The UNC Board of Governor’s Committee on University Governance voted unanimously — and without discussion — on Wednesday to repeal and replace the UNC System’s current diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policy.

The Board’s proposed policy, among other things, would eliminate system-wide DEI metrics and goals across the UNC System, along with the requirement for schools to appoint a senior-level DEI officer.

The policy will go before the full Board of Governors on its consent agenda in May. It is effective upon its adoption, the draft document says.

“The University of North Carolina reaffirms its longstanding commitment to the equality of opportunity in education and employment as a core value,” . “As such, the University continues to ensure that diverse persons of any background, from North Carolina and beyond, are invited, included, and treated equally.”

The UNC System is made up of 17 institutions — 16 public universities and a public boarding high school, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics — that serve nearly 250,000 students each year. This decision could have ripple effects on other institutions of education from K-12 to community colleges as well as issues from the preparation of educators to the

The new policy would require that each institution certify by Sept. 1 that it “fully complies with the University’s commitment to institutional neutrality and nondiscrimination.” That reporting deadline includes each school eliminating or updating its current DEI positions.

The new policy proposal also states that “diversity means the ways in which individuals vary, including, but not limited to, backgrounds, beliefs, viewpoints, abilities, cultures, and traditions that distinguish one individual from another.”

Members of the UNC System Board of Governors, who , oversee the entire system. Republicans have maintained control of the state legislature for the last decade, and there is on the Board of Governors.

The Board of Governors then  to the individual universities’ boards of trustees as well as chancellors and presidents. You can view a list of the Board’s 24 voting members .

WRAL reported House Speaker Tim Moore, , said last week that lawmakers would allow universities to tackle the issue first. Moore is not running for re-election for his state seat in 2024.

Already, last June, North Carolina Republicans passed , “an act to amend the State Human Resources Act to prohibit compelled speech when an individual seeks state government or community college employment.”

That ban on “compelled speech” in hiring and admissions decisions has since impacted diversity efforts in faculty hiring and evaluation,

You can view the new policy proposal, “Equality Within the University of North Carolina,”

You can also view the UNC’s System’s current policy, , which was adopted in 2019.

What does the new policy say?

The includes 10 sections.

First, the policy states its purpose.

Next, the policy outlines the system’s nondiscrimination in employment practices and educational programs and activities. The policy states that the system “shall continue to comply with federal and state law prohibiting discrimination and harassment of members of protected classes.”

Here’s a quick look at the other sections:

• Ensuring Equality of All Persons & Viewpoints: This section further extends the nondiscrimination requirements for state government workplaces outlined in state statute (G.S. 126 14.6) to university-led student orientations, training, or activities.
• Commitment to the Freedom of Speech & Expression: “…the University of North Carolina shall continue its proud tradition of pursuing and embracing the most vigorous, open, and thoughtful exchange of ideas.”
• Maintaining Academic Freedom: The policy says the system “shall take no action that would limit the right of academic freedom in its faculty’s pursuit of teaching, research, and service, subject only to the institutional tenure policies.”
• Commitment to Student Success & Employee Well-being: “Campuses shall continue to implement programming or services designed to have a positive effect on the academic performance, retention, or graduation of students from different backgrounds, provided that programming complies with the institutional neutrality specified in Section VII of this policy and/or other state and federal requirements.”
• Maintaining Institutional Neutrality: “…No employing subdivision or employment position within the University shall be organized, be operated, speak on behalf of the University, or contract with third parties to provide training or consulting services regarding: matters of contemporary political debate or social action.”

The policy’s Sept. 1 report requirement also requires campus leaders to submit “a report on reductions in force and spending, along with changes to job titles and position descriptions, undertaken as a result of implementing this policy and how those savings achieved from these actions can be redirected to initiatives related to student success and wellbeing.”

Finally, the policy says student-led organizations “may use university facilities and receive student activity funding notwithstanding any speech or expressive activity by such organizations that would otherwise violate” the policy’s section on maintaining institutional neutrality.

What was repealed?

, in place since 2019, “sets forth procedures related to the oversight of D&I activities and related reporting to monitor the effectiveness of these efforts.”

Here is a look at the major requirements laid out in that policy:

• The designation of a senior officer at the UNC System Office to serve as DEI liaison to UNC System campuses.
• The appointment of a senior-level DEI officer at each constituent institution. This officer will assist the chancellor in DEI policy development, oversee DEI work, and advise on trainings and outreach, among other things.
• The establishment of of a UNC System Diversity and Inclusion Council to develop system-wide DEI goals and metrics and share best practices.
• The dissemination of DEI information to students and employees.

Read the full policy .

Efforts to reform UNC governance

, the Governor’s Commission on Public University Governance announced its recommendations for strengthening the UNC System, including the creation of a Center of Higher Education Governance, a larger system governance board, and changes to term lengths for board members, among other things.

Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper announced the commission , citing signs of undue political influence and bureaucratic meddling among university governance in the state.

The 15-member bipartisan , co-chaired by former UNC System leaders Tom Ross and Margaret Spellings, spent the following eight months studying board governance and appointment methods. From February to April, the commission also hosted six public listening sessions across the state to gather stakeholder input on improving public university governance.

“The Commission’s recommendations are motivated primarily by the principle that the governing boards of the UNC System and its institutions should reflect, represent and be accountable to the people they serve,” the report says. “While our state is rich in all types of diversity, that diversity and that strength is not reflected in our governance today in the manner contemplated by existing state law.”

is a link to the final report of recommendations. You can read the recommendations on page i-iv.

On Wednesday, Cooper with Ross speaking out against the Board’s move to abolish DEI positions and initiatives across the system.

“Our diversity should be used to highlight our state’s strengths, not our political divisions,” Cooper said. “Republican legislative and university leaders who attack diversity at our public universities are failing in their duty to protect students while threatening our ability to recruit top scientists, researchers and innovators who power our economy.”

Ross said the bipartisan commission “found that a lack of diversity among university leadership and governance boards is both a disservice to students across the UNC System and leads to the controversy and volatility that we are seeing threaten our public universities.”

“Our universities should encourage diversity on their campuses and governance boards and have leaders, administrators, faculty and staff that reflect the extraordinary diversity of our amazing state,” Ross said.

