Two Tales of DEI

Sarah Inama was making a statement that should not have been controversial. The middle school teacher in Idaho displayed a sign in her classroom that simply said that everyone was welcome, regardless of their background. Here’s the poster:

But the convicted felon Donald Trump has created an atmosphere of such terror that free speech is threatened everywhere — even the most innocuous speech. So, in January, as Trump was taking office, school officials told Inama to take her poster down. She initially complied, but then changed her mind and put it back up.

Good for her. She’s one of the growing list of heroes who are daring to stand up to the convicted felon in the White House.

Now, regular YSDA readers will know that we’re no fan of DEI, at least in the way that too much of it has been practiced. What we’re against is the brand of DEI that originates with writers like Ibram X. Kendi, who seek to treat everyone as a member of a group, instead of as an individual, and who see the world in simplistic oppressor/oppressed terms. It’s dehumanizing and it invites everyone to think of themselves as either helpless victims or horrible oppressors, regardless of their personal views and actions. It’s also wildly unpopular, as it deserves to be. Kendi and his ilk have done tremendous damage to the cause of equality and race relations in this country.

But what the hell’s wrong with simply being welcoming, for cryin’ out loud? If Inama gets fired for this and she sues to get her job back, sign me up to send a few bucks to a Go Fund Me account to help pay her lawyers.

But then there’s LaVar Charleston. Until he was fired recently, Charleston ran the UW Madison diversity programs. Well, he didn’t so much run them as he milked them for all they were worth. According to an audit conducted as part of a study of DEI pushed for by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, the UW discovered gross irregularities in Charleston’s financial management, such as it was.

Here are just two paragraphs from an incredibly damning story in the Wisconsin State Journal:

“Between 2022 and 2024, the department’s budget increased by 59%, from $7.9 million to $12.6 million in 2024. A large portion of that came from increases to salaries over that timespan, including a near tripling of student wages. (The story does not explain what students were being paid to do.) Charleston himself made $364,207 in the role, receiving a more than $50,000 raise from the year prior.

“The department also spent thousands of dollars in reimbursements for travel, lodging and conferences, both in person and online, under Charleston’s oversight. One employee was reimbursed about $45,000 over the span of two years for travel and online conferences. Another program was comped $32,000 for a trip to Maui, Hawaii, including $14,000 in lodging.”

The story notes that last year 52 staff members attended 36 conferences. What on earth do 52 people in that department do? Apparently, they go to conferences.

This story is devastating, as it should be, to DEI on the UW campus. Seems to me the whole department should be abolished and rethought from the ground up.

But this isn’t doing the UW’s budget requests any favors either. How can a department head get away with this kind of thing? Where are the controls? Who’s running this place?

And while we’re at it, how come Joe Gow gets fired as chancellor at UW La-Crosse and gets his tenure revoked for producing racy videos and books on his own time while Charleston is able to go back to his old teaching job? Why isn’t the Board of Regents calling for firing Charleston from his teaching job as well? Hasn’t he done a whole lot more damage to the university system than Gow?

It also underscores that Vos was right to do what we’d been urging for years: order a comprehensive audit of how DEI is conducted all over state government. That comprehensive report should be done some time this year. (Democrats fought even this nonpartisan audit, reminding voters of why they don’t like them.)

Trump doesn’t just want to reform DEI. He wants to indiscriminately destroy it and go beyond that to wipe out anything that recognizes and tries to address true injustices in our society. No, everything is not about race. But some things are. Let’s try to make a sane distinction. Both Kendi and Trump are wrong, on different extremes.

Sarah Inama is fighting for the right kind of balance. LaVar Charleston has just fed the beast.

YSDA stands for:

Free speech.

The rule of law.

Reason.

Tolerance.

Pluralism.