Wokeness as we currently know it was a Tumblr phenomena. It was created by teenage girls reading academic writings by Marxist academics. This may sound like a dogwhistle but it's simply a description of where the current form of gender and identity politics came from. Everyone gets the genealogy of this thing wrong.

This internet and fundamentally teenage phenomena then was transmitted to the universities *by the students*. It was not imposed by the professors.

However, quickly the inmates were running the asylum and the culture of elite academic institutions was changed profoundly by what the students demanded. Colleges either embraced or bowed to be pressure.

When students graduated and entered the workforce and politics, this hit it's full stride in the period you mention post Obama.