Pushback on book banning and gay silencing in Texas

Two stories involving academic freedom in Texas came out recently within a few days of each other. The first involves librarians who created the Twitter hashtag #FReadom (freedom and reading = freedom to read) to inundate the Texas legislature hashtag #txlege with protests against the growing movement to ban books that Republican legislators and Republican governor Greg Abbott feel are inappropriate.

It will be no surprise to constant readers of the HP, or anyone who is fighting to save our democracy from Republican legal attacks, that the basis of the banning is that “certain types” of books must be banned from school libraries if they “make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex.” That is from Texas Rep. Matt Krause’s October 25, 202 1 letter to the Texas Education Agency “demanding that school districts report whether they carry titles from a list of 850 books” or any others that carry out their malevolent purpose of helping white males understand how they benefit from racism and sexism and helping them to reject that privilege. In other words, the same old claim that we first encountered last November in Donald Trump’s Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping: teaching people about racism is racist. As we said way back then,

The duplicity here makes one want to cry out. Here is the pretzel: acknowledging racism at work in America today is actually racist. To bring up race is, somehow, to have a “racialized view” of America, and, beyond that, to bring up racism is to be an apologist for slavery.
…Fighting racism and working for civil rights is also not racist. To claim that fighting racism forces people to think about race, and only race, and therefore is racist, can only be the product of a deep stupidity or a deep evil. It’s very hard to say which would be worse.
…This is more of the same idea that acknowledging race and racism is racist. We should all be allowed to be “color-blind”. This phrase, as used in this Order, represents a false assumption, which is that America, or at least most Americans, are not racist and do not ever made judgments about people based on their race. Therefore, being told to think about race is ruining this paradise by introducing race-based thinking, and therefore, racism.
…While one might find fault with a diversity training program that singles out white people as racist when we know that it’s a part of human nature the world over, we are after all in this case talking about the U.S., where centuries of institutional racism have worked to promote the interests and well-being of white Americans at the expense of black, Latino, Asian, and Indigenous Americans. So in a U.S. diversity training, the focus will indeed be on how white people can renounce the privileges racism offers them. If white Americans don’t do that, they cannot “let people’s skills and personalities be what differentiates them.”
…If one group have worked to institutionalize racism, then yes, they participate in racism and benefit from it, even if they’re not fully aware of the full extent of that participation and benefit. It become so normalized that it’s just the fabric of life. Sexism works the same way. Making people aware of the benefit, or privilege, they experience is a first step in teaching the basic lesson that discrimination must be actively opposed, and that can’t happen until it is personally acknowledged. The work doesn’t stop there. Acknowledging one’s own participation in discrimination is just the first step to fighting it, and being part of the solution.

Yet this ploy of shutting down teaching about racism has only gained steam, as more and more Republican lawmakers at the local, state, and federal level successfully use it as part of their cancel culture (in which democracy is canceled).

Part of what makes them successful is the threatening, overbearing, intolerable dictates they send to their targets. In this case, Krause’s letter to the TEA contains these not-to-be-questioned, immediately-to-be-obeyed orders:

1. Please identify how many copies of each book in the attached [850-book] Addendum your district possesses and at what campus locations including school library and classroom collections.
2. Please identify the amount of funds spent by your District to acquire the books identified in request No. 1 above.
3. Please identify any other books or content in your District, specifying the campus location and funds spent on acquisition, that address or contain the following topics: human sexuality, sexually transmitted diseases, or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) or acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), sexually explicit images, graphic presentations of sexual behavior that is in violation of the law, or contain material that might make students feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress because of their race or sex or convey that a student, by virtue of their race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously.

Items 1 and 2 are very heavy lifts, requiring a good deal of record-searching. Item 3 is the poisonous type of intimidation that comes from someone making a long list of “forbiddens” that is meant to seem so all-encompassing that people will just back down under its onslaught and not try to fight it.

We choose to fight it by reading it through. The first list of topics is clearly meant to be red-hot; that is, most likely any book on any of these topics is perverse and bad for students. This includes human sexuality, a rather broad topic. We know from long experience that human sexuality is dog-whistle code for “sex ed or birth control”, HIV and AIDS the same for “homosexuality”, and explicit or graphic sexual behavior is also, in most cases of Republican protest, code for “gay”.

The second list is just the usual “anything that makes white students aware of white racism is racist against whites because it makes them feel bad when they haven’t done anything wrong–“why are you blaming white kids in 2021 for slavery??”–and/or judges them guilty until proven innocent. “…consciously or unconsciously” at the end is particularly revealing of the extent to which these lawmakers are drunk on their power. Whatever the intention of the material, if a white male individual finds fault with it, out it goes.

Governor Abbott’s letter to the Texas Association of School Boards carries on in the same vein:

A growing number of parents of Texas students are becoming increasingly alarmed about some of the books and other content found in public school libraries are extremely inappropriate in the public education system. The most flagrant examples include clearly pornographic images and substance that have no place in the Texas public education system.
These parents are rightfully angry.

Books and “other content” that have “clearly” pornographic images and… “substance”… The vagueness is, to borrow a phrase, at once conscious and unconscious. Using scary umbrella words like “pornography” is a conscious attempt to pre-empt any pushback on the Republican book banning process. Who would defend pornography, or ask what you mean by the word, ask for concrete examples and definitions? What kind of monster would get fired and possibly jailed for doing that?

Using 100% meaningless words like “substance” is a conscious attempt to pile on more threat–these things are so bad we can’t even name them; we just hint that it’s even worse than printed materials. In this way, it’s unconscious of the fact that it’s so vague as to be meaningless. Unless you are terrified into submission by the mere thought of the governor rebuking you, you’re going to laugh at the random and obviously bogus use of the word.

Parents feature repeatedly in Abbott’s letter. But how many is “a growing number”, and how are they finding out about “some” of the books and “other content” in public school libraries that are “extremely inappropriate”? The lack of hard data is damning. Anyone can say “lots of people don’t like this”; proving it is another story. Allegedly, the inventory that Krause demands will be Step 1 in carefully reading and assessing each title to judge its appropriateness. But one feels this will not really be the case. Instead, every material on the 850-item list will be confiscated and–who knows?–perhaps burned by police or the army in a public square, with speeches and rioting, just like the 1930s.

