Weaponizing Fairness, or, the war on doing what's right

I’ve made several false starts on this blog.  The problem is that I intended to write about the cancellation at the University of Wyoming of the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), but it’s impossible to discuss this without discussing a lot of other issues:  right wing extremism; the white fear and rabid racism, misogyny, and homo/trans-phobia plaguing this country; the anti-fact and anti-learning anything that matters movement.  This is an octopus with many, many tentacles.  So, stops and starts.  But, here goes and I’ll do my best to stay on the road I meant to travel.

In April, the University of Wyoming joined at least 12 other states in eliminating DEI programs from universities and colleges. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that anti-DEI bills targeting college programs have been introduced in 28 states and in Congress since the start of 2023. During the 2024 Wyoming legislative session, the so-called Freedom Caucus (translation: rabid Trump ideologues) pushed through a bill that defunded DEI at UW as well as abolishing the office all together.  Our craven governor signed off on the defunding but vetoed the abolishment of the office.  He did this, from what I understand, because the state has a right to control budgets for UW, but not the power to kill programs. The cynic in me suspects he knew he wasn’t hurting himself much with his base, knowing full well that without the funding (as well as the not-very-subtle threat of similar kinds of defunding actions), the UW president, who, like the governor has no wish to be brave, would find it politically expedient to close the office down.  There was the usual pretense of asking the university community—students, faculty, staff—what we preferred, but in the end, the president’s message to the Board of Trustees was that the office should be closed and the few of it’s federally mandated activities farmed out to other offices.  The newly hired director (one of the very, very few POC on campus) was to be reassigned (he quickly found a new position at a less ridiculous university).

I know I’m giving a lot of backstory here, but it’s needed…mostly for me to stay on this path and not get detoured down another (for instance, the cowardice of those we’ve chosen to actually lead).

These kinds of legislation are a result of the extremist rhetoric that has this country in its grip, and with the current makeup of the Supreme Court (let’s talk about term limits some time, shall we?), that rhetoric can now be put into legal action.  The Supreme Court decision in 2023 effectively put an end to race-conscious admission programs at universities and colleges across the country. According to Npr.org, Chief Justice John Roberts, a longtime critic of affirmative action programs, wrote the decision for the court majority, saying that the nation's colleges and universities must use colorblind criteria in admissions. "Many universities have for too long...concluded, wrongly, that the touchstone of an individual's identity is not challenges bested, skills built, or lessons learned but the color of their skin," he wrote. "Our constitutional history does not tolerate that choice."   Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the court's first Black female justice, responded: "With let-them-eat-cake obliviousness, today, the majority pulls the ripcord and announces 'colorblindness for all' by legal fiat. But deeming race irrelevant in law does not make it so in life.” 

And then there’s this, a post on the article that reported on the closing of UW’s DEI office:

 May 13, 2024 at 4:05 pm  

Larry  says: 

Every citizen male/female white black brown any skin color has exactly same rights to all services. Has had for decades. More one group has been placed on higher platform or given more rights the less these rights are sought out. Everything has to be given on gold plate so they feel “special”. We need to cut back. All this schooling just seems to have kicked out a bunch of idiots actually. We have taken away the COMMON SENSE that really makes one achieve higher levels in life. (note: I cut and paste this as it was written; the mistakes are Larry’s…so, so many mistakes, on so many levels)

Justice Roberts’ claim that he is somehow upholding the Constitution is as disingenuous as Larry’s claim that everyone has the same rights to all services. Neither of these is true in the lived experience of a large population of this country.  Pretending that a Constitution written centuries ago by white men, some of whom actively owned slaves and others who surely profited from that barbaric practice, in order to rescind a program that at its core tries to even the playing field just a tiny bit…is just plain ridiculous. But this rhetoric obviously works, at least according to our woefully uneducated Larry.  Apparently we just need less education and more common sense…to achieve some sort of higher level in life?  If that makes any sense to you, you’re welcome to it, I guess.  Ketanji Brown Jackson is correct: it’s oblivious to the realities of how things in this country really work.

