‘Diversity, equity and inclusion” has pervaded higher education, and not only elite universities. I teach English at Antelope Valley College, a two-year school in northern Los Angeles County, and serve on an Academic Senate committee. Jennifer Zellet, the college president, has asked the committee to endorse the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility Glossary of Terms, a 12-page document published by the California Community Colleges system.
The glossary is really a manifesto, meant to guide campus administrators and leadership in policy formation, hiring, faculty evaluations and even course outlines of record. It commits them to a radical, racially charged ideology. “Merit,” for instance, is defined as “a concept that . . . is embedded in the ideology of Whiteness and upholds race-based structural inequality. Merit protects White privilege under the guise of standards . . . and as highlighted by anti-affirmative action forces.” “Colorblindness,” the glossary declares, “perpetuates existing racial inequities and denies systematic racism.”
The definition of “white supremacy” commits the school to anticolonialist ideology: “A historically based, institutionally perpetuated system of exploitation and oppression of continents, nations and peoples of color by White peoples and nations of the European continent; for the purpose of maintaining and defending a system of wealth, power and privilege.”