This first appeared on and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Diane discusses diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) with Antonio Saunders, co-founder of Kriseles, a DEI and Business Innovation services provider. The two consider the growing opposition to DEI in American politics and media, Antonio’s innovative and unapologetically hopeful model, and their collaboration to leverage that model to drive change at Summit Schools.  

Listen to the episode below. A full transcript follows.

Diane Tavenner: For the first time in five seasons, I’m not going to start today’s show with “Hey, Michael” because Michael isn’t here with us today. We are both, like so many people we know, in this sandwich generation where we have children who depend on us and aging parents and family members who need us. And today, Michael is where he needs to be, which is with his family, and my heart is there with him. We really wanted to have this conversation together, and we’re also really clear about our priorities. And so we are going to miss him today. And for me, even in these circumstances, there is real beauty because the guest that we have today on Class Disrupted is someone who I began having weekly conversations with, like I did with Michael, during the pandemic. They continue to this day, as I am in close relationship and work with our guest, who is Antonio Sanders. And Antonio has been in education for many, many years, holding many roles and working with many organizations. Well, we’ll get into this, but I would characterize his primary work around diversity, equity and inclusion. And that is certainly where we came together and met and began our work together. And it’s the conversation that we want to have today. Michael and I seek to do two things on the podcast. One is to make sure that we’re really talking about what’s impacting education today and how we take it into the future. And two, to engage in dialogue that is nuanced and that really doesn’t succumb to this polarized view of the world, but really takes a nuanced third way approach. And this is a topic that we think needs that type of conversation now. And I don’t know anyone better to have that conversation with than you, Antonio. And it’s a conversation we have regularly today that will be public. And so here we are. Welcome to Class Disrupted.

Antonio Saunders: Thank you, Diane and Michael, for having me today. I wanted to send lots of love and support to Michael and his family right now. And I wanted to say thank you for having a conversation with me today on a topic that is near and dear in our heart but also in our work and in our relationship together.

Diane Tavenner: It indeed is. I like to always start with just some basic definitions, because when we talk about some of these hot topics, what are we actually talking about? And so let’s just start at the very basic level. DEI has sort of become a word in and of itself, but it actually has an acronym. And so let’s pull it apart. What do the D, E and the I stand for?

Antonio Saunders: Yeah, let’s talk about diversity. And I think about this…These are the things that make us special and unique. It is our background, our race, our age, our characteristics, our ability, our differences. When we think about inclusion, it’s thinking about, “My gosh, I’m experiencing those things, and I don’t have those things in the way that you have them. And I want those things to be included. I want them to be welcome, I want to respect them, and I want to cultivate them.” That’s the act of inclusion. Equity says this is that based off my background and my experiences, we didn’t all get the same, so it’s going to take us being intentional about providing what someone needs versus ensuring that everyone gets the same thing.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. And that’s the contrast of equity to equality in some ways. The reality is, as you just described, that DEI is being ascribed a lot of other definitions right now. And as I read headline after headline after headline and story after story, DEI is becoming this dirty word, if you will, and quite frankly, there’s an effort to kind of cancel it, if you will, and we’ll get into that in a moment. But I’m looking at a couple of headlines here, and it has become one of those terms that is being used to weaponize things. That’s partly why we’re having this conversation today, because we’ve moved into a moment where something that you just described like, we’re all diverse humans. We want everyone to be included. “We want people to have what they need in order to be included and to be successful” becomes something that is viewed as not positive or is negative or something even worse than that. And so the first question I want us to sort of tackle is, how did we get here to this moment where something like diversity, equity, and inclusion becomes something that is viewed as negative or counterproductive?

Antonio Saunders: Yes, I want to say this is the difference between where the work starts versus where the work is. Now, let’s talk about the original intent of the work in a way that we can probably all understand it and appreciate it. All men are created equal, and in that is the promise of this country, to rectify something that had been done in the past and put us all in plain sight of what it means to be an American citizen. We, as people living in this country, deserve and have equal access. But that was a value, that was something we were espousing to. It wasn’t our reality. What the work became was, how do we begin to implement this in organizations? So some of that work became about compliance-based, mandatory work. You know how we feel about things being mandatory. So here is when you get into what happens when we do work that doesn’t require us to change, we don’t see the full value of it. So, Diane, let me give you an example. So you can say…A corporation can say DEI is about me being required to hire a diversity of people. Or DEI can be about, I understand personally, have done the work, and benefit from running a diverse organization because I see the impact on people, community, in upholding this original state. I believe that most people are experiencing the mandatory version of this work that leaves them unchanged versus the real personal and work impact of saying, I’ve got to show up every single day doing the work, living the work, to experience the fullness of it.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, you started at the place that matters the most, which is, like, the biggest place. Our country, our values as a country and a nation. And DEI is throughout every aspect of our society, in our country, the diversity. We are an incredibly diverse country. We have this promise across corporations and business and industry. And DEI is very prevalent in education right now. And so a lot of these headlines that we’re seeing, these sort of polarizing headlines are happening and occurring in education, and that’s clearly where we work and in higher ed as well as K-12. And I think we’ve all seen these. But some of these high profile incidents are the first black female president of Harvard ultimately resigning from the position after a long campaign or an intense campaign for that to happen. We’re seeing this in the efforts to ban books across the country in school libraries and school classrooms. We’re seeing this around transgender bathrooms, the Supreme Court striking down the use of race in higher education admissions. I could go on and on and on. There are a number of specific incidents that are happening in K-12 and higher ed. I know you, Antonio, and you personally have lived a life where many of the incidents that you’ve been a part of were these headlines. And this is one of the things that we talk about. What is it like to be someone who’s had these experiences? Put us in your shoes.

