Every commentator who is left of center is taking the opportunity of Trump’s first 100 days to blast the bejesus out of him. I agree with all of it. Donald Trump is an awful human being who is doing an awful job as president. I take a back seat to nobody in my contempt for that man.
But there’s nothing more unpalatable to me — or more boring for readers — than to rush to the head of every liberal parade — or every conservative one, for that matter, though that’s not often a concern in these parts. So, while everyone else is tripping over one another to state the obvious — only with even more gusto than the other guy — we’re taking a couple of days to focus on two things on which we actually agree with Trump. Yesterday, it was forgiving student loans. Today, it’s Trump’s pushback on diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
Let me hasten to add right here that Trump is doing this the way he does everything: badly. He’s overplaying his hand and he’s not making a distinction between aspects of DEI that might be good and those that are truly wrong. Nonetheless, for all his over-reaching, he’s succeeded in changing the dynamic. DEI is no longer on the offensive. People are no longer staying up late dreaming up new words to describe newly imagined offenses. Instead, DEI is being challenged everywhere and that’s good. Better programs will come out of this, despite the messiness of the “process” (more like the chaos) that Trump has engendered.
We’ve long needed a correction in how we handle efforts at becoming a color blind society — we should start by enthusiastically restating the goal of having a color blind society. (You might be surprised at how controversial that has become.) I have no doubt that we need some efforts in that regard, but current discrimination in the name of addressing historic discrimination is not the answer. The common enemy is discrimination itself.
But things took an unfortunate turn a decade or so ago when it became fashionable on the hard-left to embrace the quasi-Marxist notion of group victimhood imposed by group oppressors, none of whom needed to take responsibility, or got any dispensation, due to their own individual actions.
That led to all kinds of silliness. Here in Madison the culmination of the ludicrousness happened when a student stumbled on the fact that a big rock on the UW campus had been referred to by an offensive name… once… a hundred years ago. So, the UW spent $50,000 to move the rock to an undisclosed location where it could no longer do “harm.”
That incident was just slap stick, but real harm was done when the UW was complicit in trashing the reputation of one of its most accomplished alums. Frederic March was not only a great actor, but he was an early champion of civil rights. For reasons that will remain a mystery, he was briefly a member of a campus group calling itself the Ku Klux Klan. The chancellor ordered up an investigation which found that it appeared to be a sort of academic honors society and it never engaged in any racist activity. Nobody knows why they chose that unfortunate name, but March was not a racist. In fact, quite the opposite. No matter. At the height of this madness, March’s name was stripped from a campus theatre and responsible adults in the campus administration refused to replace it, disregarding the sifting and winnowing done by their own study.
All of that was at the height of the terror. One thing Donald Trump has accomplished is to change the atmosphere so that it’s hard to imagine that this kind of madness would take place in the current environment. To be sure, Trump has done this the way he’s done everything else: he’s used a sledge hammer when a scalpel was called for. Nonetheless, an environment where administrators might feel free to say that they were not going to move a rock because somebody once called it by a bad name and they weren’t going to trash a good man because he once belonged to an organization with a similarly bad name would be a refreshing change.
So, while I don’t agree with everything that’s being done at the Federal and state levels to push back on DEI, I do very much welcome a broad adjustment back to sanity.
But one place that is as resistant to change as any is public education. We don’t have to look hard for an example. See the “unconference” sponsored by DPI. To quote last Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal story on this:
The May 20, free-to-attend “unconference” for library workers at Madison’s Olbrich Botanical Gardens promises “to uplift and center the experiences of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) library workers in Wisconsin,” according to a news release issued Tuesday by the state Department of Public Instruction’s Library Services Team.
When the State Journal followed up to ask if it was really true that only certain people were invited based on race, DPI issued a statement saying that everyone was welcome… though clearly their intent was quite the opposite. I’m just spit-balling here, but maybe DPI should sponsor conferences that help librarians, oh I don’t know say… manage libraries. They could center the experience of good library management.
This is another example of a broader problem in public education: the idea that schools should be platforms for social change. No, they shouldn’t. They should be places where kids learn to read and write, to think rationally using facts and logic and then to reach their own conclusions about politics — to the extent they’ll care about politics at all — on their own.