In a tiring lack of surprise, many of the books the Republicans want to ban are about interracial romance, homosexuality, and trans experience.

The librarians protesting this deserve support. As one of them, Carolyn Foote, put it so well:

“One of the chilling effects is people get scared, and you get siloed. You’re afraid, you’re alone,” says Twitter takeover organizer Carolyn Foote, a library consultant who spent 29 years as a school librarian. “We hope people realize they’re not alone—there are people and librarians fighting for students to have rights to literature and information.”

Yes – the best thing to do when confronted with a threat meant to shut you down is to open it up to the world.

Meanwhile in a related story, Texas also has a law mandating that public school sex ed “course materials and instruction relating to sexual education or sexually transmitted diseases should include:

(1) an emphasis on sexual abstinence as the only completely reliable method of avoiding unwanted teenage pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases;
(8) emphasis, provided in a factual manner and from a public health perspective, that homosexuality is not a lifestyle acceptable to the general public and that homosexual conduct is a criminal offense under Section 21.06, Penal Code.

The first note is clearly established by precedent in schools around the country to be Christian pedagogy. The 8th is confusing–is it really illegal to be gay in Texas? Sadly, a 1973 law is still on the books–that’s the Section 21.06 of the Penal Code–and so each county and/or city in the state has to vote on and pass non-discrimination protections to make it possible for gay people to live there. Some universities in Texas have also passed anti-discrimination laws. But these simply put gay people in those counties, cities, or schools in the uneasy position of being free from discrimination but still identified as criminals.

This is why books about being gay or sex education materials that discuss homosexuality are on the Republican hit list. This kind of oppression is already almost completely successful at muzzling and erasing gay people: currently, only 6% of sex ed programs in Texas public schools use materials that include LGBTQIA+ needs and experiences. So the most recent book banning campaign is certainly meant in part to flush out that remaining 6% and get rid of it. Teachers are also forbidden to mention homosexuality or gay people in class.

It’s easy to target people who are already defined as criminals, and then you just expand out from there to anyone you don’t like: immigrants, people for whom English is a second language, black and brown people, and anyone else you label with increasingly vague and threatening names, like “liberal”, “leftist”, “socialist”, etc. These people produce “pornographic” “materials” and “substance” and then force them on school children. Again, the hope is that everyone will be too afraid to be identified with this to ever push back.

The real inappropriate material here is the assault on our democracy. Book banning is not part of it. People banning is not part of it. Do what you can where you are to prevent or overturn these laws through legal channels, and remember that you are not alone.

New Hampshire bill would ban diversity training

These grim updates have become part of the routine here at the HP–yet another state is pushing a bill through its legislature to stop the monstrous threat to democracy that is… democracy.

If you’re wondering why we will once again give you links to all the previous posts on this topic in this post, it’s to show the growing number of dominos falling over a very short time.

So here we go: this thread began with our short series examining the Biden Administration’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, which you can find here on the official White House site.

On March 18 we wrote about the Iowa state legislature working to incorporate the anti-justice language and intent of the Trump Executive Order 13950 of September 22, 2020 (Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping), which we spilled so much ink on late last year. The University of Iowa is being pressured by the state legislature to end diversity education for students and staff.

Then on March 23 we posted about the Idaho state legislature attempting to do the same. Then, just over a month later came the terrible update: they did. On April 29 the Idaho House approved legislation aimed at preventing public and charter schools and universities from teaching critical race theory, which examines the ways in which race and racism influence American politics, culture and the law.

And now? New Hampshire, whose House Bill HB544–“An Act relative to the propagation of divisive concepts”–is yet another move to make teaching Americans about racism illegal. As the Chronicle of Higher Education describes it, HB544

…would ban teaching or training students to “adopt or believe” a list of “divisive concepts,” including that the state or the nation is fundamentally racist or sexist. One of the bill’s sponsors, Rep. Keith Ammon, a Republican, told fellow lawmakers in February that it is meant to take on “critical race theory.” He likened diversity and inclusion trainers to “snake-oil salesmen.” They propose a cure to disease, he said, but the cure is “making it worse.”
Ammon’s reasoning is emblematic. Republican lawmakers across the country have declared war on an academic concept, and — according to scholars of the theory — reduced a dynamic school of thought to a poorly drawn caricature. They’ve introduced similar bills in at least a dozen states meant to curb what they see as the pernicious influence of critical race theory in public institutions.
Republican lawmakers have long been frustrated with higher ed’s liberal tilt and its supposed quashing of conservative viewpoints.
Now, they’re taking a new tack: Instead of resolutions and bills to protect the speech of visitors on the campus quad, the recent wave of legislation often steps into the classroom to restrict what can be taught. It’s part of a larger battle playing out in state houses, schools, and the media between dueling versions of American history. Over the past few months, lawmakers like Ammon have wielded references to the decades-old theory as they argue with their colleagues about whether racism persists and if it exists at all outside of the hearts and minds of individuals.

We’ve said so much about this in the posts linked above. Teaching people that racism exists, now, today, not just safely in the past where it’s no one’s fault today (sort of–white people still benefit from that past racism), is not, in itself, racism. It’s not a lie. Only a party that has removed its own members from seats of power for refusing to support the lie that the 2020 election was fraudulent–that Biden’s win was a lie–would dare to say that teaching Americans about racism should be made illegal because it’s just not (or is no longer) true.

This isn’t about belief. This is now about law. Teachers in the states that pass these laws will be criminally liable if they teach about racism in an accurate way. They could potentially face jail time. It would be illegal to teach our history.

