A Better DEI Path: Strong voices and unique ideas to reduce divisiveness in diversity discourse

By Neil Gonsalves | This article highlights a problematic race-specific equity initiative and recommends Kwame Anthony Appiah and Sheena Mason as sensible alternatives for DEI practitioners

Written by Neil Gonsalves for Seeking Veritas on Substack

I have always believed that letting people speak freely was the best way to know where they stand on an issue. Silencing people does not change their negative attitudes it merely masks or hides them. People have often asked how I feel when I hear racist or vile comments; my answer is simple - I do not let it rent space in my head. My self-worth is not contingent on the musings of ignorant or bigoted people.

As a general rule of thumb, not letting stupidity rent space in my head has worked really well for me. That is not to imply that certain comments or attitudes don’t make me cringe, I have plenty of thoughts on the veracity of prejudiced truth claims - they just don’t make it very high on my list of priorities on any given day. But, every now and again the click-bait styled headline of a story stops me in my tracks. I know I should probably scroll on before getting unnecessarily vexed - but alas, occasionally I take the bait.

Is it click bait if it’s true?

On November 26th, 2023 - Yes I said 2023 - I came across an article in the Wall Street Journal titled, “To Shrink Learning Gap, This District Offers Classes Separated by Race” by Sara Randazzo and Douglas Belkin. - After reading the article I had to question my long held belief that letting people speak freely is the best way to know where they stand on an issue. - In 2023 I find it increasingly difficult to tell who the pro-segregationists are, the white sheets of yesteryear were so much simpler to pick out. Sometimes they even signaled their bigotry with clear, albeit crude and uncouth, symbols like a burning cross.

Is it better to be with your own?

According to the article, the school district leaders in Evanston, just north of Chicago Illinois, were contending with an academic achievement gap in their district. Apparently when grades were analyzed based on student’s identified race they found disparities, black and latino students scored lower on standardized tests than white students.

The school board believed that race was the single most impactful variable that influenced performance, so they offered new classes at the high school voluntarily separated by race. (The enrolment had to be voluntary because federal law in the US prohibits public schools from utilizing mandatory segregation by race)

In addition to segregating students by race, they found some research that indicated some small improvements could be found in grades, retention and graduation rates, if students were also taught by teachers of the same race. The approach included segregated options in core subjects like math and English. The article did not report on the success of the programs but I anticipate that removing all the privileged higher grade hoarders in the class would have impacted the class average and reduced the inequitable grade distribution.

Randazzo and Belkin quoted Dena Luna, a leader in the Minneapolis Public School sector in their article, who stated;

“A lot of times within our education system, black students are expected to conform to a white standard… In our spaces, you don’t have to shed one ounce of yourself because everything about our space is rooted in blackness.”

Advocates of the approach believe that the race-specific equity initiatives only work with community support and buy-in. Luckily for those advocates, there has been growing support for segregated race-specific strategies in curriculum, student housing, school clubs and convocation ceremonies at post secondary institutions and now at secondary schools as well.

In an article written by Katherine Mangan for ‘The Chronicle of Higher Education’, she reported on student reactions to recent rollbacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. In describing the value of segregated spaces also commonly referred to as affinity programs, Mangan wrote;

“A sense of connection, experts say, can be critical to academic success... Affinity groups that allow students to socialize with members of their own race let them “refuel” in a comfortable setting with classmates who understand the challenges they’re facing, many student leaders and experts believe. They’re pushing colleges to provide more resources that meet those students’ specific needs, whether it’s for culturally sensitive counselors, lounges to kick back in, or help navigating financial-aid forms”

Evanston Township High School had nearly 200 students voluntarily enrolled in classes with students of the same race, taught by a teacher of the same race as them. - It may be too early to predict but it is possible that the trend could continue down from high schools to primary schools until we arrive at race-specific kindergarten. - I don’t think they will push the movement to maternity wards in hospital but I’ve been wrong before, I once naively believed previously marginalized people wouldn’t advocate for segregation in schools.

