Many important institutions have recently embraced practices, from affinity groups to Black-only dorms, that separate people on the basis of their skin color or sexual identity. They believe that it is their duty to encourage people to define themselves in terms of the identity groups into which they are born and to protect them from the ever-present danger of harm posed by members of dominant groups. Historically, this new form of “progressive separatism” can be understood as the love child of two major intellectual influences: strategic essentialism and safetyism.
