Legislative attack on DEI office is just the beginning

State lawmakers who gladly adopted national political scare tactics claimed a huge “victory” last Friday at the expense of the freedoms of University of Wyoming students and faculty members.

The days when the Wyoming Legislature valued its and others’ independence and ignored outside influences clearly at odds with residents’ best interests are long gone. Now many lawmakers wholeheartedly embrace any asinine idea pushed by the radical right in other states.

UW’s Board of Trustees unanimously voted to follow the Legislature’s budget dictate to close the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, despite the fact lawmakers who defunded it couldn’t even define what the office does. The board said no to other options, including using private funds to keep it open, instead choosing to reassign staff and move many of its programs to other parts of the university. 

The so-called Wyoming Freedom Caucus in the House and like-minded members of the Senate, plus extremist groups like Moms for Liberty, prey on voters’ unfounded fears that a more diverse population will give minority groups an unfair advantage in higher education and employment.

DEI doesn’t single out any group or individual for preferential treatment. It has nothing to do with welfare or affirmative action. The latter has never been practiced by UW, either for hiring employees or student admission. In fact, the DEI office was tasked with ensuring that the university did not give preferential treatment to job candidates.

The Legislature has resisted passing laws banning K-12 public schools from teaching “Critical Race Theory,” a higher-education concept that seeks to understand and combat inequality and racism in the U.S.

But it has approved anti-transgender laws modeled after other states’ legislation that addresses issues that don’t impact Wyoming, including a ban on gender-changing surgeries not even done here. The far right has pivoted to targeting university DEI offices throughout the country, and it hit a bulls-eye in Wyoming. 

The office supports diverse members of the university, including veterans, people with disabilities, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community and first-generation students. A central office helps provide ways to break down educational barriers, and institute policies and practices that allow all students to feel accepted.

Lauren McClane, who teaches at UW’s Law School, gave trustees a spot-on description of what the Legislature did when it cut the office’s $1.7 million biennial budget.

“It’s quite ass-backward that the Legislature did all this apparently for equality for all, when in the end what we’re actually going to end up doing is discriminating,” she told Cowboy State Daily.

McClane claimed she could teach a class devoted to all the ways removing DEI violates the U.S. Constitution. It should be mandatory for lawmakers who set back the years of progress Wyoming has made addressing systemic racism and sexism.

Rep. Karlee Provenza (D-Laramie), whose House district includes UW, told me Gov. Mark Gordon was right to veto a portion of the budget that would have prohibited state funds from going toward “any diversity, equity and inclusion program, activity or function.” That would have cost the university millions of dollars in federal research grants. But he was wrong to approve taking all state money away from the DEI office specifically.

“I wish [Gordon] had done the right thing and said this was all nonsense driven by people in D.C., who are trying to attack DEI as an attempt to sow divisiveness among the people of America,” Provenza said. “And now we’ve brought it to Wyoming. It’s blatantly meant to create hatred and anger between groups of people.”

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, a non-voting member of the UW Board of Trustees, said people across the state are very angry about “the notion of one race [or] gender being inherently racist over another.”

The superintendent said it’s an extreme interpretation of DEI, but she failed to call it out as a dishonest one. 

“That’s not what our Office of DEI does,” said Chairman Kermit Brown. He added it’s important for the rest of the state to know how the office serves its minority students. 

Some DEI programs and activities will be revised and funded, but UW hasn’t announced which will survive.

Moms for Liberty in Wyoming, which fought COVID-19 public health orders and tried to ban LGBTQ-themed library books, is obsessed with shutting down UW’s DEI office.

Mary Schmidt, a Natrona County School District No. 1 school board member and former member of Moms for Liberty, told UW trustees the “true intent” of DEI departments isn’t to promote diversity, but “to facilitate a societal shift in the communities of Wyoming through the promotion of gender chaos.”

Brendan Cantwell, a Michigan State University professor, told the Hechinger Report there is nothing ideological in how DEI offices operate. But he noted many anti-DEI laws seek to control what may be taught in college courses. 

UW President Ed Seidel vowed academic freedom will be protected. But when the Legislature casually guts funding of DEI and related activities, how long will it be before the Freedom Caucus insists on regulating college curricula? Why wouldn’t the university also fall in line with those demands? 

UW officials should heed Cantwell’s warning: “We’re fighting over whether or not political parties that are in control of state government, in control of Congress, can control higher education. This is not about regulating funding or financial aid, but what people may learn.”

Voters don’t elect UW’s board of trustees, but they do elect their representatives and senators. The Legislature rejected several anti-DEI bills, but when the Freedom Caucus couldn’t get its way, it took money away by adding a line item in the state budget. The move didn’t get a public hearing.    

UW’s trustees listened to students and faculty plead for hours to keep the DEI office open, and many were disappointed by the final decision. But UW’s primary funding source is the Legislature’s block grant, so I understand why trustees felt they had no choice but to follow its budgetary direction.

Provenza said there was a better option: call it something else. After all, her colleagues who demanded its closure couldn’t even articulate what the office does.

“Ultimately, I think the university should just change the name,” Provenza suggested. “Call it the Freedom and Opportunity Office.”

What a great idea! Extremists weaponized “DEI,” so let’s make legislators sponsor a bill or amendment if they want to eliminate any program from an office dedicated to freedom and opportunity — values the vast majority of Wyomingites still respect — and see how much support they get.

Several students and faculty told UW’s trustees closing the DEI office is antithetical to freedom. UW graduate fellow Michelle Mason reminded them that “just because the Legislature has a warped view of what DEI is does not make it true.”

“What you are all doing is making me anxious, making me feel unwelcome at this institution,” said Bianca Infante De La Cruz, a native of Mexico who works in Multicultural Affairs at UW. “I want to be here for students.”

It’s distressing that such heartfelt expressions about the DEI office and the values it represents were tossed aside in favor of listening to politicians who crave the kind of power and attention that comes from parroting out-of-state extremists. 

That’s not leadership from lawmakers. In this year’s elections, we must vote for legislators who want to find solutions to real Wyoming problems, not score cheap political points by manufacturing a phony crisis that divides our state.

One related casualty of the DEI office’s closure is the Black 14 Social Justice Summer Institute, which honors 14 Black football players who were kicked off UW’s team in 1969 for protesting racial injustice. The institute began in 2022, but when members announced this month they would protest the Legislature’s action, the university canceled the event.

“The Black 14 firmly believes that everyone deserves equal treatment and opportunities, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, or other characteristics,” the group said in a statement.

Now, that’s what real leadership looks like.