The California Community Colleges are requiring their tens of thousands of instructors to promote left-wing “anti-racist” ideology, under new state regulations imposed in the name of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In response, six professors are suing college officials. “I’m a professor of chemistry. How am I supposed to incorporate DEI into my classroom instruction? What’s the ‘anti-racist’ perspective on the atomic mass of boron?,” asked Reedley College professor Bill Blanken, one of the plaintiffs. On August 17,
the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression filed a lawsuit on behalf of six California community college professors to halt new, systemwide regulations forcing professors to espouse and teach politicized conceptions of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.”
Each of the professors teach at one of three Fresno-area community colleges within the State Center Community College District. Under the new regulations, all of the more-than-54,000 professors who teach in the California Community Colleges system must incorporate “anti-racist” viewpoints into classroom teaching.
The regulations explicitly require professors to pledge allegiance to contested ideological viewpoints. Professors must “acknowledge” that “cultural and social identities are diverse, fluid, and intersectional,” and they must develop “knowledge of the intersectionality of social identities and the multiple axes of oppression that people from different racial, ethnic, and other minoritized groups face.” Faculty performance and tenure will be evaluated based on professors’ commitment to and promotion of the government’s viewpoints.
“I’m a professor of chemistry. How am I supposed to incorporate DEI into my classroom instruction?” asked Reedley College professor Bill Blanken. “What’s the ‘anti-racist’ perspective on the atomic mass of boron?”
“These regulations are a totalitarian triple-whammy,” said FIRE attorney Daniel Ortner. “The government is forcing professors to teach and preach a politicized viewpoint they do not share, imposing incomprehensible guidelines, and threatening to punish professors when they cross an arbitrary, indiscernible line.”
DEI requirements are controversial within academia. FIRE’s research indicates that half of professors believe mandatory diversity statements violate academic freedom. The sole mention of academic freedom in California’s model framework frames it an inconvenience, warning professors not to “‘weaponize’ academic freedom” to “inflict curricular trauma on our students.”
“Hearing uncomfortable ideas is not ‘curricular trauma,’ and teaching all sides of an issue is not ‘weaponizing’ academic freedom,” said Loren Palsgaard, a professor of English at Madera Community College and a plaintiff in the suit. “That’s just called ‘education.’”
An official glossary of terms released by the state makes plain that the “anti-racist” views it mandates are highly ideological. Indeed, the definition for “anti-racism” states that “persons that say they are ‘not a racist’ are in denial.” California declares that “color-blindness,” or the belief that “the best way to end prejudice and discrimination is by treating individuals as equally as possible, without regard to race, culture, or ethnicity,” is itself a problem because it “perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.”
Even a professor saying something as benign as “I grade my class based on merit” is suspect under the regulations. “Merit is embedded in the ideology of Whiteness and upholds race-based structural inequality,” the glossary claims. “Merit protects White privilege under the guise of standards … and as highlighted by anti-affirmative action forces.”
It also violates free speech and academic freedom to judge instructors based on whether they have a belief in “multiple axes of oppression,” and “structures of oppression and marginalization.”
“Diversity” and “inclusion” are not talismans that overcome First Amendment rights. California courts have ruled that government employees cannot be punished for disagreeing with their employer’s affirmative-action or “diversity” policy. (See, e.g., Cal. Dept. of Corrections v. State Personnel Bd. (1997)).
Similarly, a federal appeals court ruled that an assistant fire chief in charge of personnel could express opinions at odds with city policy on affirmative action to a minority group, without being fired. (See Meyers v. City of Cincinnati (1991)).
Nor does the Constitution enshrine goals like “diversity” as a job requirement. The Constitution requires only the absence of discrimination in our schools, not “diversity,” affirmative action, or other things that might be seen as promoting “equity.” (See Schuette v. BAMN (2014)).
DEI bureaucrats promote tenets associated with critical race theory and “anti-racism.” “Anti-racism” teaches students to hate their country and view it as fundamentally racist. “To love capitalism is to end up loving racism. To love racism is to end up loving capitalism….Capitalism is essentially racist; racism is essentially capitalist,” says Ibram Kendi’s best-selling book How to Be An Antiracist, used in some high-school classes. It advocates discrimination against whites, saying, “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination [against whites]. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” That book is a “comprehensive introduction to critical race theory,” gushes the leading progressive media organ Slate, which loves this odious book.
A study by a California State University professor found that an increase in “diversity, equity and inclusion” policies at a college is linked to rising opposition to free speech.
“The rise of DEI bureaucracies has actually coincided with the beginning of a ‘Free-Speech Crisis on College Campuses,’” notes the study.
The study was by Kevin Wallsten, a political-science professor at California State University at Long Beach.
“It was clear from the start that, regardless of what was on their websites, DEI bureaucracies were more likely to suppress than encourage free expression on college campuses,” the study observes.