This is just another version of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which we describe here:

We learn about the FSA when we learn about the Compromise of 1850, of which it was a part. To pacify proslavery forces who were angry that California was allowed to enter the Union as a free state, the Compromise allowed slaveholding and trading to continue in Washington, DC, and upheld the “rights” of slaveholders to their “property”—enslaved people—throughout the Union.
This meant that if you lived in, say, Wisconsin, and had voted to pass personal liberty laws in your state outlawing slavery, those laws were overturned. Slavery would be upheld in “free” states, because slaveholders were allowed to enter free states and reclaim escaped people, and even pick up black citizens who had never been enslaved—the word of the slaveholder was accepted over the word of the black citizen and even the white citizens of the state. Whites were forced by the law to help slave-catchers, they were fined and jailed for failing to do so, or for helping an escapee, and whites were forced to live with the rescinding of the personal liberty laws they had voted for on a state level. Thus, slavery was basically enforced in every state of the Union, and outrage over this was expressed by many Northerners who had previously been publicly neutral about slavery.
If the Fugitive Slave Act was all about enslaved blacks, asked Northerners, why was it fining, jailing, and threatening free whites? Why did it seem to focus just as much on attacking the liberties of northern white citizens as it did on preventing black Americans from gaining their liberty? It was just another example of the slave power perverting democracy and threatening free government.

Americans who want to teach our actual history are now coerced and threatened with jail time into teaching a fake history that is about validating white Americans, locating all racism in those whites who enslaved black Americans and created institutional racism after slavery was ended (i.e., white Americans in the past) and thus relegating racism to the past. In this way, they are forced to support racism.

The problem with this that we haven’t yet addressed in our many posts is that American history is already usually taught so badly, leaving out so much of the reality of slavery and racism in our nation, that laws like this are almost unnecessary. Here’s an article that lays this out quite well, from the New Hampshire Business Review. But these laws ensure that our history teaching and textbooks will get worse and worse, thus allowing racism today and in the future to flourish in a medium of complete denial of the fact that racism has been a primary cause of a great deal of legislation, settlement and housing patterns, industrial growth, wealth creation, and other “race-neutral” economic and socio-political actions that are taught in American history courses.

Teaching all of these without mentioning racism will create a history of America that is so cartoonish it will effectively kill American history. Which is, we believe, the goal.

We do believe as well that not all Americans will accept this, and that the possibility of fighting it is real. But to have a bloody war created for us over race, once again, once again… it’s infuriating and the harm it causes from the level of the individual soul to the fate of the planet is breathtaking.

If you live in a state considering such legislation, take action. If your state has not yet introduced such legislation, investigate to make sure no one is planning to. If you’re a teacher, support your colleagues who stand against this legislation. As the NHBR article says, to be better than this we have to be brave.

Idaho bans diversity training, or, Trump is not gone

Here we are once again, forced to return to our short series examining the Biden Administration’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, which you can find here on the official White House site.

Then on March 23 we posted about the Idaho state legislature attempting to do the same. Now, less than 2 months later, comes the terrible update: they did.

The Idaho House on Thursday approved legislation aimed at preventing public and charter schools and universities from teaching critical race theory, which examines the ways in which race and racism influence American politics, culture and the law.
…The measure, which passed with a 57-12 vote and no Democratic support, would prevent educators from making students “affirm, adopt or adhere to” belief systems claiming individuals of any race, sex, ethnicity, religion or national origin are responsible for past actions done by members of the same group. It also would prohibit teachers from forcing students onto belief systems that claim a group of people as defined by sex, race, ethnicity or religion are inferior or superior to another.
Republican Idaho lawmakers are concerned federal authorities could force belief systems on Idaho students through school curricula — calling the ideas often found in critical race theory “contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being” of the state.
Backers said the bill is an anti-discrimination measure intended to spell out expectations for Idaho schools and universities following an executive order by President Joe Biden issued in January titled Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities.

–We’ve written a lot already, in the posts linked above, about this abuse of language that calls a law designed to prevent people from talking about and acknowledging racism an “anti-discrimination” law. By locating racism or other prejudice safely and firmly in the past (people today are not “responsible for past actions done by members of [their] group”), the law makes discrimination against non-white Americans seem dead, a relic of the past, and something people today would only bring up in order to hurt innocent Americans, make the U.S. “seem” racist, and destroy the nation.

To say that addressing our problems is “contrary to the unity of the nation and the well-being of the state” is openly weird. The “well-being of the state”? This sounds more like language from the Soviet Union, Animal Farm, or some Unabomber-type manifesto than language from a U.S. legislature.

The nation’s well-being springs from… actually being well. The U.S. is strong when we live up to the principle of liberty and justice for all. The U.S. is weak, and in danger, when we don’t. Dictating that the health of the nation is something floating in the ether that exists separately from our daily lives on the ground, what we do and say, how we treat everyone in our nation, the laws we pass and the people we elect, is contrary to the well-being of our state.

This quote from one Idaho lawmaker is frighteningly transparent about the real goals of this bill and its supporters:

Republican Rep. Lance Clow, chairman of the House Education Committee, supported the measure. …“I’m sure,” he continued, “minorities were feeling compelled to take certain beliefs and certain directions that now, on the flip side of that, you know, this white Anglo Saxon Christian feels like, well, maybe the tables have turned, and maybe we should have recognized there were problems in the past, and maybe we didn’t.”

…hearing this white man say he’s “sure” about what “minorities” have gone through, their being forced to “take” “certain” beliefs and “directions” is already bad. When he goes on to say that the “flip side” of this is “white Anglo Saxon Christians” “turning the tables” on other people–we presume “minorities”–it gets a lot worse.

Stay with us here, because the “logic” of the last part of his sentence is tortured: if we recognize that racism and other prejudice against non-“Anglo Saxon Christians” happened in the past, and we realize that was wrong, then we don’t want to make the mistake of allowing the prejudice that is taking place against “Anglo Saxon Christians” right now in the present go on any longer, lest we fail to learn from our past experience.

Anglo Saxon?? It’s astonishing and infuriating to see constant reminders that white supremacy has taken deep root in every part of our nation. What will these white supremacists do when, relatively soon, demographic trends will result in an America where white people are the “minorities”? We need only to look as far as the racial oligarchy in South Africa under apartheid for an answer.