Ostrich Strategy to Safer Spaces

There is an inescapable irony in receiving support for segregation from the descendants of the civil rights activist movement, those who fought to end segregation a mere 60 years ago. - It appears the current generation of students believe that segregated spaces make them more comfortable and provide a safer environment.

Randazzo and Belkin quote students in the program who were satisfied with the new options;

“It’s a safe space. In AP classes that are mostly white, I feel like if I answer wrong, I am representing all black kids. I stay quiet in those classes.”

The school board is also considering segregation by gender as well; I assume the thinking is if people of colour do better in coloured classes, taught by coloured teachers using coloured curriculum, surely girls could benefit from being in female only spaces.

Perhaps the problematic white people and men can be moved to a separate space where they cannot cause emotional distress to anyone; I guess they could go one step further and demarcate the spaces clearly as WHITE ONLY or MEN ONLY so as to avoid any accidental interactions in these UNSAFE spaces. - If only we could predict how that would turnout or had a history lesson to guide us!

An alternative to regression

Of course, my sarcasm and satire aside, there may actually be a better way to tackle social problems. Disparities do exist, wealth and opportunities are unequally distributed. Social determinants of health have real consequences and life is often just plain unfair. The presumption however that ‘race’ can serve as a single cause variable seems simplistic and unsophisticated.

I would argue that our fixation on race is actually a major contributing factor to the entrenched experience of racism, at least as described in our contemporary discourse. In 2023 it appears we have forgotten the advances made when ‘race’ was unmasked as nothing more than an arbitrary construct, devoid of scientific reality. In 2023 it appears we have forgotten the advances made when we successfully argued that ‘race’ was not deterministic. In 2023 it appears we have forgotten the advances made when a court ruled separate is not equal.

A USA Today op-ed writer posited;

“It was the argument of the old-time segregationists that the various races were too different to get along side by side. The best that could be hoped for was that each could stay in its lane and flourish on its own with minimal contact with the others. That’s sounding more and more like the sort of thing we’re hearing on college campuses, where each group is told that others can’t understand its thinking because of its unique experiences, requiring its own safe space.”

Or I could just quote a young preacher who addressed a congregation at Holt Street Baptist Church on December 20th, 1956 (The same day the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that segregation on public buses was unconstitutional) who famously said;

“Separate facilities are inherently unequal, and that old Plessy Doctrine of separate but equal is no longer valid, either sociologically or legally.”

Strong voices and unique ideas to reduce divisiveness in diversity discourse

Thinkers like Kwame Anthony Appiah and Sheena Mason offer a refreshing alternative to the divisive discourse that has dominated the DEI narrative for the past several years.

Appiah is a prominent social philosopher on pluralism, his book “The Lies That Bind” offers a critique of the current diversity paradigm By his analysis the problem with the contemporary diversity work is its myopic focus on essentialism.

Sheena Mason has a new book scheduled for release in early 2024; in it she masterfully illustrates the limitations of tethering ourselves to antiquated notions of “race”. It provides a nonpartisan unifying perspective that exposes the myth of ‘Race’ as the mere host upon which the parasitic nature of racism is dependent. Mason breathes much needed new life into the current and often divisive DEI discourse, by de-politicizing the subject and forthrightly tackling the root of the racism problem - “Race”

If an achievement gap is the problem we are attempting to address, supplying students with a never ending stream of limiting beliefs hardly seems like a winning strategy. Maybe the conversation should focus on teaching and learning strategies. Maybe the reforms need to be substantive not performative.

About the author: Neil Gonsalves is an Indian-born Canadian immigrant who grew up in Dubai, U.A.E. and moved to Canada in 1995. He is an Ontario college educator, a TEDx speaker, a published author and columnist, a recreational dog trainer and an advocate for new immigrant integration and viewpoint diversity.

Notes:

https://archive.ph/2023.11.29-132435/https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/to-shrink-learning-gap-this-district-offers-classes-separated-by-race-394d82dd