So-called Anti-Woke, Anti-DEI policy catch-all

[nycfan]

Parents at Army base in Stuttgart say students grappling with new school rules

Read more at: Parents at Army base in Stuttgart say students grappling with new school rules
Source - Stars and Stripes

“… One of the big challenges DODEA schools are facing is threading the needle when it comes to broadly worded directives.

… Col. Kirk Alexander, the Stuttgart garrison commander, cautioned against attempts to “rebrand” pictures, which he said could be seen as an attempt to evade compliance with regulations.

For example, Alexander recently canceled a planned Irish American heritage run and rejected a suggestion to rename it “the leprechaun run.”

“We’ve got to be in compliance with the policies coming down, and it takes some time (to figure out how),” Alexander said.

Given the generalized wording of the recent executive orders are, educators are forced to navigate through gray zones.

If schools go too far, they could be accused of “malicious compliance,” or undermining the intent of the directive.

That was the accusation leveled against the Air Force by a Republican U.S. senator from Alabama after the service removed a training video about the Tuskegee Airmen in connection with a review into diversity, equity and inclusion material.

… [After GOP Senators complained this was malicious over-compliance to make the directive look bad] The video has since been restored.

At the same time, schools that take an overly cautious approach to implementing Pentagon orders could face accusations of slow-rolling mandates. …”

 

[BlooVooDoo]

… [After GOP Senators complained this was malicious over-compliance to make the directive look bad] The video has since been restored.

Ah, that’s it. The directive looks bad because of malicious over compliance.

 

[ZenMode]

If this were all the Trump anti-DEI policy meant, then it would be reasonable to debate but I think would be broadly popular:



Sadly, I think a lot of what is being described as anti-DEI is an obvious whitewashing policy to try to return the military and senior positions throughout government to a mostly conservative white male province.

Maybe we, the US, should only look at things like: quality of product vs price, ability to deliver on time and as promised, post sales support, etc and not how many non-white, non-male, non-cis, non-straight people work there?

Just a thought.

 

[superrific]

Maybe we, the US, should only look at things like: quality of product vs price, ability to deliver on time and as promised, post sales support, etc and not how many non-white, non-male, non-cis, non-straight people work there?

Just a thought.

That's what you said about Ketanji Brown Jackson. She's actually been amazing. Here's a thought: stop fetishizing DEI as some sort of incompetence program.

 

[finesse]

Maybe we, the US, should only look at things like: quality of product vs price, ability to deliver on time and as promised, post sales support, etc and not how many non-white, non-male, non-cis, non-straight people work there?

Just a thought.

I absolutely agree. Yet, that's exactly what the anti-DEI does. They focus on who and not what.

 

[Callatoroy]

Continued

“… Rich Hyatt, 65, a Snowflake, Ariz. resident who is Black, dismissed concerns over Trump’s comments about the plane crash, arguing he was merely saying the country needed more air-traffic controllers.

Hyatt said hiring people based on skills was critical in the three decades he spent as a firefighter. He said the one time physical entry exams were waived to recruit more women, it backfired because they wasted time in basic training and didn’t ultimately become firefighters. “They set up these people for failure,” he said.

Hyatt was optimistic about Trump using tariffs as a negotiating tool to bring down costs and get more help on dealing with immigration. “I don’t think that America is used to playing hardball like he does,” he said. …”

Mr. Hyatt is my kind of snowflake.

 

[ZenMode]

That's what you said about Ketanji Brown Jackson. She's actually been amazing. Here's a thought: stop fetishizing DEI as some sort of incompetence program.

What I said about the KBJ situation is that the president should select the best and most qualified person for SCOTUS, not limit his options to only black, females before the process even starts.

I'm only familiar with his KBJ's dissent in the affirmative action case and I thought it was completely misguided and goes against what is clearly laid out in the Constitution..

 

[nycfan]

 

[Mulberry Heel]

The ugly truth of this anti-DEI vendetta is out there for all to see, if they wish to open their eyes and look. Unfortunately, it would appear that a great many people are either openly cheering it on (white supremacy!), privately cheering it on (I don't really support all of this, really I don't), or have just stuck their heads in the sand and refuse to look because they support other parts of Trump 2.0 (Oh, this attacking DEI stuff is all minor, they won't actually change much. But I'm gonna get my tax cuts!)