But. This SCOTUS decision was all the right wing politicians needed to start passing their cut-and-paste (thanks Florida), anti-fairness bills, and these bills are far from toothless or free from harm. From reckon.news:  These “Anti-DEI laws sweeping the country will largely impact all parts of how colleges and universities function, including faculty hiring and curriculum to on-campus student organizations and programs that will face restrictions or elimination if they focus on race, color, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation.” 

How does closing the DEI office affect my university?  As mentioned above, Zebadiah Hall, the University of Wyoming Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, has accepted a job elsewhere. He did not wait for the insult of being “reassigned,” and like much of the diverse faculty we’d managed to build over the last few decades, he very intelligently decided to cut bait and get off of this [sinking?] ship.  I am not a marginalized person (other than being female), but if I were, I would not want to be in Wyoming (or for that matter, this damn country), at the moment. 

This decision will make it more difficult to attract, much less hire, applicants who are not white, or worse,  easier to hire ones who agree with this anti-fairness baloney.  It has already added to the ongoing exodus of diverse faculty. The ability to recruit students from non-diverse backgrounds (yeah, I mean white and straight; there’s no other way to say it, really), will be affected. Already marginalized groups on campus will find it harder to find the resources and assistance they need. I would argue that, in a weird nod to Ronald Reagan, the trickle up effect will be that even the historically priviliged students will find that there is less to find interesting or attractive at this institution. It will be bland and restrictive. The word is out: the University of Wyoming, its BOT and legislature, is on the side of the right wing extremists currently in power in the United States.  Would you want to work here, or attend classes here if you came in knowing you’d have to put up with being treated as a third-class citizen?  Of course not. 

So, what’s the end game for the morons driving this train? Some kind of white, straight, non-problematic world where no one states facts or reads history, or has basic human decency.  A world where white kids don’t have to “feel bad” about being white, or be “indoctrinated” into any knowledge of difference.  A KKK Utopia. Is this hyperbole? Once, maybe, I would have thought I’d gone too far writing those words…but not now.

Below are some comments I gleaned from the Wyofile article on the elimination of the DEI Office.  I think they will illustrate why I say that my points are not overstated.

Megan Degenfelder, the state’s superintendent of public instruction and an ex-officio trustee said, “What we’re talking about here is an extreme interpretation that has really taken over the definition of DEI and made it into this preferential treatment of one race, one gender over another, and then this notion of one race, gender being inherently racist over another,” she said. “That’s what people across the state are very angry about and they don’t want to see at their university.”

And from what I assume is the female branch of the Freedom Caucus, the Moms for Liberty:

“DEI fosters a culture of groupthink, fear, resentment, entitlement, and increasingly distrust of leaders and institutions,” said Jenifer Hopkins, former Moms for Liberty and current Natrona County school board member. “Diversity simply means replacing some members with others with different characteristics.”

The office is at odds with American ideals of meritocracy, added fellow school board member Mary Schmidt. Beyond that, Schmidt said the true intent of DEI departments isn’t to promote diversity, but “to facilitate a societal shift in the communities of Wyoming through the promotion of gender chaos.” 

Let’s unpack all of that (don’t worry, it won’t take much brain work). The basic argument here, somehow un-ironically, is that it’s not nice or fair to favor one group over another.  Um. Well. It’s also telling that most of these statements are based on race and gender (I do love the phrase ‘gender chaos’), along with completely meaningless claims that “diversity simply means replacing some members with others with different characteristics.” Again, um, what the heck?  I mean, if you want to label something hyperbolic, there you go, not to mention a pack of lies. As Michelle Mason, who’s getting a second Ph.D. at UW while writing about power dynamics in academia says, the concerns are more about the label of DEI than the work, similar to critical race theory a few years ago. “We do not push an agenda, people come to our office asking for services,” she said. “Just because the Legislature has a warped view of what DEI is does not make it true.”  Yup.

I wish I could end this with some solution, or even ideas about how we are going to get out of this mess, but I don’t have them.  I will agree with poor, stupid Larry though, we do need to practice more COMMON SENSE, and maybe even more COMMON DECENCY.