Antonio Saunders: Yeah. I think there is this way of looking at the world and it reflecting back what has happened in your own personal life. So I’ll take you back to my 9th grade year in Gardendale, Alabama, living in Birmingham, and as a part of a consent decree by the courts, black kids from this county were now being bussed in to a predominantly white, suburban, conservative town. I love Gardendale. I love the people of Gardendale. And the thing that was very present there was there was more white kids in a class than there was black kids. So you ended up with the white kids always deciding what the black kids got. I decided to run for class president, and it had never been done. This is where you begin to actually start making these connections to this, when you’re the first and the only one, and you have to raise your consciousness around, like, wait, what kind of system would only make one type of person possible for leadership? But that’s what was happening. And so I won. And not only did I win, I won all four years. So now, Diane, I’m not only Antonio Saunders, a student, I’m Antonio Saunders, who’s navigating a space, a space with parents who are trying to understand what I’m doing to make things even. Teachers who disagree or agree with what I’m doing, who still have to give me grades. An administration who’s saying, how do we let you lead but also hold on to some of that power? It’s a very risky situation to be in. It had gotten to a point where I really understood this in a way. When I was a junior, I was walking from one building to the next building, and one of my science favorite science teachers comes up to me. She’s light, she’s jovial, but she walks up to me in a more serious tone. She says, “Antonio, promise me something before I tell you what it is. I’m like, you cannot be serious. But her eyes were glossy and full of emotion. I said, okay, I promise. She says, promise me you’ll never be the first black president because they will kill you. Now, taking that in as a black student with a white teacher, telling you, you’ve got to lower your potential to fit in the context of how people will react to your progress.

Diane Tavenner: And I think she was doing it from a place of care and love, too, which is the really complicated part, right?

Antonio Saunders: Yeah. Because care and love could be…One way is: Antonio be mindful of this. The other way, – which had not been sort of…She was not equipped to do. It was not at this moment…We had not gotten there – was to create the condition where that could no longer be a possibility for my life or people who look like me.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, that unintended consequence. And the interesting thing about that, Antonio, is that like all humans, you have multiple dimensions to your identity. We’re starting to talk about one predominantly right now that contributes to how you see the world, how you experience the world, and then how you are able to process other people’s experience in the world. And some of those aspects of your identity are particularly relevant to conversations about DEI, obviously the visible ones. But there’s a whole bunch about your experience, too, that you bring to this conversation that I think shapes your view. And so tell us a little bit more about those pieces.

Antonio Saunders: Yeah. I think the thing that has shaped me most is a group of black women in Birmingham, Alabama, who raised me, and they raised me with a particular value system that, at the time, I couldn’t understand. I just obliged to. And it was because my grandmother, my mother, and my aunt, they were really setting me up to be the patriarch of my family. At an early age, my grandmother told me [that] when you meet people, you don’t meet them. You meet their spirit. She was tapping me into the human condition. And then she would say, because we lived where we live, and there would be a lot of things that I would have to navigate, “Be careful how you treat people, especially when they do you wrong” because she believed even the people who were intentionally or unintentionally trying to do you harm, they still carried a light. And so you really had to be careful your reaction to them, how you maintained or fell out of community with them. And a final one came from my mom. She, as a single parent, had to navigate life. And in most cases, Diane. She could have protected my sister Nikki and I from the circumstances that beared down on us, but instead, she invited us in. In that before my mom made me a man, before she made me black, she really made me a human being. And it was in the humanity of my existence that I had to show up with my family first, not in all of these politicized identities that can be ascribed to me. Who are you as not a reactor to the condition of humanity, but as the shape of it. That is what these women held me responsible for.

Diane Tavenner: As you’re describing those values of these incredible women who I have come to know a little bit and love and appreciate, it feels like it’s hard to live by them in this moment in time, or maybe not hard for you, although I know there are challenges, but a lot of people aren’t living by them. A lot of people don’t meet people’s spirits first. They don’t lead with their humanity. How are you navigating that? How do you hold true to those values?

Antonio Saunders: I think we just have to let ourselves live in the human experience, that two things are showing up at the same time, That I deeply want this country to change, and in many cases, and in many times, it doesn’t. When I was going through the moment of 2020, a lot of things were happening in my life. There was the external forces of Ahmaud Aubrey, Brianna Taylor, George Floyd that was sending a signal like, you can’t be free. You’ll never be free. Why have hope? The second thing was I lost my younger brother at the age of 30. And carrying your family through the darkest valley after they’d lived a life of suffering was almost too much for me. It was the thing in life that would say, you might as well pack it up and believe that there is no way that your role of moving your family from generational curses to generational blessings would be able to play out. It was a moment to succumb. And then I was changing careers to become an entrepreneur. Everything was bearing down. And then I sat there and I said, “But wait a minute, Antonio, because let’s have conversations with ourselves about what we truly want and what we’re going to truly live by. My grandmother told me all things were possible. You can do anything, and that’s what I expect of you.” So what the confrontation of my life and my personal values was is, am I going to be the person who sits on the side as the bystander and says, this is what’s wrong with society and it’s never going to change? Or was I going to become the person who said, I get to decide what happens? So, Diane, I was beginning to flex between am I the bystander to what I don’t want, or am I the builder of the possibility that I want to exist? I was vacillating between these two, and I chose the latter without losing sight of the former. I could be the builder of the world but understand why the world puts so many people into a state where we can feel hopeless, like this world is never going to change for us. My job was to build something that could get people from the sidelines of life into the highest possibility of life. That is my work now as an entrepreneur, but most importantly, first as a human being.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. I’m thinking back on and reflecting on those moments and those conversations and the dialogue and the work that we were doing as you were navigating all of those really challenging moments and experiences and then getting really excited about what was coming, the creative force that was coming from you during that time, which ultimately led to a model that we’re going to talk about and a way of doing DEI work, if you will, which feels important because I named all those kind of headlines that are happening in education. There’s a policy response that is following those. And we see this often where over half the states in the US have introduced and/or approved bills that are targeting DEI in the traditional sense. And you were clear, like, look, one of the places we’ve gone wrong with DEI is this mandatory, compliance based orientation versus a true experience that helps us be human. But some of those bills and those pieces of legislation are essentially prohibiting programming that is related to DEI or called DEI, or prohibiting the funding of any sort of DEI officers or offices, and prohibiting any preferential treatment in hiring. I could go on and on and on. There’s a divisive subjects ban. Given your decision to not be a bystander and to really focus on building a world that makes sense with this legislation as context, what do you make of that? Where do we go?

