Stop misjudging our DEI concerns
Published March 21, 2024
By Jim Martin
My colleague, Issac Bailey is one talented political writer. A careful reader? Maybe not so much.
His March 6 critique of Davidsonians for Freedom of Thought and Discourse (DFTD) is a perfect example. Our letter to alumni and subscribers objected to mandatory attendance at a highly provocative film whose theme was that all white people are racists. We also protested certain classes’ declared intention to have straight, white students confess they are “oppressors” and show their allegiance to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI).
Instead of proving us wrong, Bailey scolds what he imagines to be our hidden motives.
With fertile imagination, he says we’re allied with “book bans, gutted DEI, and “even the ouster of Harvard University’s first Black president.” We did all that? There’s not a single phrase in our statement advocating any such garbage. Had we wanted to attribute similarly unkind motives to him, a simple point would suffice: that those without reasonable evidence often resort to personal attacks.
Turning to the film, “I’m Not Racist... Am I?,” Bailey said: “DFTD’s misleading campaign was triggered by the discomfort of a few student-athletes.” A few? How about a hundred or so football players? That’s what Head Coach Scott Abell told us. The most effectively integrated biracial group on the entire campus could have had lasting problems of disunity if Abell hadn’t attended (uninvited) and held a meeting soon after to calm down how the film made them feel. This wasn’t part of the intended program. If Abell hadn’t cared, who would?
Bailey says the film was “a student initiative, not top-down as DFTD has suggested.” Well, that’s half-true. The student who proposed it didn’t command mandatory attendance. The Athletic Department did this. Top. Down.
We’re asked to believe this was just another healthy campus forum among eager truth-seekers. No, it was a darkly one-sided documentary from Cynical Race Theory influencers that “racist” and “white” are synonymous. What little time there was for 400 or so students to question the source or purpose of its radical view was led solely by one of the film’s producers. No one with a different viewpoint helped lead the discussion.
It would be interesting to learn how Bailey feels about classes in Spanish, calculus and cell biology requiring students to ”identify and confront oppressive behaviors” and commit to understanding how white supremacy and “other systems of oppression affect each of us,” as required by instructors.
Hopefully, he agrees that such trendy ideologies, lacking relevance to these courses, should be discussed, never imposed in unrelated courses. His leadership could stimulate healthier discussion of academic freedom for students, as well as for teachers.
We respectfully petition Davidson’s faculty and trustees to review these matters and set guidelines for whether and when such abuses are acceptable and worthy. Professors with such power over students ought to show more restraint before urging students to accept extreme, new, partisan notions.
