Achieving fairness requires learning about DEI, CRT | READER COMMENTARY
America won't be a truly democratic country without acknowledging discriminatory behavior.
The recent article by JT Torres makes a compelling argument that eliminating DEI programs from colleges will hurt minority students (“Here’s how DEI rollbacks at colleges set back learning,” June 13). Conversely, the recent commentary by Dr. Ben Carson asserts that DEI along with its “cousin” CRT are “destructive ideologies” and should be quickly removed from higher education (“Ben Carson: It is past time for American academia to reject DEI,” June 3).
Recent laws passed in Florida and Texas (and proposed in the U.S. Congress) have removed DEI from colleges. DEI stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the ratio of CEO pay to typical worker’s compensation was 351 to 1 in 2020, up from 61 to 1 in 1989 and just 21 to 1 in 1965. That’s an increase of 1,322% for CEOs from 1978 to 2020 versus a typical worker pay increase of just 18% over the same time-period. Tesla CEO Elon Musk just convinced his shareholders to pay him a whopping $56 billion bonus for one year of sales results.
Inclusion means the act of being included within a group. Presumably, the group where important decisions are made. Go fend for yourself you diverse types, the white men in power have “got this.” Talk about a “deep state.”
The other bogeyman, Critical Race Theory, is traditionally defined as a graduate-school-level examination of how laws throughout U.S. history have enforced racial inequality. Aren’t red-lining, Jim Crow laws, discriminatory farming subsidies, the practical exclusion of Black veterans from GI benefits, gerrymandering to disempower Black voters, not to mention legalized slavery, etc., part of the true complete history of our great nation?
Can our students be truly educated and ready for wise citizenship with a (literally) white-washed, flag-waving, sanitized education where these true facts of injustice are excluded from their study of U.S. history? A fair and inclusive democratic society demands that DEI and CRT be included in grade school, high school, higher education, government and corporate education and leadership curricula.
— David Wagenheim, Towson
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