Antonio Saunders: Yeah, I think we have to be very savvy, sophisticated observers of the world. I think that we have to really understand that we are in a moment where we’re deciding if we’re going to be in conflict or connection with each other. I think it’s unfortunate. A key role of some of our leaders is to lead us as a society into conflict instead of connection, that when we are in conflict, we begin to stoke a core fear of human existence. If I exist, you can’t. You think about it this way. When we talk more about the work of humanity giving us a competitive edge versus the real purpose of it. The real purpose of this is, as humans, we all need to be included and accepted for who we are and given space to be each other’s neighbors and to show up for each other. So if we directly answer the question, this legislation is really about what happens when we become unaware of each other, when we can actually seemingly practice disregard. And I say this, Diane, knowing that we have to really create a distinction between people who are invested at a political or other levels to make these things public, versus the experiences I have been having with people who are not down with this. I would say that the people that I have been talking to, the group of CEOs, down to my friends, down to my high school friends from Gardendale, down to my college friends, there’s learning that needs to take place. There’s change and progress that we can shape, but there’s an intentionality and an investment from institutions and structures that stoke this fear, that create these barriers that say, why would someone be more invested in me hating white people or white people hating certain demographics and beginning to proliferate that right. What is the investment in us being a divided country instead of us being a country that can actually come together? And we have to say that the investment to conflict cannot be greater than the investment and the conversation around our shared humanity and community.

Diane Tavenner: That certainly resonates with me. I suspect it resonates with a lot of people who are exhausted, quite frankly, by being in conflict. They don’t want to be in conflict, but I think they feel pulled into it, and there’s no choice. Everything around them feels like you have to pick a side and you’re pulled apart. And so how do we move from conflict to connection? How does anyone who doesn’t want to participate in that and isn’t benefiting from conflict? How do we move to the connective space?

Antonio Saunders: Yeah, it’s something that I’ve been thinking about for three years now and talking to many people about. And one of the things is really having the conversation and seeing the system say, who puts us at odds with each other? And how are they using race to hijack, co-op this moment such that it feels like we’re going backwards in a moment where we should be propelling forward. I think we need to actually see that system and not ignore it and not just react to it. We should actually understand there are players that are actually in charge of this. I think the next thing is we need a human value system that says this: we believe in each other, we will be at peace with each other, and we believe in our differences. This means that there’s one way our history and differences and disagreements can put us at odds with each other. But in this paradigm, those same elements of history, differences and disagreements, can bring us together to do the work that we need to do. And so what I have done since 2020 is really begin to work with organizations, in particular, CEOs. Groups of them. I have a white group of CEOs, a black and brown cohort of CEOs, and then they span from the private to the social sector. And what we have been talking about is, what does it mean for us to say leaders don’t have to know the way. They’re given space to experiment. And instead of holding you as the people in charge of your organization, responsible for creating change, how do you equip everyone so they can hold themselves responsible for creating change that works for all? What we are talking about is a new approach to the work that gets us to a meaningful, valuable way of operating with each other that is not just, no longer compliance or mandatory, but it’s the work that we were always committed to doing in the first place. This is the work of us coexisting.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. As you’re talking, first of all, what you say really resonates with me. And then I’m guessing that some people are a little bit, having some cognitive dissonance. They’re like, wait a minute. What you’re talking about is not what I’ve experienced in DEI, and you and I both know this. We’ve had lots of conversations that a lot of DEI experiences that are mandatory, compliance based, oriented, or otherwise. They are experiences where white people are told to feel bad and feel guilty and sort of taken through a whole history of all the things that they have done wrong. We’ve talked about white people feeling like that means you should step aside. There’s all these messages and not bringing together people and not having sort of a shared human experience and instead really pulling people apart. So what you’re saying is probably foreign to a lot of people who are listening to this, and they’re like, wait, what are you saying? That sounds really different. And I think it is. And I think it is one of the things Michael and I talk about all the time on this podcast. It’s why we created this podcast was, we have an outdated model of education in America that at one point served us. Look, it was created for a reason. It wasn’t irrational. It actually did a lot of important, good work. It’s just no longer relevant, given the moment of time we’re living in, the progress we’ve made, where we are, the number of students we have. We need new models of education to meet the moment that we are in and who we are. And I think that is what I experienced from you. You acknowledge the importance of the DEI model of the past and how it came into being and what it intended to do. And you also recognize it’s not where we need to be today. We need a new model. You have created a new model and are working on a new model.

Antonio Saunders: Yeah.

Diane Tavenner: And I think let’s get into that. What is at the heart and the essence of that.

Antonio Saunders: Yeah. I think the first thing for us to come to and actually say is, the values of DEI are my existence. They are not things that are about a program or initiative or things. These are the things that allow me to stand up in life and say, I have duty to my family, myself, and my community, and I have duty to fulfill not the struggle of my grandmother, but my grandmother’s dream. This is preserving the original intent of the work and translating it into something that I believe all of us want and need. And so what, Diane, you are alluding to is what my founder, Tracy Session, and I call the humanity, freedom, and dreams model. And if you were looking at this model, you would see three sets of work being laid out and describe culture and belonging, leadership and team. And when you go and you read the model on the left side, it narrates what this work can become when we become at odds with each other, frustrated and or the natural dispositions we have versus the right side is about where we move into. And it’s important for us to recognize when we are making progress, we are in between these spaces of where we are and where we are next. So I’ll just read some of them that we have talked about, and then I think, Diane, we can get into some of the things that we have done together. So, on the left side, it says, we inherit our ancestors struggles. We are fighters. Fighting injustice creates racial progress. The world is against black and brown people. Now, if the world is against black and brown people, you know what’s got to happen. I’ve got to spend my life confronting and establishing expertise on how to disrupt systemic racism and white supremacy. What is my relationship with white people? Is what you were getting at in this current society? Well, we got to decenter whiteness, and we got to interrogate it. But no one sometimes talks about the cost of that on people of color. I’ve got to spend my life convincing people to see my pain, not my potential. And while fighting this fight is so exhausting, it’s the only way this country will hear us. Now, for white people, it’s sort of like you got to feel bad about the past, and you got to withstand being deeply associated with being called the labeled racism white supremacy. I call this side unintentionally becoming an expert in a world we don’t want. I believe this is what Toni Morrison was talking about. With racism and white supremacy, Diane, it becomes the distraction. The road that we were on. Struggle is on the way to freedom, not the place that we sit down and say, this is it. So the counter to this is, we inherited our ancestors struggles. No, we inherited our ancestors dreams.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. The shift from struggle to dream.