As recently as 30 years ago, people who tried to bring up “reverse racism”–the allegedly widespread racism against white people that was robbing them of opportunity–would be laughed out of the room. Times have changed, and that 30-year timing is relevant, as it was the Reagan administration in the 1980s that began the drastic backlash against civil rights that resulted in, among other things, the growth of the religious political right and anti-democratic hate masquerading as protecting “real” Americans and the “real” America–with “real”, of course, meaning “white”. It used to be that people had to say “real” as a code for “white” because they would get in trouble if they paraded their racism. Again, times have changed, to the point where this legislator can openly refer to “Anglo Saxons”.

The 2020 Census data is being parsed right now, and it is, as predicted, being used to re-apportion and shift political representation in Congress. It’s no secret that these anti-American, racist bills are being written and passed by Republican-majority legislatures. There’s a long road ahead of every American who believes in democracy to fight and overturn these laws, before standing up for democracy is “controversial”:

Democratic Rep. Steve Berch said the legislation would have the opposite effect. “What this bill winds up doing in practical terms is intimidation,” he said. “This bill, not necessarily intended, but for sure there are people who will use this bill to intimidate teachers, school administrators, school clerks to make sure they don’t do anything that might in any way be considered controversial.”

Trump is not gone – silence = death

We’re back once again, unable to move on from our short series examining the Biden Administration’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, which you can find here on the official White House site.

On March 18–just 5 days ago–we wrote about the Iowa state legislature working to incorporate the anti-justice language and intent of the Trump Executive Order 13950 of September 22, 2020 (Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping), which we spilled so much ink on late last year. The University of Iowa is being pressured by the state legislature to end diversity education for students and staff.

Now, we find the same effort being taken up by the Idaho state legislature. Coincidentally, the Chronicle of Higher Education article from which this quote is taken was published on March 18:

Boise State University officials say their suspension of diversity classes this week was motivated only by reports of an unspecified incident, but the action comes amid a pointed attack by Republican state lawmakers on the university’s efforts to educate students about racism.
The university on Tuesday abruptly suspended 52 sections of a diversity and ethics course, citing concerns that “a student or students” were made to feel “humiliated and degraded” in class “for their beliefs and values.” No official report has been filed, and officials said they have only heard about the incidents second- and third-hand, but the university is investigating.

The Idaho State Senate made its decision-making process very explicit:

The course suspensions at Boise State came the same week that the Idaho State Senate passed a higher-education budget that cut $409,000 from Boise State’s appropriation — the amount the university said it spent on social-justice programs — and shifted the money to Lewis-Clark State College, the Idaho Statesman reported on Wednesday. Some Republican lawmakers had wanted to cut much more in order to send a clear signal to the university that they were against its efforts to educate students about racism and social justice.

…it’s hard to imagine an American legislator publicly saying “I am against educating students about racism and social justice” and still considering themselves a) a good American and b) supported by our founding principles.

“We don’t want funds expended for courses, programs, services, or trainings that confer support for extremist ideologies, such as those tied to social justice, racism, Marxism, socialism or communism,” Rep. Priscilla Giddings said earlier this month, according to Boise State Public Radio. In 2019, 28 House Republicans signed a letter to Marlene Tromp, who was then the new president of Boise State, urging her not to support initiatives intended to promote diversity at Boise State, Idaho Ed News reported.

It’s almost impossible to parse this ridiculous statement, which says that social justice is an ideology, and that social justice and racism are the same thing. Social justice and racism do represent opposite extremes of humanity, from good to evil, but that is their only connection. To place social justice (a good thing) in a list with racism (a bad thing), and then Marxism, socialism, and communism (as practiced so far by humans, bad things), is a bold statement of hatred. We hope that since she feels this way, Rep. Giddings does not say the Pledge of Allegiance, which ends, of course, by pledging allegiance to a nation that stands for “liberty and justice for all”.

Apparently, the Republicans in the state legislator took the opp presented by a single student saying they felt uncomfortable in the Boise State diversity and equity course to shut everything down.

One might wonder why the feelings of a student quoted in the article as having enjoyed the course did not carry equal weight. But one already knows.

Trump is “gone”, not gone. Take a look at your own state’s legislation and see what they may be doing. Check the institutions of higher ed that you care about. The time to act is now, while there’s still some room to breathe.

Wondering what “silence = death” means? Check out Neutrality isn’t Justice, silence = death

Truth v. Myth: Biden Order on equity needs our help

It’s part the last of our short series examining the Biden Administration’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, which you can find here on the official White House site. We left off in part 2 looking at the end of Section 4 and its directions for identifying methods to assess equity.

Sec. 5 Conducting an Equity Assessment in Federal Agencies tasks the head of each agency, or someone they deputize, to consult with OMB to carry out a review of their agency that identifies:

(a) Potential barriers that underserved communities and individuals may face to enrollment in and access to benefits and services in Federal programs;
(b) Potential barriers that underserved communities and individuals may face in taking advantage of agency procurement and contracting opportunities;
(c) Whether new policies, regulations, or guidance documents may be necessary to advance equity in agency actions and programs; and
(d) The operational status and level of institutional resources available to offices or divisions within the agency that are responsible for advancing civil rights or whose mandates specifically include serving underrepresented or disadvantaged communities.

–What we like about these four categories of inquiry is that they incorporate correction to the very Order they’re part of. A and B address the potential–and likely–problem that benefits may exist but the people who need them will be presented with constant obstacles when they try to access them. C accepts that the existing policies and guidance may prove to be incomplete in advancing equity, and new ones will be needed. D accepts that agencies may likely need more resources–money and people–to carry out the Order. This is not a set-it-and-forget-it situation in which passing an Order solves all problems. It’s not a magic wand, and it needs to be the beginning of a large collaborative effort. That means there will be changes and it will be expensive and there will have to be real enforcement. All of this should inspire people to do this good work, rather than turn them off, because it’s a healthy and helpful acknowledgement of the real world in which change takes place.