 

[superrific]

What I said about the KBJ situation is that the president should select the best and most qualified person for SCOTUS, not limit his options to only black, females before the process even starts.

I'm only familiar with his KBJ's dissent in the affirmative action case and I thought it was completely misguided and goes against what is clearly laid out in the Constitution..

I don't think you read that dissent, considering that she barely even mentions the constitution.

 

[ZenMode]

I don't think you read that dissent, considering that she barely even mentions the constitution.

That's the problem. She talks about Ibram X. Kendi type of stuff. Stuff that should be largely meaningless to a SCOTUS justice who's focus is on Constitutionality.

 

[superrific]

That's the problem. She talks about Ibram X. Kendi type of stuff. Stuff that should be largely meaningless to a SCOTUS justice who's focus is on Constitutionality.

1. She very much does not talk about Kendi stuff.
2. That "stuff" was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education. Was that wrongly decided?
3. She joined Sotomayor's dissent, which focused more narrowly on the constitutional issues. But KBJ's dissent wasn't without constitutional significance when one realizes the the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to achieve equality among races. See, KBJ is something of an originalist. Except that she sees value in originalism as to ALL of the constitution, not just selectively like the right-wingers. Personally, I strongly dislike originalism in all its forms, so she and I don't see eye to eye on that. But if you're going to do it, it should be done more honestly than the right-wingers.
4. Here's one passage. Tell me what's wrong with it

For present purposes, it is significant that, in so excluding Black people, government policies affirmatively operated—one could say, affirmatively acted—to dole out preferences to those who, if nothing else, were not Black. Those past preferences carried forward and are reinforced today by (among other things) the benefits that flow to homeowners and to the holders of other forms of capital that are hard to obtain unless one already has assets.
Or this?

Imagine two college applicants from North Carolina,John and James. Both trace their family’s North Carolina roots to the year of UNC’s founding in 1789. Both love their State and want great things for its people. Both want to honor their family’s legacy by attending the State’s flagship educational institution. John, however, would be the seventh generation to graduate from UNC. He is White. James would be the first; he is Black. Does the race of these applicants properly play a role in UNC’s holistic merits based admissions process? [ . . . ]

We return to John and James now, with history in hand. It is hardly John’s fault that he is the seventh generation to graduate from UNC. UNC should permit him to honor that legacy. Neither, however, was it James’s (or his family’s)fault that he would be the first. And UNC ought to be able to consider why

 

[ZenMode]

1. She very much does not talk about Kendi stuff.
2. That "stuff" was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education. Was that wrongly decided?
3. She joined Sotomayor's dissent, which focused more narrowly on the constitutional issues. But KBJ's dissent wasn't without constitutional significance when one realizes the the purpose of the 14th Amendment was to achieve equality among races. See, KBJ is something of an originalist. Except that she sees value in originalism as to ALL of the constitution, not just selectively like the right-wingers. Personally, I strongly dislike originalism in all its forms, so she and I don't see eye to eye on that. But if you're going to do it, it should be done more honestly than the right-wingers.
4. Here's one passage. Tell me what's wrong with it

For present purposes, it is significant that, in so excluding Black people, government policies affirmatively operated—one could say, affirmatively acted—to dole out preferences to those who, if nothing else, were not Black. Those past preferences carried forward and are reinforced today by (among other things) the benefits that flow to homeowners and to the holders of other forms of capital that are hard to obtain unless one already has assets.
Or this?

Imagine two college applicants from North Carolina,John and James. Both trace their family’s North Carolina roots to the year of UNC’s founding in 1789. Both love their State and want great things for its people. Both want to honor their family’s legacy by attending the State’s flagship educational institution. John, however, would be the seventh generation to graduate from UNC. He is White. James would be the first; he is Black. Does the race of these applicants properly play a role in UNC’s holistic merits based admissions process? [ . . . ]

We return to John and James now, with history in hand. It is hardly John’s fault that he is the seventh generation to graduate from UNC. UNC should permit him to honor that legacy. Neither, however, was it James’s (or his family’s)fault that he would be the first. And UNC ought to be able to consider why

So, we obviously can't do anything about past injustices. If we are trying to apply the Constitution today, how does her anecdote, and everything else she said, fit into that?

