Notes
DEI Working Group: Another exercise in futility? By Ronald M. Nate, Ph.D. (08/28/24)
idahofreedom.org/dei-working-group-anot…idahofreedom.org/dei-working-group-anot…
Idaho House Speaker Mike Moyle invited a few legislators to serve on an eight-member Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Education Working Group. It's unclear now who will lead the group and who else will serve on the panel.
Dr. Nate explains that yet another legislative working group on DEI is unnecessary for several reasons:
Costly: At least $10,000 taxpayer dollars for travel, per diem, and other expenses.
Time-consuming: Many meetings, many months.
Susceptible to interest groups.
Questionable legislative recommendations, if any.
Idaho already has a DEI Working Group.
That working group is the Idaho Freedom Foundation, which already has done the research, reported the current realities, and proposed solutions.
Nate then presents a sampling of reports, bill analyses, and other work IFF has done. He states that Idaho has made some progress with bills passed to slow the progressive DEI agenda in education, but these are just the start of what’s needed. He calls for bold action from the legislature, including bills that previously were proposed but did not pass due to being held in committee.
Finally, and we’re paraphrasing here, “we don’t need no shtinkin’ expensive, time-wasting, susceptible, ineffectual DEI working group. We’ve studied the issue thoroughly enough. Now it’s time to take bold action and stop the DEI march that permeates our educational institutions.”
To quote Dr. Nate accurately — no paraphrasing here:
We at the IFF, and no doubt many parents and students, are very interested in seeing what happens, but optimism remains a scarce commodity. Meanwhile, we spend money, waste time, and spin our hamster wheels, all while our public school children and college students are polluted on a daily basis with more DEI trash dumping.
Related: Umbrellas, Community Schools, United Way & School Board Meetings: eolson47.substack.com/p/umbrellas-commu…