Section 9 – Establishing an Equitable Data Working Group – is a call to gather more data on our population, as “Many Federal datasets are not disaggregated by race, ethnicity, gender, disability, income, veteran status, or other key demographic variables. This lack of data has cascading effects and impedes efforts to measure and advance equity. A first step to promoting equity in Government action is to gather the data necessary to inform that effort.” The Working Group is established, and will go about the difficult business of gathering data from people who have every right to feel threatened by federal requests for their personal information and scared to provide it lest they be fired, deported, or harassed. This small section is very important, and calls for the most thoughtful work.

Thankfully, Section 10 – Revocation – revokes the Trump Executive Order 13950 of September 22, 2020 (Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping), which we spilled so much ink on late last year.

This is a good start, and we welcome it. But we fear for it, too, as America continues to go through ever more violent pendulum swings right to left with every presidential election. The specter of the EO on equity that the next Republican president might sign is menacing. The next four years must be spent moving the nation back to its established central base, where it is assumed the the United States is meant to provide liberty and justice to all. That founding principle was openly and explicitly rejected by the Trump administration, and too many Americans resonated with that trashing. Let’s let this Order be a step toward getting back where we belong. Do your part by asking what’s being done at your workplace to provide the data we need to broadcast the fact that “hardworking American” is not code for “white”, and to pull back at that pendulum before it swings away from us.

Truth v. Myth: Biden Order defines racism as racist! (and anti-racism as anti-racist)

Hello and welcome to part 2 of our series examining the Biden Administration’s January 20, 2021 Executive Order on Advancing Racial Equity and Support for Underserved Communities Through the Federal Government, which you can find here on the official White House site. We left off in part 1 looking at the end of Section 1 and its framing of equality of opportunity in positive economic terms.

“Sec. 2 Definitions” establishes the same for “equity” and “underserved communities”:

Sec. 2. Definitions. For purposes of this order: (a) The term “equity” means the consistent and systematic fair, just, and impartial treatment of all individuals, including individuals who belong to underserved communities that have been denied such treatment, such as Black, Latino, and Indigenous and Native American persons, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and other persons of color; members of religious minorities; lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ+) persons; persons with disabilities; persons who live in rural areas; and persons otherwise adversely affected by persistent poverty or inequality.
(b) The term “underserved communities” refers to populations sharing a particular characteristic, as well as geographic communities, that have been systematically denied a full opportunity to participate in aspects of economic, social, and civic life, as exemplified by the list in the preceding definition of “equity.”

We know that this Order is specifically addressing racial inequity, so we will not complain that being female is omitted here from categories of Americans who have been denied equality of opportunity. It’s good to have an Order specifically focused on race. But we do expect the Administration can do two things at once and also address sexual discrimination and sexism in America as well, and as soon as possible.

The main difference here between the Biden Order and the Trump Order is that the Trump version had 9 separate definitions of the term “divisive concepts”, all of which stated that anti-racism and anti-sexism training were, in themselves, divisive concepts based on lies and, of course, anti-white racism. So we’re on better footing already here with the Biden Order, as it is short and common-sensical and acknowledges reality.

Sec. 3 Role of the Domestic Policy Council states that this DPC will “coordinate efforts to embed equity principles, policies, and approaches across the Federal government. This will include efforts to remove systemic barriers to and provide equal access to opportunities and benefits, identify communities the Federal Government has underserved, and develop policies designed to advance equity for those communities.” Again, a 180 from the Trump Order which focused on prosecuting government departments that continued diversity training that attempted to address “divisive concepts.”

Sec. 4. Identifying Methods to Assess Equity says that the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) will work with federal agencies to “[assess] whether agency policies and actions create or exacerbate barriers to full and equal participation by all eligible individuals. The study should aim to identify the best methods, consistent with applicable law, to assist agencies in assessing equity with respect to race, ethnicity, religion, income, geography, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability. … Within 6 months of the date of this order, the Director of OMB shall deliver a report to the President describing the best practices identified by the study and, as appropriate, recommending approaches to expand use of those methods across the Federal Government.”

So far so good; we can say that by 2021 it’s a little late to say you’ll begin to assess “whether” there are barriers to equity and then “recommend approaches” to dismantling them… but if this really happens by August, we’ll be happy to wait one last time.

Next time: defining obstacles to equity

Truth V. Myth: Trump Executive Order On Diversity Training, concluded… we hope

Today, part the last of our series on the Trump Administration’s September 22, 2020 Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (find the official White House version of this executive order here). We race through the concluding sections, noting the final problematic statements therein.

Sec. 8. Title VII Guidance. The Attorney General should continue to assess the extent to which workplace training that teaches the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order may contribute to a hostile work environment and give rise to potential liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq. If appropriate, the Attorney General and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission shall issue publicly available guidance to assist employers in better promoting diversity and inclusive workplaces consistent with Title VII.

–More of the same here; the noble Civil Rights Act of 1964 is perverted to support anti-diversity training and the debarment (see Sec. 7(b)) of contractors who provide real diversity training.

Let’s hit the final section for an ill closure:

Sec. 10. General Provisions. (a) This order does not prevent agencies, the United States Uniformed Services, or contractors from promoting racial, cultural, or ethnic diversity or inclusiveness, provided such efforts are consistent with the requirements of this order.
b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to prohibit discussing, as part of a larger course of academic instruction, the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order in an objective manner and without endorsement.
(c) If any provision of this order, or the application of any provision to any person or circumstance, is held to be invalid, the remainder of this order and the application of its provisions to any other persons or circumstances shall not be affected thereby.
(f) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

DONALD J. TRUMP

THE WHITE HOUSE,
September 22, 2020.

–One might laugh aloud if it weren’t for the sheer malice and evil intention of this final section. Subsection a represents a terrible perfection of perversity, saying this order purporting to describe diversity training does not prevent any entity from providing diversity training. It’s so clear that the Order precisely does prevent all agencies from promoting diversity and inclusion that the authors are either subconsciously driven to defend themselves or just enjoying their terrible power. Subsection b follows the same. Subsection c is a logical fallacy, and Subsection d is, we hope, boilerplate text, and not something assembled for this particular and particularly anti-democratic Order.

