California College Professors Sue Over DEI Curriculum Requirements
Six college professors have filed a lawsuit against the California Community Colleges officials and State Center Community College District officials over diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements that the plaintiffs argue force compelled speech from educators.
In May 2022 California Community Colleges’ Board of Governors implemented diversity equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) requirements for all community college professors to “incorporate” into their curriculum. Additionally, the Board’s “DEIA competency and criteria framework“ serves as “a minimum standard for evaluating all California Community College employees.”
“California Community Colleges’ new diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility rules (DEIA Rules) force professors to endorse the government’s view on politically charged questions regarding diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA),” the lawsuit reads.
The teaching criteria instructs professors to “Reword language from a colonized mindset to an equity mindset (e.g., colonized vs colonial; enslaved instead of slaves)” and to “Select textbooks and course materials that include multiple perspectives and diverse representation from varied racial, ethnic, sex, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, religion, age, and abilities perspectives.” The guidance also requires professors to “Agendize and normalize DEI discussions and intentionally alter practices that perpetuate barriers,” and “Create a curriculum committee handbook that requires a diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracist lens.”
These are a sample of the Board’s instructions that the lawsuit claims subject professors to “an array of overbroad, vague, and arbitrary requirements.”
The California Community Colleges Board of Governors provides a glossary of terms to better understand DEIA euphemisms. The glossary defines terms such as “Ally,” “Anti-Racist,” “Co-Conspirators,” “Bias,” “Color Blindness,” and “Cultural Competency.”
“An anti-racist challenges the values, structures, policies, and behaviors that perpetuate systemic racism, and they are also willing to admit the times in which they have been racist. Persons are either anti-racist or racist,” the Board of Governors writes. “Persons that say they are ‘not a racist’ are in denial of the inequities and racial problems that exist.”
The glossary also explains that “equity” differs from “equality” in that, “Equity accounts for systematic inequalities, meaning the distribution of resources provides more for those who need it most.”
“Conversely,” the Board writes, “equality indicates uniformity where everything is evenly distributed among people.” Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and standards, advocate for the former.
“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.'”
Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) the firm representing the six California professors — Press Release
Under the Board’s DEIA curriculum requirements, professors must not only practice “anti-racism,” “allyship,” and “equity,” as defined by the board but they also are required to incorporate these topics into their classroom discussions, with the “heavy hand of the government” weighing in on the side of progressivism.
“I’m a professor of chemistry. How am I supposed to incorporate DEI into my classroom instruction?” Bill Blanken, a professor at Reedley College in central California asked. “What’s the ‘anti-racist’ perspective on the atomic mass of boron?”
“These regulations are a totalitarian triple-whammy,” Daniel Ortner said, an attorney for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) the firm representing the six professors said. “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.”
The lawsuit argues that the state does not have the right to force professors to hold a viewpoint in the classroom that they themselves do not agree with, and is the latest of many suits brought forth on the basis of state-compelled speech.