Antonio Saunders: The shift from struggle to dream. I’m not a fighter. My grandmother made me a waymaker because against all odds, what’s in front of me reveals what’s inside of me, which means at every point, I’m going to redefine myself as bigger. I am going to take on the challenge. And there are different tools in fighting and way making the next thing. Fighting injustice creates racial progress versus building our dreams creates racial progress. You were talking about what it meant as a white person to be in DEI spaces where you feel like your identity is under siege. Well, that’s for everybody in the room, in some cases, of mandatory trainings, right where you’re going in, and you’re saying, we are redefining our life by the past relationship of oppressed, sir, and the oppressed, which means I’ve got to show you my pain, hold you responsible for my pain, and I’ve got to make you the one who takes that. And you’re responsible for doing something about it, but you ain’t been equipped to do that. There’s a certain equipping you need to be able to do that. So to finish that is like, we need to hold an understanding of the past, but we need to equip you to create the future. And what this means is simply, is this: the power that we have in this model, especially for people of color, is… Black people, this is my love letter to them. And my hope for society is that I have been in DEI sessions, and I have facilitated DEI sessions for years, and none of them have been about my dreams. And I lament that reducing the value of this work from my ancestors to about sparring and fighting and destroying and removing humanity when their lives were about situating us speaking the truth that we are all humans. Yes, I am black, and I don’t need to destroy you to exhibit my value. But unintentionally, the work can be about me versus you, me confronting you, me calling you this, me not doing this, instead of about its true intent, which is, I am here to build the dream. I am here to live the dream that all of us can coexist without destroying each other.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah. So many things coming up for me right now. One of them, and we’ve had this conversation. One of the ways I can relate to what you’re describing is I’ve spent 20 years in the charter school movement, and I started in that movement because I wanted to build a school that served kids in a way that I didn’t see. The schools that I was in was serving them. It was this beautiful, amazing dream. And if I look back over the 20 years, I spent a lot more time, a lot more energy, and developed a lot more skill in fighting to just have a school and keep it open and get a building, and fighting, fighting, fighting just to try to, I guess, have that dream and so little time actually dreaming, in reality, in proportion. And so this idea that I had become an expert fighter versus an expert dreamer. And when you describe that to me, those are the skills that you have been sort of equipped with, and you’re like, no, I actually am going to turn to being a dreamer. I’m going to turn to creating the world with all people that will serve all of us, and in doing so, will really serve the people, my people who haven’t been served. That was a powerful experience and lesson for me that grounded me in work that we ended up doing. You know, I will say that we came into each other’s lives around the time of George Floyd’s murder. And as you know, at that time, I was the leader of Summit. And there were a lot of people who said, you shouldn’t be the leader of this organization. You’re a white woman. The majority of the children in this organization are people of color. You should step down and you should step aside. And you had a different vision for what should happen in that moment.

Antonio Saunders: Yeah, we didn’t know each other. We had met maybe months previously, and now we were contending with the situation where there was sort of a playbook for this moment, which means oust the perception you had done something, made a mistake, and with that, you were no longer capable of doing this. And you needed to go. And someone that replaced you, we needed to look like me. And I think that we need to just sit with the consciousness of that, that we have made or could make this work about swapping seats instead of understanding what it means for different people to lead systems when they are not prepared for all that comes with it. First, going back to the core values of this, I don’t need you to learn from your mistakes by removing your humanity, that actually holding your humanity and saying the mistakes that you’ve made, let me equip you to go back and empower you to rectify these things and become the person you said you were going to be. It was the equipping of you, of saying, “Hey, usually DEI work goes around the C suite.” It’s on the periphery. It’s not in your goals, it’s not your everyday life. It’s an initiative. You say, here’s a speaker, Antonio, come speak for us, rile us up, then go get your donuts, and then go back to your desk and pretend like things change. Well, there’s nothing in that. There’s no substance in that. This work needed to be about white leaders who…What we want them to do is build the world for people that don’t operate like them, not just stand by my side when there’s a brother lying on the street. Can you do the ultimate work of building systems that get black and brown people to their future, not build a system that harms us? I saw that as an opportunity to take you and our partnership in a way of saying, isn’t it about time you step into this moment and not away from it? And you said yes to that challenge. What was it for you that allowed you to say, and I was very upfront, like, we’re going to have to actually develop this as we go, and there’s going to be heat for all of us, and I don’t need any sort of white betrayal in the process.

Diane Tavenner: Yeah, well, we both took a leap of faith and trust. I think we come back to what your grandmother said. We met each other’s spirits. But the thing that allowed me to do that was you were offering to me, I don’t believe in the donut version, if you will, the non-substantive version. And as you know, I’m like a deep nerd around institutional design and structures and education and learning. And I was like, I don’t want to do the things that everyone’s calling for. I don’t want to just keep writing statements about bad things that have happened that doesn’t make sense to me. I don’t think that that feels real or meaningful or impactful. I want to actually do real work that changes things, and I need to know what that work is. I need a partner in that work. I need new tools and strategies because the old DEI workshops, they’re not changing anything. They’re not moving the needle. They’re not creating the institution that we want that will serve everyone, that bring us together. And so what we were able to do together was figure out what those real things were, and not just the two of us, obviously, a whole amazing group of people doing that work together. That was the offering. And that is, in my view, what you are bringing and offering to the field of DEI. And so I want to ask you, we could talk for days here, but I want to ask you, what are your hopes? Given where we are, what are your hopes? What do you want everyone to understand or to do as we move forward?