Let’s be honest, people. Without any real program, this “unconference” is a political rally paid for with taxpayer dollars. It’s intended to be a sharp stick in the eye to Trump and to Republican legislators — something that, under other circumstances, I might appreciate. This is exactly the wrong direction to go in because it just reenforces all the bad vibes people get when they hear “DEI.”
A better way to go? Start by reinstating Frederic March’s name on the theatre and good name in Wisconsin. It would be an important move because it would announce that Wisconsin’s leaders were no longer afraid to be sane and sensible. (Let’s not spend another $50k to bring the big rock back to campus. Let the poor thing rest wherever it wound up.)
Then, take a look at all of DPI’s DEI policies and get rid of anything that reeks of Critical Race Theory while doubling down on projects that move us toward fairness, nondiscrimination and a color blind society.
If you look at the details of what Trump’s doing with regard to DEI it’s a mess and I actually disagree with some of it — Harvard was right to sue him. But in the big picture the change in direction is a good thing. Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction may be the last place to get the message.
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Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos 
“Donald Trump is an awful human being …”
Ahem … “Convicted felon Donald Trump is an awful human being…”.
Get it together man!
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Thanks for that sharp-eyed correction.
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“Donald Trump is an awful human being who is doing an AWFUL JOB as president. ” (bolds/caps/italics mine)
Do tell; to wit:
Source: TRUMP EFFECT: A Running List of New U.S. Investment in President Trump’s Second Term – The White House
Much ink has been spilled condemning the tariffs but very little on some of the positive effects.
U.S.-based investments in President Trump’s second term:
Source: TRUMP EFFECT: A Running List of New U.S. Investment in President Trump’s Second Term – The White House
That doesn’t even include the U.S. investments pledged by foreign countries.
Serious question: How could your news sources miss/omit all that (and more) unless it was deliberate?
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When were those announcements made? I blame Biden!
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Foxconn promised a $10 billion investment in Wisconsin and the creation of 13,000 jobs.
Don’t count your chickens till they’re hatched.
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Gotch,
You still won’t even say if you’re for or against Trump’s tariff strategy. After all, what if Trump changes his mind!?
The source you quoted is propaganda. Companies make announcements like this every day. Companies made these types of announcements before the tariff plans too, even under (aghast) D administrations!
Like I have said, I’m fine with tariffs if implemented with competence. Competence is the last word that can describe this clown car administration.
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When I Googled “goals of the University of Wisconsin Education School,” I got the quote below. A goal is to create social justice warriors, not teachers. “The UW-Madison School of Education aims to provide transformational and innovative learning experiences, preparing students to be equity-oriented agents of change and productive citizens who embody the Wisconsin Idea.”
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While we’re reinstating Fredric March, I’d vote to return Al Franken to the US Senate. I was impressed with Franken throughout his time as a Minnesota senator. He was smart, thoughtful, and represented the state’s interests to the best of his ability. As a bonus, Franken was occasionally funny in a witty way, an antidote to Trump’s buffoonish behavior. He clearly worked hard to be taken seriously despite his comedy background.
The left’s cancel culture took him down over a photo that, while stupid and childish, was basically harmless. It deserved an apology, not a resignation from the Senate. I miss Al Franken.
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I couldn’t agree more on Franken. And we’re not alone. This a frequent refrain from my liberal friends who otherwise supported the Me Too Movement. My favorite Franken moment: it was the confirmation hearing for, I think, Sotomayor and he asked her, totally seriously, “Perry Mason only lost one case. What was it?”
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They could have just re-named the rock…..for free!
Attempting to follow the “Gordian Knot” logic of these people, it could be argued that the ROCK, itself, was the victim of discrimination. There is NO evidence that this rock ever oppressed a single person, or thing. Having been once saddled with a racial epithet, this rock spent the last 100 years striving to prove itself to be the equal of any other rock, only to be re-marginalized by the social justice gestapo. Their final act of supreme oppression was to “cancel” the rock all together! This should come as no surprise, as these people also are known to behead the statues of abolitionists.
They could have just re-named the rock FOR FREE!
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I thought Al Franken WAS back in the U.S. Senate. Don’t you guys watch “The Residence” on Netflix?
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just wait until THE DONALD becomes THE POPE, all the liberals are going to their own personal Hell. Me I am not Catholic, BUT I do love the Latin Tridenten Mass.
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