North Carolina Leads the Way in Abolishing Racist DEI Programs
Divisive diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs are beginning to DIE across the nation, but deprogramming students from years of brainwashing will take time.
Leftist anti-Israel protestors may have been the last straw for the Republican-appointed Board of Governors who oversee the University of North Carolina System. They voted 22–2 to repeal the university system’s radical diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy and rerout $2.3 million in program funding to police and public safety.
Now the Left’s flagship indoctrination program is dead in North Carolina—and Democrats are losing their mind.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) called it an attack on diversity and accused Republicans of failing to protect students. Democrat Attorney General Josh Stein, who seeks to be the next governor of the state, has expressed his support for DEI initiatives including affirmative action.
America is known around the world as the land of opportunity. People achieve their dreams in this country if they work hard and rely on their own ambitions rather than government handouts. But DEI programs have pushed the lie some Americans can’t succeed without government force. For many years, Democrats used DEI programs to push for equal outcomes rather than equal opportunities—an attempt to change America’s founding principles. This Marxist approach to “success” has caused division and a lowering of standards throughout the nation.
In K–12 schools, DEI programs push professional development for teachers that cause racial division. In Virginia, one training called “Advancing Equity Through Continuous Reflection” told white teachers the most “freeing thing” they could do is say “of course I’m racist.”
On the twentieth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks, the Virginia Department of Education—then under the previous Democrat Governor, Ralph Northam—put out a webinar series called “EdEquityVA.” One video provided teachers with anti-American “culturally responsive and inclusive lessons on 9/11” and pushed on a false narrative that Muslim students would face persecution in schools on the anniversary of 9/11. Teachers were further instructed to not use the term “terrorists” to describe the murderers of that horrible day. All of this was done under the guise of DEI.
DEI: Divide & Humiliate
DEI programs push another Marxist narrative that the world is divided between the “oppressed” and the “oppressor.”
Anyone who has light-colored skin is defined as an “oppressor,” and in Israel anyone who is Jewish is similarly labeled an oppressor. DEI initiatives seek to fight against these so-called oppressors.
Students across the nation are holding anti-Israel, extremist protests on college campuses in the name of DEI—and our tax dollars are paying for it thanks to Biden’s “loan forgiveness.” It’s not surprising though since schools have been brainwashing students with false history narratives for years. Now the indoctrination is focused on teaching anti-Jewish sentiments.
Curriculum and resources used in public K–12 schools push the narrative that Israel is murdering Palestinian children and Israeli forces have supported “deadly rampages . . . on Palestinians in the West Bank.” Lessons promoted on government-funded PBS include teaching children how to boycott Israel and Israeli products.
The Heritage Foundation studied the Twitter accounts of 741 DEI staff at 65 universities. They found that 96 percent of the tweets about Israel were critical of that free and democratic nation—yet 62 percent had favorable tweets about Communist China, where free speech is outlawed and minorities suffer under apartheid policies.
Dr. Tabia Lee is a former DEI director at De Anza College in California who wanted to create an inclusive environment for everyone, including Jewish students. When she hosted Jewish speakers on campus, she was called a “dirty Zionist.” Dr. Lee continued to fight for the Jewish students at De Anza but was shot down when she called for administration to condemn anti-Semitism. She was told that Jews are “white oppressors,” and her job was to “decenter whiteness.”
Dr. Lee was fired from her position and has filed a lawsuit against De Anza. Her lawsuit says that she was accused of “whitesplaining” and she wasn’t the “right kind of Black person” for the college. The lawsuit also reveals that Dr. Lee “teaches that people should not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. De Anza is hostile to this concept.”
Kudos to Dr. Lee. Unfortunately, there aren’t many other DEI directors willing to take a stand for Dr. Martin Luther King’s dream of not being judged by the color of his skin.
Equal Opportunity
The new policy adopted by the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors reaffirms its commitment to “equality of opportunity in education and employment.” It also emphasizes the importance of the University maintaining neutrality on “political controversies of the day.” This is in stark contrast to the overturned woke policy that pushed affirmative action and focused on equal outcomes rather than equal opportunity.
Socialism’s tentacles have grasped many institutions across the nation, including public schools at both the K–12 and collegiate level. The mentality that government knows best, and handouts are deserved by those who are “oppressed” has been pushed in American society over the last few decades. We need to get back to a point in our nation where hard work and perseverance are valued and people are rewarded on their merit, not for their identity. A focus should also be placed on unity, what brings people together rather than what divides. Eliminating DEI programs is a great start.
(MORE EDUCATION: Expand and Enforce North Carolina’s Parents’ Bill of Rights)