 

[nycfan]

GIFT LINK —> The Great Resegregation

“… Since taking office, Trump has rescinded decades-old orders ensuring equal opportunity in government contracts and vowed to purge DEI from the federal government, intending to lay off any federal worker whose job they associate with DEI.

Yesterday evening, Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q Brown, and replaced him with a lower ranking white official, a retired three-star Air Force officer named Dan Caine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously attacked Brown as an unqualified diversity hire based on the fact that he is Black.

Trump’s Department of Justice has implied that it will prosecute or sue companies that engage in diversity outreach. Elon Musk’s DOGE is attempting to purge federal workers “that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace,” the Washington Post reported.

Colleges and universities are being threatened with defunding for any programming related to DEI, which the free-speech organization PEN America has noted could include “everything from a panel on the Civil Rights Movement to a Lunar New Year celebration.”

Trump has also signed executive orders that threaten government funding for scientific research on inequality or on health issues that disproportionately affect nonwhite ethnic groups, and has imposed censorious gag orders that could block discussion of race or sex discrimination in American classrooms.

During her confirmation hearing, Trump’s education-secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, said she did not know if schools could lose funding for teaching Black-history classes under the order. The legality of the order over K–12 curricula is unclear, but the chilling effects are real nonetheless.

… If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape.

It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety.

What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy.

They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy.

Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly. …”

 

[nycfan]

GIFT LINK —> The Great Resegregation

“… Since taking office, Trump has rescinded decades-old orders ensuring equal opportunity in government contracts and vowed to purge DEI from the federal government, intending to lay off any federal worker whose job they associate with DEI.

Yesterday evening, Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q Brown, and replaced him with a lower ranking white official, a retired three-star Air Force officer named Dan Caine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously attacked Brown as an unqualified diversity hire based on the fact that he is Black.

Trump’s Department of Justice has implied that it will prosecute or sue companies that engage in diversity outreach. Elon Musk’s DOGE is attempting to purge federal workers “that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace,” the Washington Post reported.

Colleges and universities are being threatened with defunding for any programming related to DEI, which the free-speech organization PEN America has noted could include “everything from a panel on the Civil Rights Movement to a Lunar New Year celebration.”

Trump has also signed executive orders that threaten government funding for scientific research on inequality or on health issues that disproportionately affect nonwhite ethnic groups, and has imposed censorious gag orders that could block discussion of race or sex discrimination in American classrooms.

During her confirmation hearing, Trump’s education-secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, said she did not know if schools could lose funding for teaching Black-history classes under the order. The legality of the order over K–12 curricula is unclear, but the chilling effects are real nonetheless.

… If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape.

It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety.

What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy.

They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy.

Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly. …”

“… The term DEI, frequently invoked by the Trump administration, functions as a smoke screen. It allows people to think that the Trump administration’s anti-DEI purge is about removing pointless corporate symbolism or sensitivity trainings.

Although it is easy to find examples of DEI efforts that are ill-conceived or ill-applied, some conservatives have leveraged those criticisms to pursue a much broader agenda that is really about tearing anti-discrimination laws out at the roots, so that businesses and governments are free to extend or deny opportunities based on race, gender, and sexual orientation if they so choose.

… As the Trump State Department official Darren Beattie wrote, “Competent white men must be put in charge if you want things to work. Unfortunately, our entire national ideology is predicated on coddling the feelings of women and minorities, and demoralizing competent white men.”

This analysis is perceptive in the sense that the exact reverse is true—we are now in the second decade of a years-long temper tantrum sparked by the election of Barack Obama—not to mention the failed attempts to elect a woman to succeed him—and the effect it had on the fragile self-esteem of people like Beattie.

… This ideology is apparent in the rote blaming of diversity by some conservatives for every catastrophic event—as they did following a midair collision over the Potomac River. Or a freighter crashing into a bridge in Baltimore. Or doors flying off Boeing planes.

The contention, overt or implied, is always that unlike white men, whose competence can be assumed, the non-white people with desirable jobs are undeserving.

The irony, of course, is that many of the white men making these assumptions are themselves unqualified. Transportation SecretarySean Duffy is best-known for being a reality-television star [and former undistinguished member of Congress].

