The latest battle in the culture wars tearing apart American society is over diversity programs on university campuses, which are increasingly restricted or prohibited in an increasing number of US states.
The debate puts those on the left, who support helping minority students who have been harmed by deep-rooted inequity, against those on the right, who believe that people should be judged on their merit rather than their skin color.
“The idea of present discrimination being the remedy for past discrimination… is inherently wrong,” said Jordan Pace, a Republican House member from South Carolina.
“We don’t like the idea of judging people based on immutable characteristics, whether it be gender or race or height or whatever,” he said, calling the United States a “hyper-meritocratic society.”
Often known as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) programs, many American universities have given special consideration to minority students — particularly those who are Black, Hispanic, and Native American — as they sought to correct long-standing injustice.
Last June, the country’s conservative-majority Supreme Court abolished affirmative action in university admissions, reversing one of the Civil Rights Movement’s biggest gains from the 1960s.
Pace is now encouraging his state to follow the lead of Florida and around a dozen other states that have eliminated campus DEI programs.
‘Get rid of US’
“The primary target group across the country… are Black people,” said Ricky Jones, a pan-African studies professor at the University of Louisville in Kentucky.
Carlie Reeves, 19, was the first member of her family to attend college, and when she arrived at the University of Louisville, it was “very clear that my professors didn’t think I belonged.” Didn’t think I was really brilliant.”
DEI leaders on campus “spoke life into me and told me… you have merit.”
Many minority students are at the school “100 percent because of DEI,” she said, raising as an example Black students who benefitted from race-based scholarships.
However, on March 15, Kentucky lawmakers introduced legislation to ban similar programs, prompting Reeves to co-organize a protest on campus.
“It just felt like my duty to inform the students, ‘Hey y’all, these people are trying to literally get rid of us from campus… we have to do something,” she said.
Kentucky is following in the footsteps of Texas, Alabama, and Idaho, all conservative states.
The University of Florida canceled DEI programs and related jobs in early March, as part of Republican Governor Ron DeSantis’ battle against what he labels “woke ideology.”
‘Very risky forgetting’
“I’m extremely worried,” said Stephanie Anne Shelton, a professor and diversity director at the University of Alabama’s College of Education.
While the state’s new law allows her to offer specific cultural awareness courses to potential educators, she is concerned about “the degree to which concepts like academic freedom remain in place.”
In Alabama, it is currently forbidden to “compel a student… to personally embrace, adopt, or adhere to a contentious concept”—specifying that includes making an individual feel the need “to apologize on the basis of his or her race.”
The law states that failure to comply may result in dismissal.
Republicans frequently criticize “critical race theory,” an academic approach to investigating how racism infiltrates US legal systems and organizations, often in subtle ways.
Republican presidential contender Donald Trump has advocated for government reforms.
“On Day One I will sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual or political content, onto our children,” he told a rally in Ohio.
Jones, the Louisville professor, described the new laws as “a rolling back of the racial clock locally, statewide, and nationally.”
He predicts that Black intellectuals will shun states like Florida and Texas in the future, citing “a very, very dangerous forgetting that will happen here.”