According to the Executive Order, “Ending Radical and Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferencing” signed by President Trump, the administration defines DEI as “illegal and immoral discrimination programs.” However, discrimination is defined as “the unjust or prejudicial treatment of different categories of people, especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex, or disability.” Yet the programs Trump associates with the term stand to represent the antithesis of discrimination, as described by Biden’s Executive Order in 2021: “The Federal Government's goal in advancing equity is to provide everyone with the opportunity to reach their full potential.”
This begs the question: is DEI defined as the administration is insisting or by its representation of equity?
The Director of Student Equity & Title IX at Coastline, Dr. Christina Oja, shared how the attacks will materialize within the Coast Colleges amidst the public uncertainty of DEI programs. “We’ve always had these equity or ‘DEI’ practices — they’ve just been called different things throughout the years…If we look at DEI programs, they are making sure people have access, that people have equitable opportunities to achieve the same outcomes,” she said. “We can call that ‘DEI’ or we can call that doing our jobs — we’re helping our students achieve their academic goals and making sure that [college] is accessible to anyone who wants access to it — that's always been our mission and we have no intention of changing our practices.” Accompanying the alterations to DEI programs at a federal level, is the Trump administration’s threat to withhold billions of dollars in grants and research funding from the country’s top universities if they do not comply with Trump’s ideological standpoints; requirements include removal of any mention of diversity from coursework, using new definitions of antisemitism to invoke drastic disciplinary action for international students who participate in protests, and going as far as instilling federally-appointed school administrators to oversee these changes. Dr. Oja leaves no doubt as to where Coastline College stands; however, aside from the district receiving their funding from the state of California, she mentioned the potential of individual federal student aid being at risk in the future if the district refused to comply with the administration’s demands. Photo By Lijah Lewis
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