DEI paranoia comes to Alabama

SOME UA STUDENTS AND FACULTY PROTEST PENDING ANTI-DEI LEGISLATION ON UA’S CAMPUS ON FEB. 27. (PHOTO BY CANDACE JOHNSON, COURTESY OF WVUA-TV)

Update (March 21): This bill is now law, effective Oct. 1, 2024. The UA System said it will begin assessing what actions it must take to comply but remains committed to providing “welcoming and supportive environments that foster open thought, academic freedom and free expression.”

The supporters of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion efforts on college campuses are mostly students, teachers and others who are actually on college campuses. The opponents are mostly politicians.

That ought to tell you everything you need to know about the relative merits of the arguments.

DEI in its various forms is under attack. Twenty-three states have considered anti-DEI legislation in the past approximate year, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Five states – Florida, Tennessee, North Carolina, Texas and South Dakota – have adopted such legislation, and more plan to do so. They are copying a road map laid out by two national right-wing think tanks.

Today, a committee of the Alabama House of Representatives will hold a hearing on a bill that passed the Senate last week and that would outlaw DEI programs and administrative offices at public universities in the state. (It also restricts teaching of “divisive concepts.” I shared my disdain for that in a blog post in March of last year.)

DEI shows itself in different formalized ways in higher education: designated administrative offices, awareness programs, gathering spots, faculty training, diversity pledges by job candidates and mandatory inclusion on syllabi, among others. At UA, the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion offers events, speakers and other educational resources. It operates the Intercultural Diversity Center and the Safe Zone Resource Center for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

DEI initiatives are not what its critics claim they are. The Florida governor thinks the acronym stands for “Discrimination, Exclusion and Indoctrination.” In other words, DEI is forcing conservative white students to be quiet about the conservative part and ashamed about the white part. And it’s supposedly granting some unexplained kind of privilege to everyone else.

DEI in reality means seeking a campus that reflects the enriching demographic diversity of the rest of the world and fostering enough tolerance and understanding that everyone can get along and focus on education. It means offering support for students who feel out of place and mentally stressed. And not just Black students. DEI programs serve Asian and Hispanic students, women, LGBTQIA+ individuals, religious groups, military veterans and others.

The best argument against formalized DEI efforts is that they add (marginally) to the surge in administrative costs in higher education in recent decades. But some costs are worth it, and I’m not sure that informal commitments to DEI among grassroots individuals such as professors could succeed as well without official structures and locations to support the concept.

Anti-DEI laws, which have already shut down some offices and programs in states where they have passed and even preemptively in states where they’re pending, will have consequences. They’ll affect student and faculty recruitment and retention, which in turn will diminish classroom education. I’ve witnessed the value of diverse demographics, life experiences and viewpoints in the classroom. Every course I have is made better by it.

I’ve also witnessed the stress faced by many students – whether members of a diversity community or not – in coping with the academic and social challenges of college life. There’s more of that out there than you might think. Taking away any source of support would be a foolish disservice. Especially to address a problem that some politicians have simply made up.