Antonio Saunders: Yeah, I think that I answered that in many ways. I think that the thing that I have to practice in my own life is…I called my dad and I told him, I said I had always been taught to narrate my story as a black man in this country. I grew up in a single parent household, and my dad walked away from me. And that is not the full story. The full story is my dad was in a situation, his home, where him staying, he would have caused more harm than him leaving. So that conversation with my father went something like this. I want to thank you, dad. I called him dad and not Desmond. I said, I want to thank you, dad, that you walked away and you didn’t stay. Because I realized to move from a place of a generational curse to a generational blessing means I’ve got to give you the thing that I needed from you, which was unconditional love. So to first answer that question is, in my own life, I am having to go back and practice what it means to actually change the story to one in support of me, not one that is against me. The next thing is that we as a society, are moving toward the most diverse workforce, the most diverse economy ever. And one of the things I know the model can do and change is people and companies. So, at Kriseles, what we are doing is saying we want to build future ready companies that can experiment, adapt, and inspire their employees and their customers. But for what? Not just for financial gain, which is definitely needed, so that we can really do the real work. And what is the real work? What you do every day with what society needs comes into clear view. And that is where you spend your time, not a one-off event, but your daily time, getting inspired, getting into diverse conversations, and building what we need. So it’s for companies to really understand they can actually shape our communities in a really powerful. The third thing that I would say, Diane, is that I alluded to this, but I did create the HFD model for society, but I created it as a love letter to the black community, to my mom, to the people around me. For this simple reason. I would get into my Lyfts and Uber, because the people that know me know that I don’t have a car. Trying to lower my carbon footprint because I fly too much. And I would get in and I would ask the brothers and sisters, I was like, how do you feel about being black? And they would tell me, it’s hard out here. And I wanted a way to change the response to that question that when we say, how do you feel about yourself and the world? I wanted them to say, I could do anything. I love this country. This country originally did not do right by my people, but I believe in the progress that we are making. What if the possibility could be that? But, you know, a black person just can’t come with the empty words of that. That’s got to be real. And so engaging in something where we could do the real work as a community. And white people no longer had to be the racist or the white supremacist to me, but they could actually be the agent of change the world needs. I believe I’m up for and invested in that future, that potentiality with the work I do every single day.

Diane Tavenner: Well, I’m up for that with you as well, and I hope others will be. And I appreciate this different perspective and view on something that’s getting talked a lot about. And I want to keep doing the work together and dialoguing about it. So thank you for joining today. Before I let you get away, Michael and I always close out the show by talking, sharing, just something we’re reading, watching, or listening to. We try to have it be outside of education, but very often it’s not. And so I will turn the question to you. What are some things you’re reading, listening, watching to that you can share with us?

Antonio Saunders: For sure. Right now I’m reading How To Get Big Things Done, which is really helping me use the challenges and the excitement of being an entrepreneur to deepen the belief that this work can be done and it will be done. Music. I’m an R&B fanatic. There’s nothing like ninety’s, R&B, the classic R&B afro beats and a little Phil Collins in there. We just sort of jam out to that. And then what I’m watching, and you know this from our conversations, we were having a whole, I think we’re having a three-part series in our weekly Wednesday meetings about this. When I came from break, I asked you, have you seen Leave the World Behind? And you told me no. And I said, okay. We often have homework for each other. I said, please go watch that. And we’ve been having a rich discussion around where our society is headed and some of the themes brought up in that movie.Diane Tavenner: In fact, I shared it on the last podcast that I had watched it, and that conversation just is not ending well. Thank you for those suggestions. I’m reading, this is kind of funny, and I even know the title is interesting. It’s called How the Scots Invented the Modern World. So just that title alone could be a little bit controversial. But as you know, my son travels. His school, his university’s around the world, and he’s in London this semester. And so we’re going to go visit him and go to Scotland. And we’re going to Scotland because it really is like the center of so much innovation. It’s this teeny country with this really interesting past that I think is pretty misunderstood. And there’s so many parallels to the experiences we’re having now. As I read the history of Scotland, so I’m fascinated by it. I’m really interested in this trip. There’s so much innovation there and so much change that happened there. And so I’m curious what lessons we can apply to our conversations and the work that we do together. And with that, I am just so grateful for you for joining us this morning. I know we both missed Michael and would have loved to have him as part of this conversation, so we will have to do it again. But with that, thanks to all the listeners who joined us, and thanks for joining us on Class Disrupted. Until next time.

During a heavy snowstorm Tuesday that caused schools to close all over Wisconsin, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly spoke by telephone with the Wisconsin Examiner about the health of the state’s public education system, student achievement, the growth of school vouchers, political attacks on diversity and her hopes for the coming year.

Parents bill of rights

As we spoke, Republican legislators were preparing to hold an executive session Thursday on , a “Parents Bill of Rights” that encourages lawsuits by parents who feel that their rights have been violated because they were not informed about medical services offered at school or about the discussion of “controversial subjects”  in class, including gender identity and racism, or because they were not given the authority to determine the names and pronouns used to address their children.

Under the bill, a parent or guardian who successfully asserts a claim “may recover declaratory relief, injunctive relief, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, and up to $10,000 for any other appropriate relief.”

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“The reality is that meaningful parental engagement is happening every single day between our teachers and their students’ families and caregivers,” Underly said. The Parents Bill of Rights “is designed to shut down discussion and creates an environment of fear for our educators because it inserts them into a culture war that no one should be fighting in the first place.”

She sees the bill as part of a larger pattern of attacks on public schools and democracy itself.

“You think about the things that the Legislature picks up on,” Underly said. “Let’s attack libraries. Let’s attack the curriculum. Let’s attack teachers, let’s attack school boards because they wanted to wear masks during the virus. … I think it’s really a way to make sure that we instill distrust in our public institutions.”

There is “a lot of misinformation out there,” Underly added, propagated by people and groups insinuating that schools provide inappropriate materials to kids. “That’s by design. Misinformation is designed to stoke outrage.”

Another Republican bill, , would require public schools to comply with written requests from residents in their districts to inspect a textbook, curriculum or instructional material within 14 days.

“That’s really burdensome,” said Underly. “Let me just say right now, if you have a question about curriculum, you can access that. You contact the school, the principal and the teacher will work to get you the information.”

School voucher lawsuit

The message that public schools are “failing” and do not adequately serve Wisconsin families has been promoted for decades by advocates for school privatization, including the Bradley Foundation, which also Milwaukee’s first-in-the-nation school voucher program. That program, which started out serving 350 kids, has mushroomed to include more than 52,000 students in the statewide, Racine and Milwaukee programs.

In December, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined to hear a challenging Wisconsin’s private school voucher program. The suit, sponsored by Minocqua Brewing Co. owner Kirk Bangstad, named Underly, in her official capacity, as a defendant. It charged that taxpayer-financed private school vouchers are a huge financial drain, pushing local public school districts into a “death spiral” and that they violate the state constitution’s promise to provide high-quality public schools for every child.

