When Did Diversity Become a Dirty Word

I’m trying to remember when “diversity” became a dirty word in this country.

Sure, there have always been folks who didn’t like sharing the world with others who looked different from them, but I always thought they were going to lose out in the end. Because the future depends on a world that works together – not against each other.

Now I’m not so sure.

I’m sure working in a diverse urban school district inside Houston, Texas skewed my attitude a bit, trying to work everyday to make black, brown, and poor kids and their families more secure and confident living in this country.

But even in Houston, one of the most diverse cities in the world, there were signs that certain people didn’t like what “diversity” brought, even 30 years ago.

I remember when we opened a new high school and the school board member responsible for that campus at that time questioned whether we should accept minority-to-majority transfers. Minority-to-majority transfers allowed black and brown students to attend the new high school, since the neighborhood around the campus was primarily made up of white families. The school board member took the question all the way to the district’s general superintendent, who was African-American himself. And I’ll never forget the general superintendent’s response.

The general superintendent told the school board member, and everyone else in his office that day, that we didn’t build a new high school for the district’s white families – we built a new high school for every kid, including black, brown, and poor, in the district.

It was one of the proudest days in my career.

Later, though, that same school board member tried to get boundary lines drawn so that black, brown, and poor kids were assigned to a brand new campus, while white kids were able to stay in their high-performing neighborhood school. Myself, along with my staff, had drawn boundary lines where both schools would accept both whites from the high-performing campus along with black, brown, and poor kids. When the general superintendent made the final decision, with this superintendent being Hispanic, he sided with the board member. The whites stayed in the high-performing school while the black, brown, and poor kids were assigned to the new campus.

It was one of the worst days of my career.

When I read Janel George’s opinion piece in EducationWeek recently, I thought about the stories above and what role our fears about “diversity” might have played in each. George, who is an associate professor of law and the founding director of the Racial Equity in Education Law and Policy Clinic at Georgetown Law, writes:

“The late science fiction writer Octavia Butler once observed, ‘There is nothing new under the sun, but there are new suns.’ This statement has rung true over many years of racial inequality in education.”

“The same destructive tactics emerge repeatedly, although under different names. Today, these tactics are shrouded in ‘race-neutral’ language and co-opt the framing of the Civil Rights Movement, decrying race-based practices as discriminatory. The objectives of the politicians currently attacking diversity efforts are just as invidious as the Jim Crow laws that the Brown v. Board of Education ruling sought to dismantle more than 70 years ago.”

“Over and over, we see lawmakers entrench racial inequality in and through public education with a set of tactics I call ‘deny, defund, and divert.’ I use this framework to argue that policymakers seeking to undermine public education do so by denying Black students access to high-quality education, defunding schools serving high numbers of Black students, and diverting Black educators from the teaching workforce.”

“Of course, this agenda doesn’t just harm Black students. It also hurts students with disabilities, Latinx students, LGBTQIA+ students, and other historically marginalized students. However, anti-Blackness lies at the core of these tactics; the goal is to disempower and disenfranchise Black people and keep them relegated to the underclass. In the 1930’s, W.E.B. DuBois termed this ‘caste education.’”

“This is how this framework is playing out now:

First, the 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, framed under the guise of ‘merit’ and ‘fairness’ and using Asian American plaintiffs as the new face of massive resistance to racial progress, is being used to deny Black students access to higher education opportunities.”

“It is predicated on the lie that Black students are unworthy and incapable of competing for admission to the nation’s most selective institutions. The ruling denies the nation’s history of over 240 years of legalized slavery during which education was criminalized for Black people and nearly a century of Jim Crow laws that relegated Black people to segregated, substandard education.”

“Relying on this ruling, the administration issued a ‘Dear Colleague’ letter last month denying access to accurate and full education by ordering schools to end all race-based programming or risk losing federal funds. The letter has drawn critiques for inaccurately interpreting the case, as well as being overly broad and vague. A recent lawsuit alleges it misrepresents federal law.”

“The letter is not legally binding, and the federal government cannot dictate curriculum, but that has not prevented the Trump administration from overreaching into state and local curricula. This overreach includes an executive order denouncing what the administration calls ‘discriminatory equity ideology,’ which is not clearly defined but seems to target teachings contrary to the administration’s commitment to a sanitized version of American history. This action seeks to deny students opportunities to learn America’s full history, including its history of racial injustice and the conditions that contribute to it.”

“Second, the Trump administration seeks to defund vital congressionally appropriated federal education programs and dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. The administration has announced cuts to approximately half the department’s workforce, including staff in its office for civil rights tasked with oversight and enforcement of federal civil rights law. These staff cuts leave an already overburdened and understaffed office without the capacity needed to address civil rights violations. Cuts to the department also eliminate vital training and support for educators serving vulnerable students.”

“And the administration’s commitment to funnel funds to private voucher programs is the latest manifestation of a strategy that originated post-Brown to evade school integration. Not only do vouchers disproportionately serve students from comparatively wealthier families who can pay the gap between private tuition and voucher amounts, they threaten the fiscal viability of the nation’s public education system as a whole. This is because many education funds ‘follow the child,’ so those children left behind in lower-income communities will essentially be marooned in underresourced public schools.”

“Finally, the divert prong is exemplified in the dismantling of DEI offices and attacks on personnel dedicated to fostering welcoming school environments for all. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are not dirty words. DEI is about embracing difference, recognizing the ways that inequality impacts individuals, and leveraging our collective strengths. Diversity reflects the American ethos that our differences make us strong. In denouncing ‘DEI,’ the administration not only fails to define it, but instead resorts to lumping it within an alphabet soup of programs related to racial equity that it deems ‘unacceptable,’ like critical race theory.”

“When I think of DEI, I think of George McLaurin, who was reluctantly admitted to the University of Oklahoma over 70 years ago to complete a Ph.D. in school administration. In a photo I share with my students to exemplify the harm of exclusion, McLaurin sits in a roped-off desk outside the general classroom in an anteroom, sectioned off from his white classmates.”

“In the library, he was required to sit at a separate desk, only allowed to eat in the cafeteria (also at a designated table) at certain times, and prohibited from interacting with his classmates.”

“McLaurin’s treatment was not unique – it reflected the racial exclusion many Black students experienced. Segregation operates by emphasizing difference, excluding others, and instilling stigma.”

“The NAACP Legal Defense Fund took up McLaurin’s case and brought the case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1950 McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, the court ruled unanimously in McLaurin’s favor, citing how exclusion undermined his educational pursuit. By emphasizing inclusion, DEI initiatives seek to erase the stigma and exclusion of segregation.”

“As the Supreme Court has recognized for decades, diversity enriches education. Contrary to the political talking points floated by the Trump administration, DEI is not divisive. Dismantling DEI will not only have dangerous implications for education, but it will also undermine our future and strength as a multiracial democracy.”

Deny, defund, and divert. If Trump and his cronies continue these strategies, it is already clear diversity, equity, and inclusion are at risk of being damaged – possibly beyond repair. And who loses in this scenario? Not those white kids who stayed in their high-performing neighborhood school while black, brown, and poor kids were sent elsewhere. No, the kids that are already being hurt are the “vulnerables” that need a federal watchdog to make sure they are safe while they work to become smarter and stronger, need accessible vouchers to take them and their families out of low-performing public schools, and a country that embraces diversity, equity, and inclusion as foundational pieces to our country’s future.

It seems the battle lines have been drawn.

Til tomorrow. SVB