West Virginia State College has been tasked with reviewing its programs and practices after the state’s governor issued an govt order in opposition to range, fairness and inclusion. Whereas different public establishments within the state must do the identical, West Virginia State College is in a considerably distinctive place: It’s a public, traditionally Black establishment with a predominantly white scholar physique. The college serves all, however range and inclusion are a part of its founding mission.
Increased ed consultants say that whereas few public HBCUs are brazenly discussing the problem, West Virginia State isn’t the one such establishment that’s present process this type of overview course of as DEI bans proliferate. Some argue that subjecting HBCUs to those reviews is counterintuitive in mild of their historic mission, elevating questions on how such establishments will fare within the present state and federal coverage panorama.
West Virginia State launched its overview after Governor Patrick Morrisey final month banned state establishments from utilizing “state funds, property, or sources” to “grant or assist DEI employees positions, procedures or programs.” He additionally prohibited mandating DEI statements or any coaching or programming that “promotes or encourages the granting of preferences based mostly on one particular person’s specific race, shade, intercourse, ethnicity, or nationwide origin.” The Basis for Particular person Rights and Expression, an advocacy group free of charge speech rights, castigated the manager order as overly broad and warned it might restrict what’s taught in West Virginia school rooms.
The chief order additionally required “all cupboard secretaries and division heads beneath the authority of the Governor” to finish a report inside 30 days, figuring out any positions, procedures or programs based mostly in “theories of DEI.”
In response, West Virginia State College, together with different public universities within the state, submitted a letter outlining diversity-related positions, programs and actions, stated Ericke Cage, the college’s president.
“If there are considerations raised by the governor’s workplace … then we have to work to barter attainable resolutions,” Cage stated, although he expects it gained’t come to that.
Within the letter, the college’s normal counsel, Alice R. Faucett, argued {that a} complete overview discovered no proof the college engages in or helps “preferential remedy” based mostly on DEI rules.
On the identical time, the response readily acknowledged the college’s historical past and mission as an HBCU.
“All procedural practices and programs at WVSU are designed to foster an inclusive and equitable setting,” Faucett wrote. In addition they “promote equity and equal entry whereas guaranteeing no group receives preferential remedy. The College stays devoted to serving all members of the neighborhood, notably those that have been traditionally marginalized, as a part of its longstanding mission.”
The letter highlighted some practices and insurance policies that replicate the college’s “dedication to range, inclusion and compliance with state directives.” They included annual Title IX trainings, providers for sexual assault survivors, campus shows on human rights legislation and electronic mail messages recognizing Black Historical past Month, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Girls’s Historical past Month and different observances.
Faucett’s response additionally famous that the college receives some federal grants and privately funded scholarships with “DEI elements,” with out providing additional element.
Felecia Commodore, an affiliate professor of upper schooling on the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, stated different public universities have taken an analogous strategy to DEI bans, arguing to state lawmakers that “there’s nothing to reorganize, as a result of we’re not doing what you’re saying.”
‘Baked Into Who We Are’
Although such DEI reviews might sound fraught for an HBCU, Cage believes the college is prone to come out unscathed—and it might even fare higher beneath the governor’s scrutiny than its non-HBCU counterparts. He famous that West Virginia State doesn’t have a DEI workplace or particular DEI personnel, a element additionally highlighted within the college’s response doc.
“In terms of range and inclusiveness, that’s actually baked into who we’re as an establishment as a part of our DNA,” Cage stated. “At our very core, we’re all about being a extremely inclusive establishment the place any scholar, no matter their background, can come and get a good-quality schooling.”
He additionally emphasised that WVSU’s scholar inhabitants is majority white. College information from fall 2024 exhibits white college students made up about 72 % of the roughly 3,200 enrollees, whereas Black college students composed about 10 %, making it laborious to argue the HBCU favors one racial group over one other. Nationwide, non-Black college students made up 24 % of enrollment at HBCUs in 2020, in comparison with 15 % in 1976, a development that’s sparked dialogue inside a few of these establishments about how one can protect HBCUs’ legacy whereas attracting and serving an more and more broad vary of scholars.
Commodore identified that, in actual fact, “HBCUs had been among the solely establishments that by no means had race-based admissions.” HBCUs had been based after the abolition of slavery to teach Black People at a time when such college students weren’t welcome at different larger schooling establishments.