… They see anti-discrimination and inclusion as a ladder of upward mobility for people they do not believe should have one. Under Trump, a workplace or college that is perceived as too diverse might come under legal scrutiny, effectively enforcing racial quotas. For example, Andrew Bailey, the attorney general of Missouri, is suing the coffee chain Starbucks on the basis that after adopting DEI programs its workforce has become “more female and less white.” …”

 

[Mulberry Heel]

At this point the reason for their anti-DEI vendetta is blatant and there for everyone to see who has eyes and is not blindly loyal to Dear Leader. We have schools pulling books that even mention slavery or segregation or the civil rights movement, we have whole government departments that are refusing to celebrate Black History Month or Women's History Month, and now they're firing blacks and women from the military. This is nothing less than a massive attempt to literally roll back the clock and restore top jobs to white males only - including mediocre ones. And that's all it is. Anyone arguing otherwise has their heads so far up Trump's behind that they can't see what is right in front of their faces.

 

[nycfan]

“… But legal experts say that the notion that the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard spells out rules for the private sector is wishful thinking on the part of DEI critics.

Critics of DEI are “kind of deliberately overreading the decision in order to engage in a lot of bluster and threats,” said David Glasgow, a New York University law professor and executive director of the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging.

“The case didn’t say anything about private employment or DEI at all,” said Brent Siler, a labor lawyer at the Adams and Reese law firm. “DEI is not illegal, in and of itself, though some of it could be.”

… Discrimination on the basis of race and sex in the workplace was already illegal under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, said Rebecca Baker, a labor and employment attorney at the Vinson & Elkins law firm. But neither that historic law nor the Supreme Court’s recent decision bars companies from ensuring they have a diverse pool of applicants, for instance, or requiring certain kinds of training. …”

 

[nycfan]

 

[ChileG]

Government interference into businesses is most definitely something conservatives have supported, right?

 

[ZenMode]

GIFT LINK —> The Great Resegregation

“… Since taking office, Trump has rescinded decades-old orders ensuring equal opportunity in government contracts and vowed to purge DEI from the federal government, intending to lay off any federal worker whose job they associate with DEI.

Yesterday evening, Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Q Brown, and replaced him with a lower ranking white official, a retired three-star Air Force officer named Dan Caine. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had previously attacked Brown as an unqualified diversity hire based on the fact that he is Black.

Trump’s Department of Justice has implied that it will prosecute or sue companies that engage in diversity outreach. Elon Musk’s DOGE is attempting to purge federal workers “that protect employees’ civil rights and others that investigate complaints of employment discrimination in the federal workplace,” the Washington Post reported.

Colleges and universities are being threatened with defunding for any programming related to DEI, which the free-speech organization PEN America has noted could include “everything from a panel on the Civil Rights Movement to a Lunar New Year celebration.”

Trump has also signed executive orders that threaten government funding for scientific research on inequality or on health issues that disproportionately affect nonwhite ethnic groups, and has imposed censorious gag orders that could block discussion of race or sex discrimination in American classrooms.

During her confirmation hearing, Trump’s education-secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, said she did not know if schools could lose funding for teaching Black-history classes under the order. The legality of the order over K–12 curricula is unclear, but the chilling effects are real nonetheless.

… If the Great Resegregation proves successful, it will restore an America past where racial and ethnic minorities were the occasional token presence in an otherwise white-dominated landscape.

It would repeal the gains of the civil-rights era in their entirety.

What its advocates want is not a restoration of explicit Jim Crow segregation—that would shatter the illusion that their own achievements are based in a color-blind meritocracy.

They want an arrangement that perpetuates racial inequality indefinitely while retaining some plausible deniability, a rigged system that maintains a mirage of equal opportunity while maintaining an unofficial racial hierarchy.

Like elections in authoritarian countries where the autocrat is always reelected in a landslide, they want a system in which they never risk losing but can still pretend they won fairly. …”

"That is why Trumpists are so focused on “ending DEI” in the federal workforce. They see anti-discrimination and inclusion as a ladder of upward mobility for people they do not believe should have one.”

Discrimination is already illegal. DEI isn't anti-discrimination - it IS discrimination. It is an initiative to intentionally consider race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation.