argument for it, merely brow-beating and social pressure. Ibram X. Kendi doesn't count, his arguments are ridiculously facile.
The first paragraph is about the source reducing things to axioms. The second paragraph is clearly about tone.
Where is the criticism of the content and not the tone of the article?
The use of the definite article here is surprising. I get the impression you have an argument for DEI in mind that you think everybody has in mind. Which one is it?