Throw out DEI bathwater, not baby
Seeking diversity of thought and fighting "group think" are conservative values.
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs are having a bad year. These controversial trainings and organizational governance policies are reportedly disappearing from corporate HR programs, and the incoming 47th President is said to have “declared war on DEI.”
But not so fast. The incoming President talks about DEI “reform,” not “destruction.” When he criticizes DEI programs, he calls out “training that promotes divisive concepts like collective guilt,” and “equal outcome, not opportunity.” In other words, he doesn’t attack the concepts of “diversity” and “inclusion,” just how woke culture warriors have bastardized them.
At its core, equal opportunity is demanded by the U.S. Constitution, in the unambiguous language of the 14th amendment. America was created by a melting pot of cultures, religions, and ethnicities and we fought (and won) a war to assure equal rights across races. The “promise of America” was never to be denied to individuals based on “baked-in” bigotry.
But progressive Democrats can’t let a good thing hamper a crusade for collective power. A fair shot at “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” isn’t enough. They have to guarantee their definition of “happiness,” and ensure everyone gets an equal share.
Marxism may be yesterday’s cause celeb, but its failed philosophy of forcing equal outcome regardless of individual desires never dies. It is lazy societal engineering at its worst. DEI became corrupted when “equity” replaced “equal opportunity” as the goal.
Felicia Wong, a progressive Biden appointed to lead a key federal DEI Advisory Committee, explained “[t]rue equity means equity of outcome, and not accepting the promise of ‘opportunity’ within a system that continues to systematically exclude.”
This warped view, that happiness is defined by wealth, divvied up and awarded in equal portions by government, is actually a new insertion into DEI. President Biden issued Executive Orders (EO 13985 and EO 14091) “Advancing Racial Equity,” with the last only coming in February of 2023. Prior to these, “equity” wasn’t mentioned in federal rules.
Both executive orders were a reaction to President Trump publicly denouncing federal DEI programs embracing Marxist goals, like those advocated by Harvard’s Ibrim Kendi and his book “How to be an Antiracist,” and Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.”
Had Trump not called out these corrosive changes to DEI, the progressive left would have advanced their equity agenda as a “quiet cultural revolution.” To them, the less the public is aware of indoctrination, the better.
But their best strategy to salvage DEI “dogma” now is to overstate the goal of conservatives.
Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of the Therapy for Black Girls, declared that Trump’s promise of DEI reform “is just leading to an increased level of stress for people.” She then reported how young women are having nightmares of America returning to slavery.
To hear the left, DEI reform is Hitlerian, a return to Jim Crow. In the most ironic of comments, Vice President Harris described Trump’s reforms an “attempt to use race to divide the American people.” That, despite “calling out structural division caused by inequity” being the very core of the woke agenda Trump seeks to reverse.
Trump has actually put original DEI principles into practice. He reached out to independents and traditionally non-Republican voters, and brought free-thinking Democrats into his inner circle. He’s had more cross-racial appeal than Bush or Romney. His Executive Cabinet could end up being one of the most “diversely thinking” collections in modern history.
Trump ally Tucker Carlson makes it his crusade to be the “sworn enemy of lying, pomposity, smugness and group think.” Valuing diversity, providing equal opportunity and assuring inclusion were, originally, just different words describing those same values.
There are some, even within Idaho’s Republican Party, who cling to “group think” and would remove “diversity of thought” from the dictionary. They want DEI to die in all of its forms — especially the fairness and equality of opportunity guaranteed by the Constitution.
Let us hope that Governor Little, Superintendent Critchfield and the state Board of Education are wise enough to see that fixing DEI needs a scalpel — not a hatchet.
Trent Clark of Soda Springs has served in the leadership of Idaho business, politics, workforce, and humanities education.