I don’t know Mark Doggett, the Western Kentucky University professor whose recent Daily News commentary attacked DEI – “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” – in Kentucky’s post secondary schools, but I’m a little embarrassed for him. As a member of the science college, he ought to know policy arguments like his should turn on evidence. If there’s a problem, we should address it. But first of all, IS there a problem? Or is the DEI scare just another drummed up right-wing fever dream like Pizzagate, Bud Light or Jewish Space Lasers?

I taught at Western for over 40 years, serving on committees drawn from all over the university. I wrote or co-wrote two of our 10-year Southern Association accreditation reports covering all university departments and offices and consulted on a third. If Western discriminated against “anyone of European descent,” as Doggett puts it, I never heard of it. I was also a member of state-wide professional groups, even president of one, and no one ever raised a similar issue involving any other state school.

To give him credit, Doggett admits, “diversity, equity, and inclusion seem harmless enough,” but he then goes on to claim that at Kentucky schools these are code words for reverse discrimination against whites, who are assumed to be privileged “oppressors.” I waited for his evidence – even one concrete example of this reverse discrimination in practice. Not one! Not surprising though. Banning DEI is an anti-progressive solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.

Paranoia about diversity programs is just the latest in a long line of right-wing bugbears, trotted out to make us look the other way as the legislature guts child labor laws or piles new restrictions on food assistance programs – the sort of issues that really matter to ordinary folks. Don’t fall for it.

Joe Glaser

Bowling Green