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Last week, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt signed an executive order prohibiting the state from funding or supporting diversity, equity and inclusion programs in state agencies and public universities.
According to Fox Business anchor David Asman, banning DEI efforts is in line with the world the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. envisioned.
“Now it sounds to me like you took a page out of Dr. King’s book about judging by the content of character rather than skin color,” Asman said while interviewing Stitt, eliciting a chuckle from the Republican governor. “Why are ... people so upset about that?”
Stitt called his regressive move a “no-brainer” and claimed that he did it to promote a "merit-based" system.
“I have no idea why people are getting so frustrated,” he said. “Because we need to teach kids that the American dream is alive and well, and there’s no such thing as equal outcomes but we want equal opportunities for everybody regardless of your race.”
Diversity programs have been shown to support people from marginalized backgrounds and help provide them with opportunities that are on par with their white counterparts — which is exactly what Stitt claims his goal is in dismantling them. And a Pew Research Center poll published in May found a majority of U.S. workers believe focusing on DEI at work is a good thing.
Yet conservatives have homed in on DEI initiatives as a target, often framing them as "reverse discrimination." Critics have long said the assault on diversity programs stems from the unfounded notion that the left is trying to indoctrinate students into a "woke ideology" — whatever that means — and that it is in fact part of the larger right-wing attack on public education. As Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, told Vox in June:
The rationales for these bills are a completely made-up mischaracterization of what’s happening in order to drag higher education into the culture wars, to make higher education a political talking point for voters who may not be paying attention to what’s really going on.
This year alone, GOP lawmakers across the country introduced at least 40 bills targeting DEI programs. Some have taken more insidious routes to slash diversity efforts: In Wisconsin, for example, public universities agreed to cut DEI positions and programs after lengthy negotiations that saw Republican lawmakers withhold state funding.