This Order may well be rescinded by the incoming Biden Administration, but that is cold comfort. The wedge has been driven into our democracy from the top down by a small number of people who are all too happy to destroy our democratic traditions. They are easily split from democracy. Let’s hope that as the wedge goes down into the full population, we find that Americans as a whole will resist the fracture.

Truth V. Myth: Trump Executive Order On Diversity Training, or, a return to McCarthyism

Hello and welcome to part 5 in our series on the Trump Administration’s September 22, 2020 Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (find the official White House version of this executive order here). This time, we slog through Sections 4-6.

Section 4 is Requirements for Government Contractors. This Order is, after all, directed toward “Executive departments and agencies (agencies), our Uniformed Services, Federal contractors, and Federal grant recipients”, so here’s where it gets very specific by outlining policy.

During the performance of this contract, the contractor agrees as follows:
1. The contractor shall not use any workplace training that inculcates in its employees any form of race or sex stereotyping or any form of race or sex scapegoating, including the concepts that (a) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (b) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (c) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (d) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (e) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (f) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (g) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (h) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race.
The term “race or sex stereotyping” means ascribing character traits, values, moral and ethical codes, privileges, status, or beliefs to a race or sex, or to an individual because of his or her race or sex, and the term “race or sex scapegoating” means assigning fault, blame, or bias to a race or sex, or to members of a race or sex because of their race or sex.

–This is copied and pasted from Section 2: Definitions, which we covered all-too-thoroughly in part 4. As we said there, “We do not believe in good faith that the context of diversity training in the U.S. provides or supports [eight] separate, and often completely opposing, definitions of “divisive concepts.” In a nutshell, this is the third restatement in this Order of the idea that acknowledging the existence of racism and sexism is racist and sexist.

Now we get to what this means in terms of actions that federal contractors must take. First, they must send a copy of the Order “to each labor union or representative of workers with which he has a collective bargaining agreement or other contract or understanding” and each union office must “post copies of the notice in conspicuous places available to employees and applicants for employment.” We pass over the sexist language in this ostensible Order against sexism… for now.

The next item swerves from what the contractors should do to a warning that if they are non-compliant “this contract may be canceled, terminated, or suspended in whole or in part and the contractor may be declared ineligible for further Government contracts”.

Back to tasks: the contractors must “include the provisions of paragraphs (1) through (4) in every subcontract or purchase order unless exempted by rules, regulations, or orders of the Secretary of Labor, so that such provisions will be binding upon each subcontractor or vendor.” The Department of Labor will “establish a hotline and investigate complaints received” against any contractor who is “utilizing such training programs in violation of the contractor’s obligations under those orders. The Department shall take appropriate enforcement action and provide remedial relief, as appropriate.”

Unlike the usual lip service that accompanies any civil rights protections, the DOL is very likely to follow through with this for as long as the Trump Administration lasts. All the energy it never has for providing enforcement and relief for victims of race and sex discrimination will be poured into prosecuting people trying to fight race and sex discrimination.

Finally, “Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Director of OFCCP shall publish in the Federal Register a request for information seeking information from Federal contractors, Federal subcontractors, and employees of Federal contractors and subcontractors regarding the training, workshops, or similar programming provided to employees. The request for information should request copies of any training, workshop, or similar programing having to do with diversity and inclusion as well as information about the duration, frequency, and expense of such activities.”

The constant theme here is Soviet- or McCarthy-style encouragement of informants. Instead of going to your company or union first, go directly to the government and report your employer or union. Secretly inform the government about any violations you perceive. Again, if this administration had ever protected whistle-blowers for justice, this would be less infuriating. Only informants, not whistle-blowers, will be protected.

Section 5 leads, for the third time, with the same cut-and-paste 8-part (re)definition of terms and statement that acknowledging racism and sexism is racist and sexist. In fact, that’s all Section 5 includes after the brief intro text “Sec. 5. Requirements for Federal Grants. The heads of all agencies shall review their respective grant programs and identify programs for which the agency may, as a condition of receiving such a grant, require the recipient to certify that it will not use Federal funds to promote the concepts that (a) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; …” We are perhaps meant to be hypnotized by this repetition.

Section 6 mixes it up by not repeated the cut-and-paste.

Sec. 6. Requirements for Agencies. (a) The fair and equal treatment of individuals is an inviolable principle that must be maintained in the Federal workplace. Agencies should continue all training that will foster a workplace that is respectful of all employees. Accordingly:
(i) The head of each agency shall use his or her authority under 5 U.S.C. 301, 302, and 4103 to ensure that the agency, agency employees while on duty status, and any contractors hired by the agency to provide training, workshops, forums, or similar programming (for purposes of this section, “training”) to agency employees do not teach, advocate, act upon, or promote in any training to agency employees any of the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order.
…(ii) Agency diversity and inclusion efforts shall, first and foremost, encourage agency employees not to judge each other by their color, race, ethnicity, sex, or any other characteristic protected by Federal law.
…(b) The Director of OPM shall propose regulations providing that agency officials with supervisory authority over a supervisor or an employee with responsibility for promoting diversity and inclusion, if such supervisor or employee either authorizes or approves training that promotes the divisive concepts set forth in section 2(a) of this order, shall take appropriate steps to pursue a performance-based adverse action proceeding against such supervisor or employee..

–More cultivation of informants here, as any employee that dares to “promote in any training to agency employees any of the divisive concepts listed in section 2(a) of this order” will be informed upon and the Director of OPM “shall take appropriate steps to pursue a performance-based adverse action proceeding against such supervisor or employee…”

Three sub-steps reinforce this message, and part ii, requiring “the agency inspector general [to] thoroughly review and assess by the end of the calendar year, and not less than annually thereafter, agency compliance with the requirements of this order in the form of a report submitted to OMB” is particularly irritating; how we wish that there were at least annual, and ideally monthly, reviews to ensure enforcement of real civil rights laws in the workplace.

