DEI & Schools

The repeal of DEI reflects the same misunderstandings of people who claim colorblindness, but in a much more cruel and purposeful way. This policy is clearly intended to take away the fundamental rights of marginalized groups starting in schools. Though the policy claims to “end discrimination based on race and the use of harmful race stereotypes,” that wording itself reveals the inherent fallacy, as it implies that discrimination was not present before DEI. This reflects the idea that any paying any attention to race is actually racist, an idea that we discussed with regard to the idea of colorblindness (from Armstrong and Wildman). It is the kind of idea that only a White person, whose race is considered the absence of race, can express, as any person of color needs to acknowledge race merely to speak about how they are treated by the world.

I think it’s particularly interesting and insidious that the official policy states, “the American people have witnessed first-hand the disastrous consequences of illegal, pernicious discrimination that has prioritized how people were born instead of what they were capable of doing.” I’m not even quite sure why the wording of “how people were born” was chosen. Perhaps it was to avoid saying “what people were born into” because that would require acknowledging that people are born into something — that achievements are not always purely merit-based. The whole policy dances around the fact that few achievements or failures can be blindly considered merit-based in a capitalist society where wealth and poverty are passed down generations.

Additionally, I thought the point about children with disabilities was extremely important, since “contracts supporting their transition to adulthood have been canceled.” Here, it becomes clear what they mean by merit. Without DEI, a child with a disability might show less “merit” than one without simply because they are not given a fair shot. The whole policy is an intentional twisting of the definitions of equality and equity, as it assumes that everyone has an equal shot if they’re given the same assistance, and neglects the fact that people are starting in different place.