When Vice-President Kamala Harris announced her candidacy for the presidency, one of the initial attacks on her from the right was that she was a “DEI” hire, implying that she wasn’t qualified for the role she holds because of her race. Unfortunately, this kind of thinking has entered every kind of schooling from early education through higher education.
Despite rapid growth in the cultural diversity of the nation’s children, a staggering 44 states have introduced and even passed policies banning DEI initiatives, or its counterpart critical race theory, in prekindergarten through grade 12 classrooms and higher education programs that prepare future K-12 teachers. Such policies often prohibit educators and related professionals from using age-appropriate classroom instruction, materials, and curricula that address race or racism, gender or sexual orientation, social justice, culture, diversity, equity and inclusion.
Books featuring Black and Brown children, and families with same-sex parents, have already been taken off library bookshelves in states like Texas and Missouri. School districts in Alabama and Tennessee are forbidden from using curriculum that helps children learn from atrocities in U.S. history, such as the genocide, exploitation, colonization, enslavement, segregation, and oppression of communities of color. Teachers working in Florida and Louisiana are only allowed to represent and honor children’s backgrounds if they are from White, Christian, English-speaking, and cis-gendered, two-parent households.
It’s commonly believed that children are too young to learn or think about issues of race and gender. But the reality is that young children ultimately live in a racialized world. They receive both implicit and explicit messages about their own and others’ culture and act upon these messages in ways that are either prosocial (like showing an understanding and acceptance of cultural differences) or harmful (like internalizing racist ideologies) from their very earliest days.
When young children are in classrooms where their racial-ethnic and gender identities and cultural and linguistic backgrounds are nurtured, they can safely learn about themselves and others. Ultimately, they thrive. In fact, decades of research has shown that young children are likely to have or develop prosocial behavior, higher peer acceptance, greater interest in learning, stronger academic and language competence, better self-esteem, and positive racial-ethnic identity (no matter what their race or ethnicity) when these discussions are had and materials are available.
Though bans on DEI initiatives are especially harmful for Black and Brown children, given the historical marginalization of Black and Brown communities in the U.S., they are truly dangerous for all young children. In the absence of education that engages with difference, all young children will grow up in more hostile environments.. Such policies will harden any biases that young children form, widen racial disparities in outcomes and opportunities, and fuel the pervasiveness of racism and inequity in our world.
Children have the right to learn about their own backgrounds and see their race, gender, culture, and language represented in their learning experiences. Equally critical, children have the right to learn about the backgrounds of their peers and other individuals within their communities.. We can’t do it individually, but together educators and education advocates can fight anti-DEI policies introduced or enacted in our local and state governments, via voting, lobbying and speaking up wherever and whenever possible and with elected officials.