Next time: the bleak conclusion

Truth v. Myth: Trump Executive Order on diversity training redefines in order to mislead

Part four of our series on the Trump Administration’s September 22, 2020 Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping (find the official White House version of this executive order here) concerns “Definitions”.

Every document has to define its terms. But when it redefines commonly used and accepted terms, be on the lookout for acts of bad faith.

Sec. 2. Definitions. For the purposes of this order, the phrase:
(a) “Divisive concepts” means the concepts that (1) one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; (2) the United States is fundamentally racist or sexist; (3) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; (4) an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of his or her race or sex; (5) members of one race or sex cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to race or sex; (6) an individual’s moral character is necessarily determined by his or her race or sex; (7) an individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, bears responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex; (8) any individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race or sex; or (9) meritocracy or traits such as a hard work ethic are racist or sexist, or were created by a particular race to oppress another race. The term “divisive concepts” also includes any other form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating.

We do not believe in good faith that the context of diversity training in the U.S. provides or supports nine separate, and often completely opposing, definitions of “divisive concepts.”

(1) is a neutral definition of racism and sexism

(2) uses the word “fundamentally” as a subjective motivator for the reader to define any attempt to address discrimination in the U.S. as an attack on their nation that they should patriotically reject; here, “fundamentally racist or sexist” is a cartoonish statement that “the U.S. is bad” that all patriotic Americans are pressured to reject. This one-dimensional, cartoonish definition of “fundamental” is deliberately harmful. Fundamental means “foundational”–built into the foundation of something. That something cannot exist without its fundamentals. While there are well-known, constant arguments made that “racism is America’s original sin,” and that sexism was enshrined in the line “all men are created equal,” this is only part of the story of America and the U.S. The real message of good diversity training is “of course there is institutional racism and sexism in the United States that we must oppose and dismantle–just like the many millions of Americans who have done just that, from 1776 onward; our present-day sense of needing to fight that battle is the result of their work, and is their legacy to us. Fighting for liberty and justice for all is America’s original mandate.” Alongside fundamental discrimination in this country is, and always has been, a fundamental commitment to justice. You can’t have one without the other, and you can’t acknowledge the good fight without acknowledging that there is something that needs to be fought.

(3) this is simply true, and while difficult truths are uncomfortable, they must be faced. No one is innocent when it comes to prejudice. The only lie in this definition is the word “inherently”. Prejudice is not biological. There’s not a gene in your body that makes you prejudiced. It’s 100% nurture. Human beings, like most mammals, are clannish. We are trained to be racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., from infancy up, just like our parents and grandparents etc., were. Usually this is completely unspoken–no one tells a little boy that women are inferior. Instead, they teach him that boys play kickball at recess and girls play four square, and if a girl wants to switch, he should prevent that by tormenting her with name-calling. No one tells the boy about homosexuality–instead, he learns that a boy who wants to play four square instead of kickball must be tormented with name-calling. If you are white and you use a mortgage app and it says you and your wife can borrow $1 million, it likely never occurs to you that a black couple using the same app in the same city will be told they can borrow $200K. It doesn’t occur to you to think about what other people might be experiencing. The whole point of diversity training is to wake people up, to make the invisible visible.

By putting “inherently” in this re-definition, the Order attempts to turn a proven sociological fact about how we acculturate children so fully that they grow up never realizing they’ve been acculturated into some indefensible nonsense about genetic prejudice that of course the logical person must reject.

(4) we cover this in Part 2 – “Here is the pretzel: acknowledging racism at work in America today is actually racist.”

(5) (6) this is also covered in Part 2 – “This is more of the same idea that acknowledging race and racism is racist. We should all be allowed to be “color-blind”. This phrase, as used in this Order, represents a false assumption, which is that America, or at least most Americans, are not racist and do not ever made judgments about people based on their race. Therefore, being told to think about race is ruining this paradise by introducing race-based thinking, and therefore, racism.”

(7) this re-definition is just another dog-whistle to panic and redirect white people in the U.S. away from fighting racism by threatening that if they fight racism, they’ll end up being forced to pay restitution to black people for slavery. Good diversity training does not tell men that they are responsible for sexism in the 17th century. Nor does it tell white people that they are responsible for racism in the 1800s. What it does tell people is that if they do nothing to stop discrimination today, in their own time, they are part of a longstanding problem instead of part of the longstanding solution. If you don’t reject racism today, you are no different from those who accepted it in previous centuries. You may not be participating in race-based slavery, but you are adopting the same mindset as those who did enslave others based on race.

(8) this builds from (7), and is just a restatement of (3). Asked and answered.

(9) this is so warped and deliberately harmful. The ignorant language is all over the place: is working hard really a biological “trait”? There’s a gene in the human genome labeled “hard worker”? Can a biological trait be “created”? The term they are searching for is not “trait” but, ironically, “concept”. The “hard work ethic” (known before this Order to all as “the Protestant work ethic”) is a dog-whistle concept in the U.S. for “white people”. Again, we cover this in Part 2: “In the U.S., the words and phrases “patriot,” “real Americans,” “honest, hardworking Americans,” and “middle-class” have been turned into dog-whistles for racism since the 1970s, when the conservative backlash against the civil rights movement and gains of the 1950s and 60s began, and were fully gelled by the Reagan Administration in the 1980s. All of these have become code expressions for “white”, and it was a horribly effective mis-use of meritocracy: start with the false assumption that everyone had the same starting point and resources, and then when racism ensures that people who aren’t white don’t succeed, the only way to explain it is by blaming the non-white people for being lazy, dishonest, and treacherous. If only white Americans succeed, it must be because only whites are hard-working, honest, and patriotic.”

There are three more re-definitions in Sec. 2 of this Order, two of which simply reiterate points above about how identifying racism is racist, and describe fighting prejudice as “race or sex stereotyping,” or the scourge of “reverse-discimination,” which is somehow not just discrimination and worse than discrimination.

Section 3 defines “United States Uniformed Services” very briefly and objectively.

