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The Colleges & Universities Dismantling DEI Programs Are the Ones Who Need Them Most
Their Legacy of Racism Lives On
After the Supreme Court gutted affirmative action programs in higher education in 2023. The next natural step was to shut down Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs because who really wants any of those things? LSU recently announced additional steps to dismantle its DEI Programs after scrubbing all references to DEI from its website in late January 2024. Videos on the website addressing racism were also removed. I submit that the reason DEI programs exist is to avoid the appearance of racism. Are not the institutions racing to eliminate DEI bringing focus on their past racism?
Suppose you only know of LSU through television appearances of its football and basketball programs. In that case, you might imagine LSU doesn’t have a problem with diversity based on the number of Black players. LSU was founded in 1860, the current location is on land that once was three plantations: Gartness, Arlington, and Nestle Down. The current student health center was built atop a slave cemetery. The campus also contains Native American burial mounds so there’s that.
The first Black undergraduate, A.P. Tureaud Jr., of New Orleans, applied to an LSU program that enabled students to get an undergraduate degree…