Asked to comment on the lawsuit, Underly said she couldn’t speak to the constitutionality of school vouchers. But, she added,  “I believe that we cannot afford two school systems.”

“We need to robustly fund the system that serves all kids,” she said, “and that’s our public schools.”

(Late last year Underly another recent Supreme Court lawsuit, filed by teachers and other public employees challenging Act 10, the 2011 law that took away most collective bargaining rights from most public employees: “Returning collective bargaining rights to public sector employees will strengthen our educator workforce, and strengthening our educator workforce will improve our children’s education and create a stronger future for our state,” she said in a statement.)

Even though the voucher lawsuit was kicked back down to lower court, Underly said it could still help raise awareness  that, unlike public schools, which are open to every child, Wisconsin’s school choice programs “are allowing these schools that accept vouchers to discriminate against students, students with disabilities, students who are LGBTQ+.”

Worrying about LGBTQ kids

Underly said she worries “all the time” about the well-being of LGBTQ kids in Wisconsin. She cited data showing that “these kids who struggle to feel included or to be seen, you know, their mental health struggles are higher.”

“At the heart of all this I think what I would like people to realize, and I think many people do, [is that] at the center of all of this is a child.”

“And when we attack them,” she added, “when we tell them, you know, their identity doesn’t matter or we have to take down symbols that show that they’re included, that’s hurting them. … It’s saying that you don’t belong here or you’re not wanted. … I just want to tell people, these are kids. These are human beings. And they deserve love and empathy.”

Missing the Regents’ vote to cut back DEI

Along with recent efforts to ban books and remove LGBTQ Pride flags, Wisconsin schools have been at the center of a battle over diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs. Underly, who serves on the University of Wisconsin Board of Regents, was absent for the vote in which the Regents reversed themselves and agreed to legislative Republicans’ demands that they eliminate DEI positions in exchange for promised funding for faculty raises and capital improvements.

Underly was out of the country, traveling with her elderly mother in Austria, on a vacation she said she’d had to reschedule several times, when the Regents voted 9-8 to reject the deal limiting diversity positions on Saturday, Dec. 9. She was still out of the country the following Wednesday, Dec 13, when the Regents reversed their decision in a second vote.

Between votes, Underly issued a statement asking that the second vote be postponed so she could attend. She had intermittent internet access, she explained, and wouldn’t be available at the meeting time. But the Regents went ahead without her.

“Part of my frustration with that is that my position on diversity, equity and inclusion is very clear,” Underly said. “I think people knew how I was going to vote. Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it …  I wasn’t part of any of the discussions.”

Like Gov. Tony Evers, Underly doesn’t believe there should have been any further negotiations between the Regents and the Legislature over funds that were already approved as part of the state budget.

Now, as Assembly Speaker Robin Vos pledges to eliminate every trace of DEI throughout the state, Underly said, “It’s definitely that slippery slope argument. You give in on one thing, and they certainly will want to take more.”

Still, she added, “these programs aren’t going to go away. … They exist to make sure that every citizen in the state of Wisconsin has access to higher education. That includes veterans. That includes kids from rural Wisconsin who want to study to become doctors. It includes women. It includes kids who come from economically disadvantaged backgrounds.”

Will UW hold onto minority scholarship programs and other targets of Republicans in the Legislature, and somehow meet its agreement to eliminate the language of DEI without actually getting rid of programs that promote diversity?

“I don’t know,” Underly said. “I guess in my role as Regent what I do look forward to is having these conversations and in many ways protecting these positions [including] the scholarships and [other] components.”

What about voucher schools that serve underserved kids?

On the flip side, what does Underly make of the argument made by school choice advocates like Madison’s One City independent charter school founder Kaleem Caire, that Wisconsin’s between Black and white students is unacceptable and the lack of diversity among teaching staff contributes to a lousy environment in the local public school district for Black kids?

“I’m not going to say that his heart’s not in the right place,” said Underly. “We want all kids to be successful, and he is in a community and he interacts with children of color and their families all the time.”

Still, “I don’t think the answer is pulling kids out of public schools and funding private schools,” Underly said. “I would argue the opposite and say we need to put the resources in the public schools so that all kids can be successful.”

Working on teacher training, curriculum, adjusting the length of the school day or the school year are all “ways we could address the achievement gap, and the opportunity gaps that we see, especially among children of color,” she said.

“This is really where we get at the root of what equity is,” Underly added, “getting the schools what they need, so that their kids can be successful, and that’s not going to be the same thing in every school or in every community.”

Poverty and student success

Among the biggest equity issues public schools must address, Underly said, is poverty.

Children facing housing insecurity and hunger are “not going to score as well on a standardized test,” she said.

“What public schools have done is they’ve tried to level that playing field. They have provided food for kids, they provide stability, whether it’s for in-school or after-school programs, they provide the art and the music and these enrichment classes that kids in poverty perhaps can’t afford to get outside of school.”

The whole purpose of public schools is to create a more equitable society by providing opportunity to kids whose families live in poverty. “That’s a fundamental value of democracy,” said Underly. “That’s inclusion — making sure that not just the wealthy have access to these things.”

Fundamentally, Underly agrees with the plaintiffs in the anti-voucher lawsuit that the private school voucher movement undermines democracy. “Public schools are among the most democratic institutions that you can think of because they accept everybody, regardless of their language, their socioeconomic status, their gender, who their parents are, their immigrant status. Because that’s what inclusion is. And when you have these outside groups attack public schools, they’re really attacking that democratic institution.”

School report cards

The latest round of released by DPI showed students test scores continuing to improve after the disruption of the COVID-19 pandemic.

None of Wisconsin’s school districts is rated as “failing” in the latest assessments and 94% of districts meet or exceed  expectations. But critics say DPI is setting the bar too low. Will Flanders of Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty told : “While DPI may tout there has been an increase across the board, we still have districts like Milwaukee where proficiency rates are less than 20% and somehow that seems to be meeting expectations.”