For some time, non-Black college students “selected to not go to them, however [HBCUs] have been inclusive since their inception,” she stated. “If the intention of those reviews of DEI is to make sure that establishments usually are not discriminating due to race or gender or intercourse, to make sure that individuals are not being prioritized or excluded … truly, HBCUs had been the mannequin for that.”
On condition that historical past, Cage theorized HBCUs is probably not closely affected by DEI bans for a similar causes he’s looking forward to his personal establishment: Range and inclusion are intrinsic to how these establishments function, not housed in a selected workplace or heart. On the identical time, they serve all college students. Non-HBCUs, alternatively, have made modifications over time, increase helps and providers for college kids of shade, which are actually in danger.
For “predominantly white establishments [that] haven’t historically or traditionally had that target inclusivity, I feel it is going to be a problem,” Cage stated. “It can be crucial for establishments to be welcoming, to offer assist methods for various college students,” and DEI programs had been meant to verify college students from underrepresented backgrounds “felt that they had been a part of the college neighborhood.”
Some non-HBCUs within the state are scrambling to make modifications to adjust to the manager order. The state flagship, West Virginia College, only a few hours away from WVSU, reported in late January that it will shut down its Division of Range, Fairness and Inclusion in response to the manager order, a transfer the governor celebrated as a “win.”
“That is only the start of our effort to root out DEI,” Morrisey stated in a video announcement concerning the division’s demise. “That’s going to occur increasingly more within the weeks and months forward.”
Issues Stay
Shaun Harper, College Professor and Provost Professor of Schooling, Enterprise and Public Coverage on the College of Southern California and an opinion contributor to Inside Increased Ed, stated it’s turn out to be“extremely pervasive” for public HBCUs to must conduct reviews of their DEI work as state-level DEI bans unfold—even when many HBCU leaders aren’t discussing the problem publicly.
And such reviews are additional burdensome for HBCUs, he argued.
“If a predominantly white establishment will get that very same request, it’s seemingly lots simpler for them to checklist their tradition facilities, their Workplace of Multicultural Affairs, maybe the workplace of the chief range officer,” stated Harper, who additionally serves as USC’s Clifford and Betty Allen Chair in City Management. For HBCUs, it’s “not possible, in actual fact, to catalog the whole lot that might in any other case qualify in some other context as DEI” as a result of most have majority-Black scholar populations and equipment their programming and providers towards their scholar our bodies.
“It’s actually onerous for presidents and their cupboard members and others on their campuses to even try to finish this train,” Harper added. “It requires huge sums of their time.”
Harper doesn’t consider state lawmakers are gunning for HBCUs with anti-DEI bans; it’s extra seemingly they thought little or no about how laborious it will be for them to checklist their range efforts, he stated. Nonetheless, the bans make some public HBCU leaders worry for his or her state funding in the event that they don’t comply, or if their DEI reviews fail to appease state lawmakers when many don’t have funding to spare.
Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the Nationwide Affiliation of Range Officers in Increased Schooling, stated a part of the problem with many DEI bans is their “vagueness” and the “chaos” that may create for larger ed establishments.
The wording of some legal guidelines and govt orders calls into query, what can an HBCU do “to acknowledge, train, have fun, promote, its roots?” she stated. “Is celebrating a nationwide vacation”—like Martin Luther King Jr. Day—“is that acceptable?”
Cage stated he hasn’t dominated out that a few of WVSU’s programs may very well be in danger—together with federal grants with DEI elements or privately funded scholarships for college kids from sure racial backgrounds or geographic areas—consequently both of the governor’s govt order or President Donald Trump’s efforts to root out federal funding for DEI.
“If these privately funded scholarships are put in jeopardy, or if federal grants are eradicated, there might be a direct affect on our means to assist our college students or to advance analysis and innovation on our campus,” he stated. “Our college students come to us with a thirst for data, however in addition they come to us with not a whole lot of monetary sources. I can’t inform you the place we’d provide you with the sources to fill that hole.”
Whereas the college is reviewing its tutorial programs as nicely, Cage stated any modifications to curricula or tutorial programming would fly within the face of the college’s accreditation requirements, which require a dedication to tutorial freedom.
“In terms of tutorial freedom and integrity, these are issues that we actually want to carry the road on,” he stated.
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