The Idaho State Board of Education’s “Resolution on DEI Ideology in Higher Education,” which passed unanimously on Dec. 18, is a step in a dangerous direction which has already negatively impacted students from systemically non-dominant backgrounds as well as all Idahoans, writes guest columnist Francisco Salinas. (Getty Images)
The Idaho State Board of Education’s “Resolution on DEI Ideology in Higher Education,” which passed unanimously on Dec. 18, is a step in a dangerous direction which has already negatively impacted students from systemically non-dominant backgrounds as well as all Idahoans. I left Idaho two years ago after 20 years working to make things better for these very students. In the past week, I have heard from dozens of former students and colleagues who are worried for future generations of Idaho students, after the wholesale disappearing of many deeply meaningful student programs and resources at the University of Idaho, Boise State University and Idaho State University.
The state board and Idaho Legislature’s invention of something called “DEI ideology” is not only disgusting, it is misinformed and created for the singular purpose of attacking a subset of students and the important work of inclusion. The only “DEI ideology,” which informed the work that I lead at both U of I and Boise State over many years, was the lived understanding that all the “-isms” (racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, sexism, homophobia, etc. …) are very real for many students, and that we all need strategies and resources to navigate them.
Idaho State Board of Education votes to rein in campus diversity, equity and inclusion programs
The only thing that you accomplish when you remove institutional validation of this fact is to further alienate some of the most vulnerable subsets of students from these institutions while simultaneously under-preparing them for the realities of the world they will face beyond its walls. Importantly, choosing not to address these complex issues on any campus under-prepares all students.
The brilliant poet and activist Audre Lorde characterized racism as “an inherent belief in the superiority of one race over all others and thereby the right to dominance.” This is a definition which I have found tremendously useful throughout my career. It has helped me to dig deep into where and when I see racism at work.
I believe it applies to this recent action by the Idaho State Board of Education. The resolution which passed is rooted in one of two narratives.
Either the board believes that racism does not exist, meaning that the perceptions of systemically non-dominant people about their own experiences cannot be trusted. Or it believes that our attempts to address racism in Idaho higher education and across the U.S. – which has objectively improved all colleges and universities over the past 70 years – has somehow made the issues it was meant to address worse.
Either of these narratives attempts to erase the perspective of students who say that multicultural resources on campus make things better for them. The core of both these claims is that people from systemically non-dominant populations cannot be trusted to interpret their own lived realities. Somehow, the people from systemically non-dominant populations’ perception is unilaterally inferior to the folks from the dominant culture. One perspective is true and correct (superior), and the other is riddled with bias, oversensitivity and misinterpretation (inferior).
I think that the brilliant poet Audre Lorde would characterize this decision by the Idaho State Board of Education as an expression of racism. I would agree with her.
The roots of this misinformed policy are in that same line of thinking which claimed that integrated schools, affirmative action and academic discussions of critical race theory were a threat. This is because critical race theory starts by addressing this same truth: that these “-isms” are real. Critical race theory, an academic analysis tool that Idaho banned in 2021, is nothing more than a theoretical attempt to explain how these “-isms” persist despite such active and conscious efforts to overcome them. It posits that the “-isms” are systemic and operate in spite of the intentional will of well-meaning individuals. It’s a theory to explain why racism (in particular) persists; it also resonates meaningfully to many of us who experience navigating these “-isms.”
The perceived threat of this narrative comes from challenging the perception that we are a society where these “-isms” no longer exist, for if we entertain the theory that explains the persistence of the “-isms,” we are acknowledging that they exist at all. And, as you might expect, those who object to critical race theory are largely those who have not had to live their lives as targets navigating these obstacles.
Racism is embedded into the very systems which we seek to navigate because those who created these systems did so during a time when the belief in racial superiority was the prevailing mode. There are ghosts that live in the machines of the systems we navigate every day. We can see their traces in the perniciously persistent inequities that remain all around us.
Some of us feel it more than others. I am not saying that only people from systemically non-dominant groups face challenges, but I was under the assumption that we had all advanced to the point that we held in common the belief that these “-isms” were worth combatting in service of a shared notion of justice. In order to combat them, however, we first have to acknowledge them.
The “-isms” of America are lived realities for many of Idaho’s increasingly diverse students. The “-isms” of America continue to cost us more as a society than we may ever know. Idaho students are suffering from this loss, not just those from systemically non-dominant populations. Any students who are hampered by unnecessary obstacles are not as likely to find the level of success that their unhampered abilities merit.
Combatting the “-isms” on campus and helping any student who seeks to overcome them is really just practical preparation for entry into the world beyond campus. Who knows the treasures that we may collectively lose because a student feels unsafe at a particular campus or when another student will suffer from discrimination or harassment and will choose to seek their educational goals elsewhere or maybe just abandon them? Will it be an excellent potential surgeon or researcher whose work could change the world or an artist whose ability to create beauty would inspire souls for generations?
We may never know, but what is clear is that Idaho needs as many successful students from as many communities as possible, and this resolution, informed by a thinly camouflaged racism, works clearly against that effort.
I hope that standing up to racism is important to you. One of my favorite quotes by Dr. Martin Luther King is, “The time is always right to do what is right.”
It’s not too late to abandon this misguided effort. It’s not too late for the Idaho State Board of Education to reverse this decision. It’s not too late for tenured faculty to organize en masse against these heartbreaking closures on campuses across the state. It’s not too late for football players who believe that racism is real and deserves to be combatted on their campus and in their state to sit out a game in protest. It’s not too late for students to organize and demonstrate for what is in all of their best interests.
Diversity is not a problem to be overcome; it’s a strength to be nurtured. As Americans, it is our genuinely unique treasure. The “DEI” programs which Idaho’s universities have closed were designed to nurture that treasure and right now they’re gone.
The time to do what is right is now.
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