Public school student proficiency rates for 2022-23 were better than in 2020-21 and 2021-22. But they still seem low:  38.9% were proficient in English language arts and 37.4% were proficient in math. Students participating in the state’s Private School Choice Programs, however, had even lower proficiency rates of 22.1% in English language arts and 17.9% in math in 2022-23.

Student assessment scores are only one factor in determining district report card scores, a spokesperson for DPI explains. For districts with high percentages of low-income students, growth is weighted more significantly than achievement — a .

“Our public education system should be about getting every kid what they need – in the way they need it – in order to achieve success,” Underly said.

In announcing the latest assessment data, DPI pointed to a that found Wisconsin’s performance standards in reading and math were among the highest in the nation, corresponding to higher levels of proficiency as measured by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP).

Big financial challenges for public schools

Still, schools face big challenges, particularly those with large numbers of low-income and special education students and English language learners. The biggest challenge, Underly said, is revenue.

After more than a decade of school funding that , and a less than 30% state reimbursement for special education — a mandatory cost that is eating up school districts’ budgets, driving deep cuts in other programs, public school advocates with the latest state budget.

Gov. Evers had adopted DPI’s proposals in his own budget, including a big increase in the state reimbursement for special education from less than 30% to 60%, lifting local revenue limits and providing a total funding increase of $2.6 billion. The Legislature stripped that down to $1 billion, and left 40% of school districts with less funding this year than they had under the previous, zero-increase budget.

Remaining hopeful part of the job

Despite the existential challenges facing Wisconsin public schools, including the elimination, next year, of the cap on enrollment for voucher schools, Underly said she has a lot of hope for 2024.

“When we talk to kids, especially the ones that remember COVID — middle school, high school kids — they have a lot of hope for the future.”

She is already working on her next budget proposal, which will include teacher recruitment, increasing funding for mental health and, once again, an increase in the state’s special education reimbursement, as well as programs including free meals that address poverty.

“We need to get kids what they need, so that they can be successful and making sure that they’re not hungry is really critical for them to be able to focus and concentrate,” she said.

“I think it’s important that we continue this hopeful outlook because that’s what our schools need,” Underly added. “Our schools don’t need to be attacked. Our students don’t need to be attacked. So just supporting our schools, supporting our students and supporting that hope is part of supporting their education.”

is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Wisconsin Examiner maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Ruth Conniff for questions: info@wisconsinexaminer.com. Follow Wisconsin Examiner on and .

Inclusive and equitable institutions that use diversity, equity and inclusion in their hiring benefit everyone, and a recent directive from the Texas governor saying otherwise is “grossly misconstruing” federal anti-discrimination law, a higher education diversity official said.

Paulette Granberry Russell, president of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education, came out strongly against a Feb. 4 directive from the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott that called it illegal for state agencies and public universities to use diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in hiring decisions.

In a directive,  that DEI has been used in recent years to favor some demographic groups “to the detriment of others.” The directive states that employment decisions should be based on merit without additional DEI consideration.

“The memo and its claims are ridiculous and beyond an attempt for state government overreach,” said Granberry Russell, a licensed attorney who served as senior adviser for diversity to the president of Michigan State University before her retirement in 2020.

DEI initiatives have been used in the United States since the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. Their goals are to create discrimination- and harassment-free workplaces for people from different backgrounds, and to give them opportunities for professional development.

Granberry Russell said that inclusive and equitable institutions benefit everyone, and that the recent memo from Abbott’s office is twisting federal anti-discrimination laws to fit his and his administration’s political agenda and to silence efforts to advance equity in the U.S., which has struggled with its founding promise of justice and liberty for all.

“They are just one more step in a broader assault on the basic underpinnings of diversity, equity and inclusion, terms that some have sought to turn into dog whistles because they have not   bothered to understand the basic history of America and the principles that can set it on a brighter path forward,” she said.

Granberry Russell said the 1964 Civil Rights Act, to include Title VI and Title VII, Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Vietnam Era Veterans’ Readjustment Assistance Act, and federal regulations that interpret these laws, prohibit discrimination, including discrimination based on race, gender, ethnicity, national origin, disability and veteran status.

Officials at the University of Texas at El Paso issued a brief statement in response to an El Paso Matters request for comment about how this DEI issue will affect the campus. Several of its websites speak to the institution’s commitment to DEI because of how it benefits students.

“The university is currently reviewing the matters addressed in the letter,” the email read.

As of Feb. 10, 41 of the 44 faculty and executive employment opportunities asked applicants to include statements of contributions to, commitment to or promotion of DEI and sometimes access or accessibility.

An entry for an assistant professor in social work asks candidates to describe how they promote DEI and accessibility through their service, instruction and research/scholarship, and how the candidates would begin or continue to implement such relevant practices at UTEP and the Department of Social Work.

In a request for applicants for an assistant professor of chemistry position, the entry reads “To sustain and enhance our commitment (to a culture of inclusive excellence), UTEP hires and invests in faculty who value our culture of care and the success of students from diverse backgrounds. As such, we request a “Broadening Participation” statement of how you would approach contributing to that culture of Inclusive Excellence.”

UTEP had the highest percentage of Hispanic tenured faculty among the country’s largest research universities, according to fall 2021 data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. IPEDS showed that 31% of UTEP’s tenured professors were Hispanic, which was more than double the next closest institutions surveyed. Several universities had at least 10% of their faculty identify as Hispanic.

As for other institutions in the state, Texas Tech University officials ordered last week the elimination of DEI consideration in their hiring practices after a conservative group questioned how the institution’s biology department rated candidates on their commitment to DEI as part of the hiring process.

Discussion of DEI became part of a Texas Senate Finance Committee meeting on Feb. 8. Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, the committee chair, said several committee members were concerned with the number of state university systems that used DEI initiatives as part of the hiring process. According to a story in the Austin American-Statesman, she expected legislators to continue discussions on how to stop that practice, and ensure that hiring at the state’s institutions of higher education are based only on merit.

“My point of bringing this up today and having the beginning of a discussion is to let the universities know the budget writers are paying attention,” Huffman said. 

However, and members of the state’s chapter of the NAACP on Tuesday denounced the recent directive and some called for the leadership of the country’s major sports organizations, to include the NCAA, to not host any of their championship games in the state until Abbott rescinds his DEI order to state agencies and universities.

This  first appeared on  and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.