Next time, if you can bear it: Sections 4-5-6

Truth v. Myth: Trump executive order on diversity training “merits” criticism

Hello and welcome to part 3 of our series on the Trump Administration’s September 22, 2020 Executive Order on Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping. You can find the official White House version of this executive order here. Here we

The Order picks up from where it left off–claiming that acknowledging the existence of racism is racist (see part 2)–by describing this acknowledgement as coercion:

Executive departments and agencies (agencies), our Uniformed Services, Federal contractors, and Federal grant recipients should, of course, continue to foster environments devoid of hostility grounded in race, sex, and other federally protected characteristics. Training employees to create an inclusive workplace is appropriate and beneficial. The Federal Government is, and must always be, committed to the fair and equal treatment of all individuals before the law.
But training like that discussed above perpetuates racial stereotypes and division and can use subtle coercive pressure to ensure conformity of viewpoint. Such ideas may be fashionable in the academy, but they have no place in programs and activities supported by Federal taxpayer dollars. Research also suggests that blame-focused diversity training reinforces biases and decreases opportunities for minorities.

–We can train people to create an inclusive workplace basic on fair and equal treatment of all individual before the law, but we cannot define any group as failing to be inclusive, fair and equal. We must leave that blank. It is racist to openly acknowledge that in the United States, the racism that is sanctioned by generations of institutional discrimination, including laws and mores that approve white racism against black people, Asian people, Latinx people, Native American people, or any other race group.

This would be akin to offering training to prevent homophobic discrimination that refused to say that heterosexual people are the ones allowed, even encouraged, to practice this discrimination, and therefore the source of the problem. We should, apparently, leave the door open to the idea that gay people discriminating against straight people is the longstanding problem.

And isn’t diversity training all about ensuring conformity of action, if not viewpoint? You may not reach everyone who is prejudiced, but you have to ensure that they walk out of the room knowing that prejudice will be punished. And you do hope that you will change minds eventually. Isn’t the goal of the U.S. Constitution to use subtle and not-so-subtle coercive pressure to get millions of people to commit to being one nation, indivisible? Coercive pressure can be exerted for good or for evil. We use coercive pressure to teach children not to touch the hot stove.

Another dog-whistle for conservatives: linking actual diversity training that names names to colleges and universities (“the academy”). Conservatives believe that higher ed is exclusively neo-liberal, so attaching real diversity training to them is effective for that audience.

Finally, there is research that finds that diversity training can be unfortunately counter-productive in that people who complete it feel that they are now racism-proof because of their new knowledge, and therefore anything they do can never be racist, and they never have to think about it again. This does not mean that we cancel diversity training, but that we improve it to address this conundrum.

Our Federal civil service system is based on merit principles. These principles, codified at 5 U.S.C. 2301, call for all employees to “receive fair and equitable treatment in all aspects of personnel management without regard to” race or sex “and with proper regard for their . . . constitutional rights.” Instructing Federal employees that treating individuals on the basis of individual merit is racist or sexist directly undermines our Merit System Principles and impairs the efficiency of the Federal service. Similarly, our Uniformed Services should not teach our heroic men and women in uniform the lie that the country for which they are willing to die is fundamentally racist. Such teachings could directly threaten the cohesion and effectiveness of our Uniformed Services.

–We must begin by asking, what about this Administration’s determined and open effort over the past four years to directly threaten every expression of and mechanism to maintain this nation’s democracy?

But aside from that, here we find once more the argument that the merit system is actually a level playing field. It is not. As we said in Part 2, “That’s why pushing “color blindness” and “meritocracy” are indeed tools of racism: they ask people to assume a level playing field that does not exist. Meritocracy means ‘we all start with the same opportunities, and those who take advantage of them and work hard will succeed.’ But we don’t all start with the same opportunities, the same equality of opportunity, as the Founders put it, and therefore meritocracy is not truly possible.”

And that’s why we must tell people that, unless we are working hard and deliberately and honestly to address racism and sexism, treating individuals on the basis of individual merit really is racist or sexist, because we take a system that ensures the success of whites and men and then say “Well, I guess blacks and women don’t succeed because they just aren’t as talented as white men. They had a fair chance, and they failed.”

Such activities also promote division and inefficiency when carried out by Federal contractors. The Federal Government has long prohibited Federal contractors from engaging in race or sex discrimination and required contractors to take affirmative action to ensure that such discrimination does not occur. The participation of contractors’ employees in training that promotes race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating similarly undermines efficiency in Federal contracting. Such requirements promote divisiveness in the workplace and distract from the pursuit of excellence and collaborative achievements in public administration.

–Yes, there are rules on the books to prevent federal contracts from being granted to contractors that don’t have a fair and equitable workforce or policies. But many studies over many years show that those rules are regularly flouted. Even if they weren’t, and every federal contractor was fully anti-racist and anti-sexist, wouldn’t that be the likely result of decades of diversity training, which is now illegal? How can federal contractors continue that imagined stellar record if they can no longer conduct honest diversity training?

We assume that most people reading this blog–like most people in the world–work in a company or organization. All of these companies experience divisiveness in the workplace. Is the main or only source of this divisiveness diversity training? Probably not. We’d even say definitely not. If we had to make a hypothesis about which causes more divisiveness in the workplace–prejudice or diversity training–we’d say it’s the former.

Therefore, it shall be the policy of the United States not to promote race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating in the Federal workforce or in the Uniformed Services, and not to allow grant funds to be used for these purposes. In addition, Federal contractors will not be permitted to inculcate such views in their employees.

–Here the perverse equation is made baldly clear: honest diversity training that identifies white racism and male sexism is “race or sex stereotyping or scapegoating”. Therefore, there is no more federal funding for any diversity training that identifies white racism or male sexism. Again, while we could see a bad-intentioned person arguing that white people are not the only racists (thus ignoring the specific U.S. context of institutional racism that promotes white people over others), it’s hard to see how they would argue that women are as guilty of sexism as men. Or not; we suppose any group as dedicated to ignoring history and reality as this administration could do it.

Next time: “divisive concepts”…